Food systems that ignore the needs of poor rural people are doomed to fail, warns IFAD President ahead of Food Systems pre-Summit

News provided by

International Fund for Agricultural Development

Jul 23, 2021, 07:51 ET

ROME, July 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- If we ignore the challenges and needs of rural people in the world's poorest countries, our attempts to create more equitable and sustainable food systems are doomed to fail, said the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) ahead of the UN Food Systems pre-Summit that begins in Rome on Monday.

"Rural people have long been side-lined in food value chains. While they toil to produce much of our food, too often they receive a pittance for their efforts and are left vulnerable to shocks," said Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, the UN agency which leads on tackling rural poverty and hunger.

"This is a critical moment to address the inequity of our food systems. Without concrete actions that result in real changes for rural producers, hunger and poverty will only grow, and increased instability and migration will follow," he added.

Rural small-scale farmers produce about a third of global food, and supply up to 80 per cent of food in parts of Africa and Asia. Although they play a major role in keeping food systems functioning, they themselves often go hungry. In 2020, this was exacerbated by climate change, conflict, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a dramatic increase in global hunger, according to a report released jointly by five UN agencies including IFAD last week.

At the Food Systems pre-Summit (26-28 July), IFAD will join thousands of governments, companies, development agencies, farmers and civil society organisations to discuss ways to transform how we grow, process, sell and consume food to make it more sustainable and equitable, and to launch commitments and mobilize partnerships for financing.

To gather input from rural producers across the world, IFAD launched its Rural Voices platform this week. It has also supported the organization of over 40 independent dialogues led by farmers' organizations and Indigenous Peoples' groups which will feed into the Summit process.

IFAD is also leading an initiative to unlock the potential of public development banks across the world to finance food systems transformation and help shift investments to more environmentally sustainable and fairer systems.

Contacts: Antonia Paradela
[email protected]
Mobile: +35 605398109

www.ifad.org

SOURCE International Fund for Agricultural Development