(아주경제 신기림 기자) Experts from more than 44 Asia-Pacific member countries of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) agreed Wednesday on the rising risk of food security in the region and urgent need for the regional cooperation, in the 30th FAO regional conference for Asia and the Pacific, held in Gyeongju.
They adopted the report after the senior officers meeting that more aggressive support from both regional governments and international organization in order to alleviate the poverty and reduce the number of people in hunger. In 2004 to 2006, Asia and the Pacific region was estimated to have 566 million, or 65 percent of the world’s undernourished population.
◇ Climate Change and Food Security
The meeting said that “The climate change directly impact crop, livestock, fishery and forest production and ultimately overall food production,” adding, “it indirectly affects food prices leading to a decline in the demand for food and agricultural trade with adverse nutritional outcomes, particularly for children.”
The officers, therefore, presented technical options and possibilities and illustrates policies, strategies, legal frameworks, socio-economic development approaches (including gender mainstreaming and pro-poor strategies), incentives and services required to capture synergies among climate change mitigation and adaptation, food security and sustainable development at regional, national and local levels.
◇ Experience and Policy Lessons from the Crisis
They shared the findings and conclusions from an analytical regional study on the impacts of, and lessons from, the food and financial crises for agriculture and food security in Asia. According to the report, the most affected have been the urban poor, the rural net food buyers and female headed households due to the spike in food prices in 2007 to 2008.
In trying to cope with the burden of consecutive food and economic crises, the poor have reduced their dietary diversity and spending on essential items such as education and health care. While individual households are drawn into poverty traps negatively affecting their longer-term food security, the capacity of countries to provide safety nets is strained due to lower revenue collection. While several countries in the region seem to be recovering from the shock, others continued to post a negative growth in 2009 and expect low growth rates in 2010. The medium-term outlook remains uncertain.
◇ Crop Productivity
The achievements of Asian countries in economic growth, poverty alleviation and hunger reduction in the last several decades are well-known and indeed remarkable. Although increased food production through improved crop productivity does not automatically translate into improved access to food, it can greatly contribute to it, inter alia, through creation of additional farm and non-farm employment, increased income and opportunities for capital formation, and lower domestic food prices. To realize the full potential contribution of crop productivity to food security, productivity growth must be complemented by appropriate postproduction strategies and technologies that safeguard harvests and reduce losses. Increases in productivity would also free land for agricultural diversification. When coupled with proper postharvest strategies it would enhance environmental sustainability through more efficient use of water and land resources.
The officers recommended the cooperation of different actors, such as the governments, regional organizations, NARS and the CGIAR system, international/regional financial institutions, the private sector and civil society organizations in promoting sustainable and equitable crop productivity growth in the region for enhanced food security.
◇ FAO’s strategy
The FAO Strategic Framework includes a new corporate strategy focused on improved preparedness for, and effective response to, food and agricultural threats and emergencies. This approach is based on the major pillars of disaster risk management: (i) disaster risk reduction (preparedness, prevention and mitigation); (ii) response and rehabilitation; and (iii) support to the transition from emergency response to rehabilitation and development programming. The linkages between preparedness, prevention and mitigation, emergency response, recovery and rehabilitation and transition to development, are dynamic and fluid. Thus, an integrated response plays a key role in boosting community resilience to threats, mitigating the impact of crises and helping vulnerable people to adapt to new conditions and situations.
FAO has developed and improved preparedness tools over many years, such as early warning systems for food and agricultural threats and emergencies, of which a significant portion is related to responding to or reducing the risk of transboundary animal disease threats and emergencies. FAO also provides technical and operational assistance to help governments develop and implement immediate solutions to food chain risks and threats to food safety.
FAO has implemented disaster risk management projects over the past ten years in addition to core emergency response and rehabilitation programmes. These projects focused on ways to enhance local and national capacity with proactive support encompassing livelihood-based risk, vulnerability and food security assessments, preparedness (enhanced early warning and crop forecasting for agricultural producers), sector specific emergency response and rehabilitation, and promotion of good agricultural practices.
[아주경제 ajnews.co.kr] 무단전재 배포금지
