With hunger levels rising and domestic food price inflation soaring in much of the world, collective actions are necessary to meet immediate and longer-term global food security objectives.
This is according to the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Qu Dongyu who addressed a G7 meeting of agriculture ministers in Japan.
The FAO pointed to five key actions for the G7 to drive progress to sustainable agri-food systems, including the roles of markets, assistance, the private sector, and science and innovation.
Addressing the G7 countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US – today (Saturday, April 22), Qu said:
“We need to work together in an efficient, effective and coherent manner to address the challenges, and identify the solutions needed for concrete actions leading to tangible results on the ground.”
All nations must commit to well-functioning markets and market transparency as trade continues to be key for global food security, he said pointing to the G20 Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS).
Emphasising that vulnerable countries need support to meet their food and fertiliser needs, he said this is why the FAO designed the Food Import Financing Facility (FIFF).
Despite welcoming the FAO and FIFF-inspired Food Shock Window introduced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Qu said too few countries have so far benefited from this mechanism.
G7 members should support a more flexible arrangement, he said, and less conditionality needs to be developed so a meaningful mechanism is in place that can truly benefit all countries in need.
Global food security
The right investments are urgently needed to transform global agri-food systems and make them more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable, Qu said stressing that G7 nations need to double their efforts.
The FAO director-general said this will require prioritising a mix of least-cost measures with large hunger and malnutrition reduction, and a lower trade-off to our environment.
The private sector which so far remains under-utilised must be engaged in this transformation, and advancing science and innovation are also essential to ending hunger, he said.
The FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative seeks to engage the private sector to scale up interventions and investments in the most vulnerable countries and regions to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and to reduce inequalities.
Deforestation
To celebrate Earth Day today the FAO and the UK launched AIM4Forests (Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests), a £24.5 million five-year programme to accelerate country capabilities in forest monitoring.
The programme is in line with global efforts to stop deforestation and forest degradation, and to restore forests. More than 420 million hectares of forest have disappeared since 1990.
Although deforestation rates have slowed down significantly, 10 million hectares are still being lost every year. At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, world leaders committed to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
Countries urgently need national forest monitoring systems embedded in government institutions that provide the critical information needed for domestic forest-related priorities and policies, including on land-use decisions, the FAO said.
The new programme is part of the UK’s International Climate Finance commitment to spend £11.6 billion between 2021/22 and 2025/26, including at least £3 billion on solutions that protect and restore nature.
