Food Security

Hunger must be on top of the global agenda

These are the words in a status from UN’s Food and Agriculture organization, FAO after a big NGO-conference in Rome, in which 30 humanitarian aid organizations participated among others DanChurchAid.

© Evans McGowan, PCUSA-ACT

Focus of the conference was how the humanitarian organisations and the international donor society will develop strategies for food security on short as well as on long term which will meet the new challenges such as increasing prices on food and climate changes.

They also focused on how the preventive and acute food aid can be coordinated better with the more long-term food security programmes and development aid.

””In DanChurchAid we are already trying to coordinate our efforts regarding disaster preparedness with our long-term food security activities.

We must make sure that the food aid given in acute need does not harm the long-terms efforts but on the contrary creates the basis for people in need being able to rebuild their lives.

At the same time it is possible to do a lot to decrease people’s vulnerability in order to make them stand up better to the consequences of extreme weather conditions and other disasters” says DanChurchAid’s expert on food security, Mette Lund Sørensen, who participated in the meeting in Rome.

More crops and prevention of erosion

People’s vulnerability may decrease

§ Through agricultural activities. DanChurchAid directs its efforts towards greater adaptation to climate changes of different size

§ Through selection of a broader choice of crops which are able to produce yield under these circumstances

§ Through gathering of water to cover the longer dry periods

§ And by preventing erosion when the amount of rain grows larger and more irregular.

DanChurchAid also continues its works against the global unequal access to food.

"As you probably know it is not because there is not enough food available in the world that more than 850 million people starve, but because the existing political and economic barriers prevent these people from getting their rightful access to sufficient nutrition and a dignified life," says Mette Lund Sørensen.

The curse of hunger

Around 850 million people suffer from hunger.

820 million of them live in the development countries, the same countries which suffer the most from the consequences of climate changes, among others due to more frequent and heavier rains, floods, longer dry seasons and shifting harvest seasons.

”It is necessary for everybody to cooperate; governments, international organisations, civil societies, the private sector and many others in order to find strategies and answers to how the world should face these challenges,” it is also written in the status from FAO.

FAO hosted the NGO-conference in Rome, arranged by Oxfam and Care, and the report

formed the basis for the discussions.

Additional reading: FAO’s new report “New study on biofuel production focuses on gender”