Sir, – Today is World Food Day, with events taking place across the globe to focus attention on the important role played by the family farm in ending hunger and poverty.
This week’s budget brought a halt to cuts in Ireland’s overseas development assistance spending for the first time in six years. While we are still some way short of our international pledge to invest 0.7 per cent of GDP in overseas aid, the Government’s decision to end successive cuts has to be regarded as a step in the right direction.
A significant part of our overseas development assistance budget is invested in efforts to end hunger in Africa and elsewhere across the world.
Helping smallholder farming families to produce more and earn more from their small farms is vital to this effort. Upwards of 70 per cent of people in sub-Saharan Africa rely directly on small farms for their livelihoods.
Only by committing resources to this area will we achieve the objectives of World Food Day, since it was first launched by the United Nations in 1981.
Growing more food is only a part of the equation, however, as the urgent need to improve nutrition for families is critical too if we are to end world hunger and poverty in our lifetime.
Although rarely listed as the direct cause, malnutrition is estimated to contribute to more than a third of all child deaths in Africa.
Poor nutrition in early years can also have a lifelong effect on health, increasing vulnerability to common ailments and reducing cognitive and learning abilities.
Within agriculture and food production we must address both the challenge of food production and of improving nutrition, as we focus on supporting the poor to feed their populations in the years ahead. – Yours, etc,
RAY JORDAN,
Chief Executive,
Gorta-Self Help Africa,
Kingsbridge House,
Parkgate Street,
Dublin 8.