GRAINS AND GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

  • by Jacques Diouf
  • Inter Press Service

The current global economic downturn is contributing significantly to deeper poverty and hunger across the world. Preliminary estimates indicate that more than 100 million could be dragged into hunger as a consequence, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

In this article, Diouf writes that we have seen the world move from decades of cheap food to a period of high and more volatile food prices. Also significant, agriculture has witnessed the emergence of important new players, including Russia which now produces as much wheat as the United States and has become the world's fourth biggest exporter of cereals.

The author writes that we must act now to bolster our collective food security -or risk a new and potentially even more dramatic food crisis in the future. Boosting investment in agriculture in the developing world is a key to the achievement of any sustainable global food security. And streamlined and equitable trade rules encouraging increased global exchanges are needed, with an end to trade-distorting policies.

(*) Jacques Diouf is the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN RUSSIA AND SPAIN//

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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