News

Governments will have to take their responsibility

Climate & Natural resources,Food Security21 Dec 2010Timo Anis
This blog is part of the blog series about the ‘It’s Down 2 Earth’ conference on agriculture, food security and climate change held in The Hague between 31 October and 5 November 2010. The participants discuss the future of agriculture; how it can contribute to food security and be placed at the heart of sustainable development and poverty eradication – and still be an instrument to challenge climate change?

We welcome the initiative to tackle the important problems of agriculture, food security and climate change together as they are largely interdependent; also we welcome the development of an integrated road map for action.

Acknowledging the right to food as one of the basic human rights, we share the views of those who consider this right to be guaranteed by national governments. We very much appreciate the respective commitments of several developing countries to devote substantial amount of their means for the development of agriculture. The national governments should be supported by the international community and first of all via respective international organizations.

Concerning climate change, it is of utmost important to develop an internationally co-ordinated strategy where short-, medium-, and long-term objectives are agreed. Strategic goals in agriculture are adaptation to and mitigation of the impact of the climate change that include preservation of biodiversity and rural liveliness by following worldwide environmental standards and investing more into new environmentally friendly ways of production and technologies that would, among other things, help limit the excessive use of water in agriculture. Also, when faced with climate change, we most probably have to change some of our consumer habits. In addition, the adaption plans must me integrated into strategies concerning food security and eradication of poverty.

We also note that governments have a very important role when we talk about climate change. That means they should very carefully observe and find concrete solutions which could be implemented to national/international laws. It´s their responsibility to look after their people! We hope that the reform of global food security governance will contribute to a more science-based, better coordinated and responsible global activities where national governments of the countries in need take the initiatives that can help guarantee increased food security in the future taking into account the challenges posed by climate change.

We also note it is very important that the roadmap which was presented by the chair of the conference should be a living document that could and should be changed as the necessity should come. It is important that the countries could have a clear overview about the actions and processes which are taking place as we speak. Sharing experiences and best practices is also vital for the developing countries to improve their resistance to climate change. Better and more resources (also financial) are needed to improve the quality and knowledge about the scientific development and the possibilities of Genetically Modified Organisms should also be further researched.