Published on Wednesday, May 30, 2012 by Common Dreams
Transition to Sustainable Agriculture Key to Global 'Food Security': UN
World can feed more people more efficiently with sustainable
agriculture and less waste
- Common Dreams staff
For the millions of hungry and underfed people on the planet, food
security is not an issue of insufficient production, but is an issue
of inadequate access, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO).
In a report release today, and presented with the Rio+20 Earth Summit
just weeks away, the FAO argues that the "only way to ensure [global]
food security is by creating decent jobs, paying better wages, giving
world's hungry access to more productive assets and distributing
income in a more equitable way."
Calling for a "transition to sustainable agriculture" the report,
Towards The Future We Want, says that will entail world governments
making "fundamental changes in the governance of food and agriculture
and an equitable sharing of the transition costs and benefits."
The report urges all stakeholders at the upcoming Earth Summit to make
firm commitments to eradicating hunger this century, and argues that
this could be achieved with adherence to available prescriptions for
smarter food systems that are less wasteful and less harmful on
natural ecosystems. "Improving agricultural practices is an essential
component of the transition to a more sustainable future," the report
says. And, in the future, "Agricultural production systems must 'do
more with less'."
One of the great flaws in current food systems is that despite
significant progress in development and food production hundreds of
millions of people are hungry because they lack the means to produce
or purchase the food they need for a healthy and productive life,
according to FAO's report.
"Improving agricultural and food systems is essential for a world with
both healthier people and healthier ecosystems," it says.
* * *
UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): Towards the Future We Want
In all agricultural production systems, the transition to more
sustainable practices requires more careful harnessing of ecosystem
services. Ecosystem services comprise all the benefits humans derive
from ecosystems – direct benefits such as food production as well as
indirect ones such as climate regulation, nutrient cycling or cultural
values. Ecosystems sustain human life through a range of services such
as providing food and drinking water, preserving and regenerating
soils, fixing nitrogen and carbon, recycling nutrients, filtering
pollution, and much more (FAO, 2007). They are the underlying basis
for agriculture and play a determining role in the productivity and
resilience of production systems. They also have a wider impact on
human welfare through their effects on regulating climate, the
functioning of water systems and biodiversity conservation.
Agricultural ecosystems are by far the largest managed ecosystems in
the world. In many cases, management approaches have largely focused
on producing agricultural commodities, often at the expense of
degrading and depleting other ecosystem services. The full range of
ecosystem services that agriculture can provide must be recognized and
valued if we are to enhance the sustainability and productivity of
agricultural ecosystems.
To harness their full potential, agricultural ecosystems need to be
managed as part of wider agricultural landscapes. Reinforcing the
natural resilience of landscapes is fundamental. Deforestation,
degradation of catchments/watersheds, land degradation, depletion of
reefs and coastal ecosystems – especially coral reefs and mangroves –
all reduce nature’s defence capacity. Disasters, in turn, contribute
to ecosystem degradation and loss, including increased soil erosion,
declining rangeland quality, salinization of soils and biodiversity
loss. Diversification of varieties, breeds and production activities
across agricultural landscapes is another way to increase resilience.
Greater diversity in agricultural ecosystems may also lead to
healthier and more sustainable diets, which is a particularly
important consideration for producers whose consumption is largely
drawn from their own production.
* * *
Reuters: World can feed more people more efficiently: FAO
The governments attending the Rio+20 summit in June should commit
themselves to speed up efforts to reduce hunger and malnutrition and
use the UN's voluntary guidelines on the right to food, the FAO said.
The Rio+20 meeting on June 20-22 is expected to attract more than
50,000 participants, with politicians under pressure from
environmentalists to agree goals for sustainable development, in the
spirit of the Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago.
Sustainable development is impossible without eradicating hunger in a
world where over 900 million people do not get enough to eat, the
FAO's Director General Jose Graziano da Silva said in the report.>
"We cannot call development sustainable while this situation persists,
while nearly one out of every seven men, women and children are left
behind, victims of undernourishment," he said.
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Received on Thu May 31 2012 - 22:53:51 EDT
