25 September 2008
Maputo — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Wednesday called for the immediate formation of a world partnership, using all means at humanity's disposal, to increase food production, in order to end the shortages that drive increased food prices.
Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Guebuza said the causes of the food crisis were well known, and "it is now up to the international community to implement relevant solutions, in a concerted and energetic fashion".
"It will be in this process that a crisis can be transformed into an opportunity to strengthen international partnerships and to develop our countries and peoples", he stressed. "It is important that international cooperation should stimulate the revival of farming productivity in developing countries, so that there are more abundant harvests".
The problems leading to food shortages included the irregular rainfall and soil impoverishment resulting from climate change, price distortions resulting from liberalization, ad the sheer increase in population. But Guebuza was convinced that technological advance could enable humanity to overcome all these difficulties, and lead to increased food production, sufficient to ensure that nobody on the planet need go hungry.
What was really missing, said Guebuza, was not scientific technique, or the fertiliser that could enrich soils - but the money to acquire these and other inputs, so that farmers from all countries could contribute to the battle to feed the human race.
He thought it imperative that countries that have financial and technological resources should support those who have other resources - such as an abundance of fertile land - so that that they could advance from subsistence to commercial agriculture.
He took Mozambique as an example of a country which possesses excellent natural conditions for agriculture and livestock but, "due to a shortage of financial resources and of a banking network in the countryside, as well as a lack of technology and of infrastructures, we have so far not been able to produce on a large scale to meet the food needs of our population".
To overcome the problems that have inhibited agricultural production, the Mozambican government has embarked on a "Green Revolution". This is aimed at increasing domestic food production, which Guebuza regarded as a sine qua non for meeting the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
For Mozambique, he said, ending hunger must be at the centre of the struggle to achieve the MDGs, since "people who are hungry don't think about tomorrow", much less about gender equity or women's empowerment, which are also among the MDGs.
Guebuza stressed the need for urgent measures to halt the rises in basic food prices, before they made it impossible for poor countries to achieve the MDGs. "The time we live in is critical", he stressed. "We have to act now".
"All of us, whether from developing or developed countries, have to act to find a solution that ends the hunger that affects most of our peoples, so that we can continue our dream if implementing the Millennium Development Goals, to which we are all committed", he stressed.
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