On June 10th, the Syrpa1 organized a debate, which brought together Hafez Ghanem, the Deputy Director of the FAO, Jacques Carles, Managing Director of Momagri, and Patrick Messerlin, Professor at Sciences Po, and a GEM member. On this occasion, Hafez Ghanem denounced the perpetual and worldwide structural undernourishment, which has been exacerbated by the financial crisis. He emphasized, “when we think of the financial crisis, we all think of the Lazard Bank, or General Motor’s problems, but in fact, it is the poor who suffer the most.” And the world food crisis could get worse in 2050, because of demographic growth.
But, is it an acceptable, long-term situation where food production increases only in the North, while population increases only in the South?
The answer is “no.” As a result, today it is particularly important to implement measures to increase agricultural production, as well as food security. And the difficulty lies in reconciling the two, that is, encouraging investment in agriculture that, above all, benefits the local population. This takes place first of all, through national incentive measures, but they can only be viable if they are part of a stable and international framework.
Today, the issue of profitable agricultural production in all countries throughout the world is a real one, because the fight against world hunger can only succeed if producers have adequate incentives to produce in sufficient quantity and quality.
1 The Syrpa is the national labor union for communications professionals and editors from the agricultural press |