Food Security and the Role of the Food and Agriculture Oganization

Gudnason, Stefan Bragi

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Food Security and the Role of the Food and Agriculture Oganization

Gudnason, Stefan Bragi

Abstract

This document examines the role the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has played in strengthening world food security. Since World War II there have been initiatives aimed at food governance. The world population explosion has led to an urgent mu need for food governance and food and nutrition security. Issues related to food governance facing the FAO are examined, which include gender inequity, resource exploitations, protectionism, poverty, state control policies, climate change and the need m for better management and use for genetically modified organisms, as well as conflicts affecting hunger in Africa. As humankind faces the predicament of one billion hungry in 2012, the FAO faces a daunting task which the author has illustrated with examples in Africa, Asia and Mexico. Further, the author advocates that fundamental changes are needed in food and nutrition security to solve the hunger crisis. Better governance in agriculture and fisheries m can, indeed, lift large numbers of people out of poverty, using natural resources in a 0*1 sustainable way, and creating a green economy. A special attention is given to the gender aspect of food security and the effect that equal rights of women can have on food m security. The FAO and the other Rome-based agencies can be credited with numerous efforts in trying to draw the world community’s attention to the hunger situation. In spite of several summits and high-level conferences, such as the Millennium Summit in New York, the author advocates a pressing need to continue with efforts to fight hunger and m malnutrition with sustainability, technological advancement in methods of agriculture and fishing and a realignment of sustainability, green economics and a push for good national governance as well fair world trade as an answer to the world food crisis.