MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Asia needs to double food production in the next decades warns FAO

Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf of UN Food and Agriculture Organization

Philippines-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) is encouraging developing economies in Asia and Pacific to boost their investment in the agriculture sector to address the widespread hunger and cushion billions of people from future spikes in food prices.

Highlighting the urgency of increase funding in the industry, the multilateral lender and its partners on Wednesday said that the developing countries need to double the food production by 2050 in order to feed the growing population.

“A production increase of this magnitude will require the developing world alone to invest over 200 billion US dollars per year in agriculture till 2050, of which almost 120 billion US dollars would have to be invested in the Asia-Pacific region alone”, Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said at the two-day Investment Forum for Food Security in Asia and the Pacific.

Raising agricultural productivity can be done by improving crop management, expanding the use of modern varieties, strengthening rural infrastructure and improving post-harvest technologies, Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), meanwhile said.

Adequate funding for research and development must also be provided, he added.

“Achieving food security at regional, national and household levels has long been a struggle for the region, even during the best of economic times” ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said in his speech.

“A sustainable and balanced rebound in Asia, coupled with the hard lessons we learned during the 2008 food crisis, presents us with a golden opportunity to harness our collective resources in order to achieve food security.”

Currently, the Asia and Pacific region is home to the largest number of poor, and is one of the most vulnerable regions against the impacts of climate change and economic shocks, ADB said.

“The region is also the largest supplier and consumer of food. It is home to a dynamic food and agriculture industry that is providing an increasing range of affordable food products. Thus, what the region does for its food security will resonate around the world”.

The first regional forum on food security aims to identify barriers to achieving food security and explore a range of opportunities to overcome them and to showcase Asia and the Pacific as an attractive region for increased public and private sector investments on food security related initiatives. The forum is co-organized by ADB, FAO and IFAD.