Could IFAJ help curb world hunger?

by Mike Wilson

Three quarters of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas and their lives depend on agriculture. Over 1 billion people go to sleep hungry every night, even as the world seemingly ratchets up its attempts to curb hunger.

Those were just a few of the unnerving facts pointed out by former Irish President Mary Robinson at last weekend’s Michael Dillon Lecture held in Ireland by the Guild of Agricultural Journalists and sponsored by Kerry Group. Michael Dillon was a famous Irish ag writer and broadcaster – described to me as the “Walter Cronkite of farm broadcasters,” says broadcaster Damien O’Reilly, producer and broadcaster on RTE, Ireland’s national broadcasting station.

I was fortunate enough to attend this prestigious event representing the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

Mary Robinson presided over Ireland in the 1990s, during the giddy economic years when we knew Ireland as the “Celtic Tiger.” A champion for human rights, she made a name for herself reaching out to underdeveloped nations. Recently she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States and the first Irish person to win the award.

Robinson takes a similar message to audiences all over the world: Everyone has the right to safe, healthy food. Food security simply means securing enough safe food for all people on the planet, she notes.

“Together we can make a difference,” she says. “We need the involvement of every part of society – governments, the scientific community, business and civil society – in addressing the urgent challenges of our times.”

Current crisis The problem of world hunger is compounded by global recession. The crisis is impacting large parts of the world simultaneously, reducing the scope for traditional coping methods such as currency devaluation, borrowing or increased use of official development assistance, says Robinson.

“The economic crisis comes on top of a food crisis that already strains the coping strategies of the poor, hitting those most vulnerable to food insecurity when they are down,” she says. Compounding the problem is that developing countries have become more globalized, making them more vulnerable to economic shock waves.

“The global economic crisis has made the goal of food security for all even harder to achieve,” she says.

But don’t ask Robinson if climate change is a dubious theory. In fact, she is convinced climate change is actually killing people in less developed countries.

“At a very local level the farmers who had developed indigenous methods based on their ability to forecast the weather, a skill honed over centuries, are now totally dismayed, shocked and impoverished by climate change,” she says. “It is estimated every year climate change kills 300,000 people; by 2030 it will kill 500,000.”

Robinson believes what’s missing in fighting global hunger is a sense that we are all in this together – the awareness that we have shared responsibilities in a globalized world, “the recognition that my security and well-being is intimately linked not just with my neighbor on the next street, but with my neighbor on every street and on every continent.”

Because IFAJ’s mandate is to support a free press, it could play a roll in fighting world hunger. Robinson believes our organization could mobilize and hold governments accountable, to ensure that the fundamental right to food is available to all.

That’s the power of the press, and it’s a power we don’t utilize often enough.

Contact: mwilson(at)farmprogress.com