Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of his recent statement to the world food summit that one person in every six is now food insecure and that the current situation means the achievement of the millennium development goals on poverty and hunger face complete failure, he will state his long term solutions to remedy this situation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3552/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Currently 1 billion people in the world are food insecure. This is an ongoing tragedy, which was made worse by global food price rises in 2008. People need safe, nutritious, affordable food. Across the globe, countries need to sustainably increase agriculture production to improve food availability and most importantly locally resilient food systems must increase access for the poor and the vulnerable. There is full agreement that agricultural productivity must be increased and that greater resources must be directed towards smallholder farmers in developing countries, and in particular towards women farmers, on whom the greatest burden often falls.

There is an increasing awareness that food security cannot be taken for granted in a world where demand is rising rapidly. There have been increased demands on the agriculture sector to examine the growing pressure between food, feed and fuel in terms of production. As an export and market orientated industry with high standards of food safety and quality, Ireland has an important role to play in contributing to the international security of food supply.

Resolving hunger requires a global approach. Ireland has supported the development of a global partnership, which will see long-term sustained effort by both donors and recipient governments, and the UN agencies and other stakeholders on this matter. Ireland has taken a leading role in continuing to bring a global focus on hunger, and combating hunger is now a key component of Ireland's foreign policy and overseas aid programme.

The Government's 2006 White Paper on Irish Aid identified hunger and food security as fundamental elements of the global development challenge. A Hunger Task Force (HTF) report was launched in 2008 and its recommendations to focus on:

increasing smallholder agricultural productivity in Africa, rightly underlining that the vast majority of African smallholders are women

targeting under-nutrition (especially maternal and infant), and

taking governance/leadership action on tackling global hunger (including by making hunger a priority at both national and international levels and ensuring that donor and recipient governments fulfil their commitments to its eradication).

have been accepted by the Government.

A Special Envoy for Hunger has been appointed and an Inter-Departmental Hunger Task Team, which my Department is a member of, has been established. Combating hunger is an on-going task that will require sustained effort, but it is a task that this Government is fully committed too.