Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Eradicating global hunger is a foreign policy priority for both the Irish and US governments. It is appropriate that we collaborate and bring our combined expertise to bear in working towards our shared objective. In Ireland, arising from the hunger task force report, we have made the eradication of hunger a cornerstone of our aid programme. We recognise that feeding a global population, expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050, in a world where climate change is having a dramatic impact on our capacity to produce food, will be one of the biggest global challenges of this century. For the first time ever, more than 1 billion people, which is one sixth of all humanity, are now hungry. This is unacceptable and Ireland and the US agree that concerted action is essential to eliminate global hunger. The Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, and I have had many discussions with our US counterparts on how we can co-operate optimally to ensure that food, the most basic of all human needs, is available and easily accessed by all. Most recently, last month in Washington, I met with Secretary of State Clinton's chief of staff to discuss the issue.

Next September, Ireland and the United States will co-host a major event on hunger and under-nutrition at the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals. This event will bring together world leaders to highlight the importance of agriculture in reducing hunger, and improving nutrition in the households of the world's poorest and most vulnerable. Our objective is to focus political attention and galvanize action around realising MDG 1, which is to halve the numbers living in hunger and poverty by 2015.

We are co-operating with the United States across the food security agenda. We recently signed a three-year partnership with the United States to co-operate on combating hunger in Malawi, prioritising support to small-holder farmers, efforts to increase soil fertility and measures to adapt to climate change. Malawi is an excellent example of a country where enlightened national policies have dramatically reduced hunger levels.

In addition, Ireland and the United States have indicated a readiness to collaborate in other sub-Saharan states on practical country-owned and country-led hunger reduction programmes. Both countries agree that without a more effective agriculture sector and stronger governance mechanisms, many developing countries will struggle to increase agricultural production to feed their rapidly growing populations.

See this speech in context