Your Excellencies,
Ministers,
Parliamentarians,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First, let me thank the Inter-Parliamentary Union, for inviting me to address today’s Parliamentary Conference on agriculture, hunger and food insecurity in times of global crisis. I am indeed honoured and delighted to be here.

It is no coincidence that the global hub for food and agriculture is right here in Rome, which hosts the three global institutions, FAO, IFAD and WFP, whose missions are wholly dedicated to addressing this fundamental issue of food security.  This meeting could therefore not have been better timed and located.

I would like to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the parliamentarians gathered here today the causes behind the global food crisis and the actions that we – parliamentarians,  government officials in both developed and developing countries, international development agencies, and civil society organizations – must collectively take to rid the world of hunger and malnutrition.

I am sure you will agree with me that hunger and poverty are inhuman and should not be tolerated anywhere in the world.

The recent food crisis

In 2007 and 2008 we all witnessed the terrible impact of food price hikes and food shortages on the poor. The ranks of those who could no longer afford to feed their families swelled by the millions. And while the urban poor undoubtedly suffered and made their voices heard, it was the millions of poor rural households – including smallholder farmers –- who suffered most.

As a direct consequence of last year’s food price crisis, more than 100 million people are believed to have joined the ranks of the hungry. Current estimates indicate that there are now more than 1 billion hungry people in the world – or close to a sixth of the world’s population.

In considering the actions we need to take to rid the world of hunger, we need to remind ourselves that the global food crisis of 2007 and 2008 – and the aftermath that continues to challenge us – was fundamentally a reflection of the failure of world food supply to keep pace with growing world demand.

The imbalance was caused by years of neglect of the agricultural sector in developing countries and the consequent stagnation in agricultural productivity. Today we shall not go into the structural, policy and political causes of that failure, but suffice it to remind ourselves.

For example, the share of official development assistance (ODA) going to agriculture declined from around 20 per cent in the early 1980s to 3 per cent in recent years. Similarly, government spending on agriculture declined significantly from 18 per cent in the 1980s to 3 per cent in recent years.

The food crisis is therefore a reminder to all of us that the world can ill afford to continue to under-invest in agriculture as had happened in the last two decades. Because agriculture is central, it is fundamental, it is the foundation for economic growth.

It is also a reminder that food security requires consistent and sustained investment, which cannot be turned on and off like a tap.

I therefore trust that you – as parliamentarians responsible for the allocation of scarce government resources to different sectors and agendas – will keep this important lesson in mind as you debate government budgets in the future.

I also hope that in your deliberations on national policy and international relations you will take into account the impact these could have on securing domestic food security, an important goal which is sometimes overlooked.

And as the disturbances over food shortages and food price hikes showed, I also hope that you will keep in mind that food security is an integral part of political stability and therefore of overall security, at both national and global levels.

Required actions

Government efforts at solving the food crisis must necessarily focus, first, on raising agricultural productivity. This must be underpinned by science-based technological change.

And in this regard, priority must be given to funding agricultural research which, as you know, is the driver of technological change. 

While raising food production is a necessary first step, it is not sufficient to avert food crises. Food must also be affordable. As we have seen in recent months, high prices can easily put basic foodstuffs beyond the reach of poor and low-income consumers – those who typically spend up to 80 per cent of what little they have on food.  

It is therefore important not only to boost agricultural productivity and production, but also to boost agricultural incomes, to ensure that the poorest and most marginalized sectors of our society have the purchasing power to access what food there is available.

Food security also requires distribution mechanisms that enable access to food for all people.

Farmers should be linked to markets – not necessarily international markets but the ‘last mile’ to vibrant and competitive local markets.  Agriculture, farming, no matter at what scale, is a business.  It is about making money to live well. And commercialization of smallholder farming means economic empowerment – the transformation of subsistence farming to small agro business entrepreneurship.

This is why my institution, IFAD, has invested over $10 billion in the last 30 years to help smallholder farmers and rural communities all over the world to move over 350 million people out of poverty.

Climate change and the challenge of raising food production

As the world seeks to raise agricultural production, it is increasingly apparent that it will be faced with a major challenge – that of climate change.

Climate change is threatening the ability of entire regions, particularly those living off rain-fed agriculture, to even maintain current levels of agricultural production.

In sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Eastern Asia and South Asia, climate change will increasingly affect rains, step up the frequency of droughts and the average temperatures, and threaten the availability of fresh water for agricultural production.

In sub-Saharan Africa, arid and semi-arid areas are projected to increase by 60-90 million hectares. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that yields from rain-fed agriculture in Southern Africa could be reduced by up to 50 per cent between 2000 and 2020.

On top of this, the world’s population is projected to grow from 6.8 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050, with the greatest growth taking place in developing countries. In order to feed such a population in 2050, and notwithstanding the effects of climate change, it is estimated that food production will need to grow globally by 70 per cent and will need to double in developing countries.

It is therefore our hope that the Copenhagen negotiations will indeed seal the deal so that climate change will not affect that ability of the world to feed itself.

The role of smallholder farming in achieving food security

Efforts to eradicate hunger in the world must necessarily focus on poor rural people as the majority of hungry people in the world live in rural areas of developing countries and depend either directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Five hundred million smallholder farms worldwide currently support around 2 billion people, or one third of the world’s population. And they produce 80 per cent of the food consumed in the developing world.

Increasing the productivity of smallholder farmers is essential to secure the food and nutrition needs not only of smallholder farmers, but also of the millions of people who depend on them.

By improving smallholder farmers’ capacity to boost their incomes – by supporting them in producing more food, and producing it better, and by linking them to local markets – they can not only enhance their own purchasing power but also increase wider food availability, and so contribute to the global food security agenda.

I would also like to point out that women farmers make up 60-70 per cent of smallholder farmers in the developing world. Experience has shown that empowering women farmers and women’s groups is central to achieving agricultural development. There is abundant empirical evidence that the economic empowerment of women results in improvement in rural livelihoods – better child nutrition, improved health, education, etc – of future generations. This is why I recently accepted the MDG gender torch from the Danish minister for international development ‘to do something extra’’ to help reach the MDG3 goal: to promote gender equality and empower women.

IFAD’s experience

For three decades, IFAD has provided support to smallholder farmers with the goal of raising their incomes and productivity. From this experience, we know what steps are required to increase smallholder production.

Smallholder farmers often find it difficult to respond to increases in demand and higher food prices, because they lack supporting institutions and appropriate infrastructure. But if developing country governments take a value chain approach to investing in agriculture – that is developing institutions from research to marketing – they will be able to create a dynamic smallholder agricultural sector. 

IFAD’s support has yielded important outcomes. These have included:

• The dissemination of the New Rice for Africa (NERICA), which helped achieve a 6 per cent increase in African rice production.
• The development of more productive and virus-resistant varieties of cassava, to the benefit of more than 100 million people in Africa’s cassava belt.
• Training in more sustainable farming techniques for soil and water conservation and crop diversification, resulting in improved productivity for close to a quarter of a million farmers in India.
• Development of rural financial services so that smallholder farmers can buy the best seeds and fertilizers and so profit from higher yields.
• Market linkages and better access to market information, so that smallholder farmers can gain more control over when and where to sell their produce.

IFAD has also learnt that investment in smallholder agriculture and rural development is the most sustainable safety net and a major contributor to economic growth. This was the path followed by 18th century Europe, by China, by India, by Brazil and today by Vietnam. Africa and South East Asia cannot leapfrog into the 21st century.

International and national partnerships

In conclusion, let me say that governments in both developed and developing countries must come together and form a genuine partnership to resolve the food security crisis, including taking measures to mitigate the threat of climate change.

I believe we have begun to take important steps that have culminated in the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative launched, as you are all aware, by the heads of 40 governments and agencies at the G8 Summit this year.

The leaders pledged US$20 billion over the next three years to strengthen global food production and food security. The pledge, if fully realized, may begin to reverse the unfortunate decline in resources going towards agriculture that we have witnessed over the last three decades.

The L’Aquila Initiative recognizes that global food security crucially depends on agricultural development in developing countries, rather than on food aid. It also lays down a number of fundamental principles on which efforts at increasing agriculture production must necessarily rest, including the need for a special focus on smallholder and women farmers. Above all, it states that all efforts must be country-owned and country-led.

While these first steps are promising, they must be followed through with action. Declarations, commitments and speeches do not feed hungry people. The international community must ensure that the funds for investing in agriculture in developing countries are indeed made available, in spite of the financial crisis.

And based on the principles laid down at L’Aquila, the international community must also enter into a strong and sustained partnership with the developing countries themselves to support agriculture. I trust that you as parliamentarians will strongly support such initiatives.

Clearly, the support of the international community must depend on national efforts if it is to have any impact. And in this regard, I am pleased that developing countries are beginning to take some essential steps to increase agricultural production and productivity.

In Africa, for example, a number of countries have begun to adopt the NEPAD Comprehensive Agricultural Development Programme (CADEP) as the basis for their own national programmes. And some have surpassed their commitments as agreed in the Maputo Declaration to allocate 10 per cent of their annual budgets to agriculture.

More broadly, it is essential that developing country governments invest the political will and create the right policy environment for development.

An essential element of the global partnership should be the acceptance of mutual accountability to ensure that donor countries honour their pledges and developing countries must put their houses in order (good governance, democracy, the right institutions), invest the political capital by putting in place the necessary policy framework and action to promote agricultural development.

I am confident that with your support we will indeed establish an effective and mutually accountable partnership between the international community and developing countries.

I thank you for your attention.

13 November 2009, Palace Montecitorio – Rome