FAO calls for regional policy response to tackle hunger
29 agosto 2019

NUTRITION

Food security. On August 8, José Graziano da Silva, former Director-General of FAO, said that “there is a close link between local production by family farmers and good nutrition”. On this, he referred to the report published by FAO “From Fome Zero to Zero Hunger“, which sets out the Latin American and Caribbean goal of achieving Zero Hunger, based on the Brazilian experience in food security which defined hunger as “a political problem”.  Through South-South cooperation, FAO urges countries to continue replicating the Brazilian model, with the objective of creating spaces for dialogue in the design of public policies that bring together the academic world, family farmers, social organizations and government representatives.

The Zero Hunger initiative, initiated by Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva in 2003 in conjunction with FAO, was a government strategy aimed at guaranteeing the right to food through a food security policy. Based on this, assistance policies for family farming were implemented in Brazil – such as facilitating access to microcredits – and basic legislation was developed for the national food and nutritional security policy, which included the creation of low-cost restaurants, education and awareness-raising on healthy eating habits. 

FAO maintains that in recent years there has been an upward trend in forms of malnutrition, leading to the paradox that countries have large proportions of both hunger-suffering and obese populations. On this, FAO stresses the need not only to deepen existing policies, but also to create new solutions to emerging problems. Among them, it recommends expanding innovation for rural development, reducing food losses and waste, strengthening food supply systems and promoting adaptation to climate change.

Next steps

FAO recognizes the importance of strengthening family farming in the region as a strategy to eradicate hunger and combat poverty, and in this regard emphasizes the governance mechanism to achieve this objective. It urges countries to include representatives of the private sector, academia and government in the debate on these public policies, recognizing that these broad exchanges of experiences “are authentic forums for social learning, which have resulted in new and innovative solutions” to the problem. Latin American and Caribbean governments are expected to improve existing food security policies and share spaces for regional dialogue through South-South cooperation in the medium term. 

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