India needs to work more to address poverty: Food and Agriculture Organisation

India, the world's second largest wheat and rice grower, needs to make speedier progress towards reducing the number of hungry people, a top official of the UN food agency FAO said today.

About 17 % of India's overall population of 1.25 billion was undernourished during 2011-13. The United Nations had kept a target of halving world hunger by 2015. "Globally, we will be able to achieve the Millenium Development Goal but there is huge difference among different regions. Some regions are progressing much more. One of the countries that we need to push for more progress is India," Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director General Jose Graziano da Silva told reporters here.

India's foodgrain production has risen to 264.77 million tonnes in 2013-14. However, simply producing more foodgrains would not be a solution for eradicating poverty as there are still prevalence of hunger in the country, he said.

More work needs to be done to bring down poverty in India and other parts of Asia, which houses half the world's hungry people, he said, adding that an updated data on prevalence of hunger across the world will be released soon. Silva was here to receive the award 'Doctor Honoris Causa' at a special convocation organised by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) for his contribution for improving food security in Brazil via the 'Zero Hunger Program'.

Asserting that food is available in most countries but the the problem is "access" to it, Silva said: "Hunger is not an issue of food availability, it is an issue of access. Many people are not able access because they do not have jobs.'

Several policy initiatives like cash transfer of food subsidy, providing meals at schools and pension funds, have resulted in improving the access in many parts, he said, adding that UN food agency is advising countries on how to improve the access to food to eradicate poverty.

The FAO chief further said that food security programme alone will not help in reducing poverty. "A comprehensive approach involving intra-ministerial as well as participation from civil societies and private sector are needed."

Sharing an Brazilian example, he said that 18 ministries are involved in the 'Zero Hunger Program'.

Silva also released 14 new crop varieties of wheat, rice, chickpea, soybean and vegetables developed by IARI.