Role of small farm holdings in infant nutrition highlighted at UN forum

PRODUCING food to combat world hunger and under-nutrition among children was the focus of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation forum yesterday in Rome, Italy, as part of the UN’s World Food Day initiative.

Small farm holdings play a critical role in infant nutrition in developing countries, notably in the vital first 1,000 days of life, from pregnancy to second birthday.

This was the core message of a day-long seminar jointly hosted yesterday by Ireland and the US, highlight issues relating to child under-nutrition to the organisation’s Committee on World Food Safety.

Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister, Brendan Smith, said: “Today more than 900 million people – one in seven of the world’s population – are hungry. Such high levels of world hunger are morally unjustifiable and compromise social and economic development, posing a threat to global peace and security. It is vital that we make progress in reducing hunger in line with the Millennium Development Goals.”

The Irish and US speakers also pledged their support for the Scaling Up Nutrition initiative of the UN secretary general.

The Irish delegation was particularly forceful on the vital role which smallholder farmers play in supporting maternal and infant nutrition in developing countries.

The joint forum in Rome is a follow-up to the initiative launched by Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton at the Millennium Development Goal summit in New York last month. That summit set the goal of having the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.

Meanwhile, in Dublin, Ciarán Cuffe, Minister of State with special responsibility for Sustainable Transport, Horticulture, Planning and Heritage, said that the forthcoming Climate Change Bill will play an integral role in terms of Ireland’s national response to world hunger.

Mr Cuffe said that every country and every individual has an important role to play in addressing the interdependent issues of food security and climate change. He noted that the management of food production and climate change were closely interlinked.

“Climate change intensifies the difficulties in planning and coping with weather variability and climate hazards for vulnerable people.

“Climate change magnifies the challenges faced by governments and the international community in supporting poor people and assisting them in their efforts to become more food secure.”

Recent food production drives have helped bring 2009’s all-time low of 1.02bn hungry people in the world back to 925 million this year. The joint lead role being taken by Ireland and the US is intended to keep this issue to the forefront of global attention.

Mr Cuffe noted that disaster zones such as flood-hit Pakistan and drought-devastated Sahel illustrated the interaction between food security and climate change issues.

Ireland intends to keep a sharp focus on both issues, he said.