FAO Calls for More Effort to Attain African Food Security

Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expressed his apprehension regarding the current situation of Africa's food security. In his opening speech for the Ministerial Segment of the 26^th session of FAO's Regional Conference for Africa, he said, "In sub-Saharan Africa, since 2009, over 265 million people are malnourished and 30 percent of the population suffers from hunger." Diouf stressed that this condition calls for an urgent and undivided attention from the concerned entities. He also added that this situation is an opportunity to help small producers and reinforce family farming.

Africa is exposed to a lot of agricultural problems such as water shortage and lack of access to technologically advanced tools. Aside from that, underinvestment is also one of the reasons for the hunger and malnutrition in Africa, according to Diouf. There must be significant growth rates in the production in the next 40 years in order to attain sustainable food production and security. There is no reason but to be optimistic about this because for the recent years, there have been many success stories about the continent's agricultural situation.

Read the full story at http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/41994/icode/.