UN says $ 6 bn pledged in to tackle food crisis

NEW YORK: Favouring a comprehensive plan to address the global food crisis, the UN has said the focus should be on the needs of small-holder farmers in developing countries as it noted that a new funding worth $ six billion has been pledged to tackle the issue following the Rome summit.
    
There was a need to look at both "the immediate needs and longer-term issues starting right now and the focus is on the small-holder farmers in developing countries," said Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.
    
He told reporters that the $ six billion figure was in addition to existing pledges of up to $ 7 billion that were also announced at the High-level Conference on World Food Security in Rome.
    
He stressed that the new "Comprehensive Framework for Action" was reached by consensus among the members of the international task force convened by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, which brings together the heads of the World Bank, the IMF, World Trade Organisation (WTO) and key UN agencies.
    
The plan focuses on a series of measures to meet immediate needs and also to build longer-term resilience to food crises in the future.
    
Among the immediate measures proposed in the plan are increasing nutritional and other feeding programmes, as well as supplying fertilizers, seeds, animal feed and veterinary services to help small-holder farmers in the current planting season.
    
The plan also calls for a reduction in export bans on food commodities, and focuses on the need for much greater investment in agricultural production in the longer term.
    
Noting that there was a broad agreement on the way forward, Holmes said the World Bank estimated that global food production had to rise by at least 50 per cent by 2030 to meet worldwide demand. "We're looking at this in a much broader context than just the current price levels," he said.
    
"Everybody's attention has been grabbed, including ours, by the sudden dramatic increase in food prices over the last few months, but there's a broader underlying problem about agriculture that lies behind that," he added.
    
The three-day summit in Rome, which was attended by more than 40 heads of State and government, and representatives from 181 countries, adopted a declaration at its conclusion that sought increased assistance for developing countries, especially for those hardest hit by the recent rise in food prices.
    
Commenting on the summit declaration, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, said that the international community needs to address the questions of power and accountability. "Hunger is man-made. What misguided policies have caused, better focused policies can undo," he said.