842 MILLION PEOPLE STILL CHRONICALLY HUNGRY

Over 842 million people still remain chronically hungry and malnourished despite the fact that the world is no longer short of food.

This is according to the Assistant programmes representative of the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) Dr. Augusta Abate, who says therefore that people should embrace family farming to contain the situation.      

She adds that while food production is important in most parts of the globe, affordability and access to the commodity remain critical.

Dr. Abate further reveals that in a FAO survey of 93 developing countries, family farming accounts to 80% of the global food production hence the need to embrace that system where farms would feed families first before the excess produce can be sold.

“If our family farms are more efficient there will be more food available, at an affordable cost where it is needed” she says.

  

The FAO Assistant programmes representative adds that covering around 40% of the world’s agricultural land, family farms are also the number one source of employment worldwide.

She observes that this is the only way through which the world’s socio-economic challenges would be tackled given the projection that by the year 2050, the planet would be populated by 9 billion inhabitants most of who will be in the developing countries and cities.

Dr. Abate, who was speaking during a Science cafeteria at Alliance Francaise, says that the dwindling energy supplies and climate change will therefore call for new models for sustainable agriculture.

She says therefore that in order to achieve this goal, FAO has come up with various priorities which include supporting the development of policies conducive to sustainable family farming.

“Other objectives that we have towards sustainable family farming include increasing of knowledge, communication and public awareness to attain better understanding of what the system requires” added Dr. Abate who says they also intend to create synergies for the sustainability.