Last week, SI UN Representative Cinzia Palmi
attended the 144th Session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. She reports back on the latest debates on food security and rural investment.
Many of the regional conferences held earlier in 2012 focussed on issues of food
security – particularly in rural areas. There was consensus amongst Government representatives on the need to
raise people’s awareness of the importance of nutrition through education and
outreach, whilst carrying out short term programmes and longer term
strategies to ensure that the nutritional needs of present and future
populations are met.
The Council
urged the FAO members to continue supporting countries and regional economic communities,
particularly small scale producers. Within this group, women
were identified as being in particular need of targeted support and
investment.
In line
with the State of Food and Agriculture 2010-2011 Report:
Women in Agriculture – Closing the Gender Gap, the FAO Council paid great
attention to gender-sensitive programme planning and implementation.
The gender
gap refers to the unequal access women have to assets, resources and opportunities to
build productive farming practice, in addition to the unequal access to legal
resources and broader discriminatory practices. To give women better access
to such opportunities, it is important that a gender focal point within the national institution responsible for agriculture is created to ensure
women farmers are not overlooked in national and international programmes and interventions.
The
spokesperson on behalf of the civil society observers urged the member countries
to keep in mind that food security policies for the future must be based on
local small-scale farming; this should include community supported agriculture,
local farmer’s markets, women’s empowerment and respect and protection of land
rights. Practices must also be environmentally sustainable. They should be built upon agro-ecology best practice to protect the soil and
water supplies for future generations of farmers.
The World
day against child labour (June 12th) was also celebrated during this
conference. The motto: “A Learning Child Today – An Agricultural Innovator Tomorrow”, clearly draws the link between investment now, and future benefit.