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.