TOP UN OFFICIAL CALLS FOR BOLSTERED GLOBAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM FOR WORLD FOOD SECURITY

TOP UN OFFICIAL CALLS FOR BOLSTERED GLOBAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM FOR WORLD FOOD SECURITY
New York, Jun 6 2009 1:00PM
A strengthened global governance system is crucial to ensure world food security, the head of the United Nations agriculture arm said today, calling for changes to be made to the parts of the international trade system that led to increased hunger and poverty.

"What is important today is to realize that the time of talk has long past," Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization <"http://www.fao.org/ ">FAO), <"http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20452/icode/">said at the opening session of the World Grain Forum, which opened today in St. Petersburg, Russia.

"Now is the time for action. The food crisis has taught us that to defeat hunger, we have to deal with its root causes and not to continue coping with the consequences of past mistakes," he added.

The two-day gathering on global food security and the world's grain market, first
proposed by Russia at last year's meeting of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries, has drawn agriculture ministers and officials from over 50 countries.

Mr. Diouf pointed out today that between 2006 and 2008, international prices of basic food commodities surged some 60 per cent, while the price of grain doubled.

At present, average food prices are still 17 per cent higher than they were in 2006 and 24 per cent higher in 2005.

Soaring prices have driven an additional 115 million people into hunger, and the FAO chief cautioned that the current financial turmoil is exacerbating the situation and could push over 100 million people into food insecurity.

FAO's most recent report on food insecurity, released last December, estimated that the number of undernourished people worldwide is close to the 1 billion mark.

As of last month, 31 countries -- 20 in Africa, nine in Asia and the Near East and two in Central America and the Caribbean -- in are facing a food crisis
and need emergency help, according to the agency.

"This cannot be acceptable. How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith this dramatic situation in a state of abundance of international resources and when trillions of US dollars are being spent to stimulate the world economy?" Mr. Diouf asked, calling for increasing funding to help developing countries boost their agricultural output through investment in rural infrastructure and ensuring access to modern inputs.

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UN-BACKED 2009 SUMMIT ON WORLD FOOD CRISIS GAINS SUPPORT

A proposed 2009 world summit on the food crisis, which continues in poor countries despite falling commodity prices, is rapidly gaining backing and growing in relevance, the United Nations agricultural agency said today.

"The world food insecurity situation is unbearable," the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) affirmed in a press statement released after the leaders of the countries of the Caribbean Economic Community (CARICOM), as well as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, announced their support for a November parlay.

According to a recent FAO report, the total number of undernourished people in the world reached 963 million in 2008, nearly 15 per cent of the world's population, prompting the agency's Director-General, Jacques Diouf, to call for the meeting.

The proposal, FAO said, had already received support from the heads of State and Government of the League of Arab States at the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Kuwait last January.

It was also backed by the African Union (AU) at its assembly in Addis Ababa in early February, as well as by the heads of state and governments of several other States.

The FAO Director-General stressed that the Summit, to be held in Rome at the 36th Session of the Conference of the Organization, would reach tangible results by securing broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger and setting a new world food order.

"The Summit should lead to greater coherence in the global governance of world food security. It will define how we can improve policies and the structural aspects of the international agricultural system by putting forward lasting political, financial and technical solutions to the problem of food insecurity in the world," Mr. Diouf said.
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