By Smita Sirohi
Fuelled by wide-spread effects of Covid-19, by 2021, every 10th person in the world was brought on the brink of hunger (starvation). The latest Hunger Hotspots Report by the World Food Programme pegs the number of people facing the risk of succumbing to famine or famine-like conditions at an all-time high of 49 million, across 46 countries. Notwithstanding the looming threat of famines, the hunger funding gap remains as high as 93%—even though global relief and assistance budget increased by 223% during the past decade.
Having an agenda to achieve the United Nation’s Goal of Zero Hunger (SDG-2) by 2030 can overwhelm nations, given the grave challenges of hunger and famine they are facing now. Multiple crises gripping various parts of the world—conflicts, climate crisis and slow recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic—have wrecked the food security of multiple countries, pushing millions more into poverty and uncertainty. Hunger and malnutrition have become more pronounced, especially in regions that are severely affected by climate change.
In response, the international community is committed to progressively promote sustainable, inclusive, efficient, and resilient food systems to address the challenges faced by the world related to food insecurity. This dialogue builds upon the UN Food Systems Summit, the Voice of Global South Summit, and the recently concluded Global Forum for Food and Agriculture conference in Berlin that addressed the issue of ‘Food Systems Transformation: A Worldwide Response to Multiple Crises.’ The agriculture sector is a top priority on the G20 agenda that will look at sustainable food systems to respond and mitigate shocks for the most vulnerable and work on building consensus towards designing resilient food systems with, for and by the people.
The G20 countries will continue to have important implications for the development of a global action, with representation of about 60% of all agricultural land and 80% of the global trade in food and agricultural products. Representatives from the world will discuss viable strategies to achieve food security, stimulate awareness, critical thinking, and mutual learning on a wide range of issues that affect all aspects of food security, nutrition, and food systems. The decisions taken at G20 will act as a catalyst by creating synergies among its members. G20 nations are likely to collaborate on developing a framework on global food security and nutrition to ensure a multi-pronged approach in tackling food crisis.
Agriculture as a sector has tremendous growth opportunities. Robust infrastructure and value chain can yield good returns to the economy making it attractive for employment and investment, globally. It is the largest employment sector across the world which currently provides income for 40% of the world’s population. The Indian government is taking steps to provide farmers with farm-gate infrastructure. In July 2020, the finance minister launched the Rs 1 trillion Agri Infrastructure Fund for this purpose. With more than `1 trillion of financing in the next 10 years, farm-gate and aggregation point agriculture infrastructure projects have been given the funds to support Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies, Farmers Producer Organizations, Agriculture entrepreneurs, Start-ups, etc.
In recent years, various schemes have been launched under the government’s efforts to address malnutrition and food insecurity and to accelerate progress towards reaching the targets under SDG 2. Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana was launched in 2023 as the new integrated food security scheme with the aim to provide free food grains to all NFSA beneficiaries, including Antyodaya Ann Yojana (AAY) households and Priority Household (PHH) individuals, for one year through a vast network of 5.33 lakh fair price shops across the nation.
In the present scenario, India has achieved self-sufficiency in food grains, but there is a need to look beyond this and shift to a more diversified food basket, which includes coarse grains being termed as Shri Anna in the Union Budget. The world is celebrating this year as the International Year of the Millets where India is steering the initiative, wherein efforts are being made to promote millet production and spread awareness about their nutritional benefits.
It has now become increasingly clear that to achieve food security and nutrition, countries and organisations must work together to combat global malnutrition and food deficiency. The G20 countries should strengthen the ability of those who are most at risk to withstand economic hardship, through in-kind or cash assistance programmes to mitigate the effects of pandemic-style shocks or fluctuating food prices. This can be done by infusing funds into the agri value chain and creating sustainable and resilient food systems. Adequate infrastructure needs to be created to cultivate and store the crops with minimal wastage. Also, enhanced focus on research and development will be a critical piece to create crop varieties that are resilient to pests and climate change along with broadening the access to climate risk insurance and forecast-based funding for smallholder farmers, for instance, to help scale up climate resilience across food systems. Best farming practices by scientists and research organisations must be followed to slow down the depletion of our natural resources so that soil health can be sustained for a longer period.
Last but not the least, countries must strengthen the cooperation to make sure trade and food distribution can function efficiently to address the situation. This will help build global food security in a sustainable manner.
The author is Joint secretary (G20/BRICS, SCO), ministry of agriculture & farmers welfare
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