Food Security

Food Security is traditionally about having procedures and policies are in place in a food business to ensure that the food and it’s raw materials are safe from tampering and the likelihood of contamination. It also now has other related aspects to it.

Food security was on many minds last year when there were possible supply issues for some foods and this fear drove prices very high. Although these prices have since come down, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is very concerned that similar situations could occur again.

Recently a World Summit on Food Security was held and was hosted by the FAO. At the end of the conference the many attendees committed to investing more in agriculture to help achieve the First Millennium Development Goal of halving world hunger by 2015. Sixty Heads of State and Government and 191 Ministers from 182 countries and the European Community attended the Summit.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, said the Summit marked “an important step towards the achievement of our common objective – a world free from hunger”. However, he declared “to my regret the official Declaration adopted by the Summit this past Monday contains neither measurable targets nor specific deadlines which would have made it easier to monitor implementation…”.

The Summit produced four commitments;

1. A firm pledge to renew efforts to eradicate hunger from the world at the earliest date

2. A pledge to improve international coordination and the governance of food security through a profound reform of FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS) which would become a central component of the Global Partnership for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition

3. A promise to reverse the downward trend in both domestic and international funding for agriculture, food security and rural development in developing countries and to significantly increase their delegates share in public development aid.

4. A decision to promote new investments in agricultural production and productivity in developing countries in order to reduce poverty and achieve food security for all.

“I am convinced that together we can eradicate hunger from our planet,” Diouf declared. “But we must move from words to actions.”