Reducing Food Insecurity

January 26, 2010

A major factor contributing to poverty and hunger is food insecurity, or the lack of sustainable physical or economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food for healthy and productive living. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has projected that, in 2009, over 1 billion people will go to bed hungry, and estimates that the world will need until 2050 to boost agricultural investment by US$83bn a year to feed a growing population.

Speaking on the issue of food security at the Private Sector Forum in Milan, Nestlé Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe stressed the need for and the willingness of the private sector to be actively involved in addressing this issue. He emphasised that reducing food insecurity is not just about taking measures to produce more food, it is also about taking measures that actually change expectations and lead to sound long-term food security and called for bold solutions to tackle this issue.

In his presentation, Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe explains that there are five major challenges to overcome long-term global food insecurity: necessary quantities (basic calories and proteins) in a sustainable manner, generating reliable incomes for farmers, affordability of the food for low-income consumers, quality of food (including nutritional value and safety), and access (food at the right time, in the right form, at the right place).

It is unfortunate and ironic that most of the people that are under-nourished or malnourished are primarily farmers, and come from rural areas. Click here to view video.

I welcome your views on how private sector companies can confront and combat the issue of global food insecurity.

Tags: CSV and CSR, Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), nestlé, Nutrition, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, poverty and hunger

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 10:46 am and is filed under CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating Shared Value, Nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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