Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 196: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will include small-scale farmers in developing countries in his submission to the UN Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition in April 2012; if he has any plans to attend the meeting of the UN Committee on World Food Security in Rome in 2012 when the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition will be approved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12092/12]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The first discussions on the Global Strategic Framework will be held at the FAO Regional Conferences. The European Regional Conference, which my Department will be attending, will take place in April in Baku, Azerbaijan and will be an opportunity for Ireland to feed into the process and to influence the consensus ERG position to be formulated.

Ireland's submission will be prepared by my Department in consultation with our colleagues in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. While our submission has yet to be completed, I can assure you that it will be very supportive of smallholder farmers, particularly women, in developing countries. Our submission will be informed by the 2008 Hunger Task Force Report, which recommended three priority areas for Ireland in its efforts to address global hunger: 1) support to smallholder farmers, particularly women, in Africa; 2) addressing maternal and infant undernutrition, and 3) strengthening international political commitment to addressing Hunger.

Ireland has made steady progress in implementing the Hunger Task Force recommendations. Through our overseas development programme, Irish Aid, we support a comprehensive range of programmes to sustainably improve food and nutrition security of the poorest and most vulnerable. For example, in Malawi, we support smallholder farmers' organisations to improve soil fertility and diversify to more nutritious crops; in Tanzania, we support smallholder farmers' access to better farm inputs such as seeds and fertiliser; and in Lesotho, we support smallholder farmers to develop vegetable gardens to improve household nutrition. At the international level, we work to ensure that global agricultural research is focused on the needs of women smallholder farmers, and that research outputs are readily available to the poorest farmers.

The UN Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition is another opportunity to further Ireland's work in this area, and I look forward to engaging with it.

A full meeting of the UN Committee on World Food Security takes place every October and is attended by my officials and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. October of this year. A decision on Ministerial attendance will be taken closer to the event.