Food security high up on agenda at WEF Summit

This issue is considered a major concern that could affect global economic growth in the long run.

The WEF Summit starts today at the Shangri-La Hotel and will end tomorrow.

Robert Berendes, head of Global Business Development of Syngenta, a company that compiles the Rice Bowl Index, said a world food crisis could be a challenge with implications for the global economy.

He said it was a critical time and every country needed to tighten cooperation to create sustainable growth of the agricultural sector, otherwise there could a risk of a repeat of the 2008 food-security crisis.

Leaders of each nation and related agencies should join forces to promote agricultural growth along with innovation and technology development to increase the global supply of food.

Food security will be discussed by leaders during the WEF in Bangkok, as it is always a global challenge, he said.

Berendes pointed out that on average food consumption grew by 2 per cent annually. However, food production increases by only 1 per cent a year because of the increasing world population while there is limited land available for farming.

Syngenta expects that by 2050 the world population will be 9 billion, from the 2011 figure of 7 billion.

Billion suffering

Despite significant growth in food production over the past 50 years, about a billion people still suffer from hunger and even more are malnourished.

To feed the world’s growing population, food production must increase by 70 per cent, while in developing nations it must increase by 110 per cent.

Lourdes Adriano, an adviser at the Asian Development Bank, said food security should not be a challenge, but should be a sustainable agenda of each country.

She called for not only the government, but also the private sector to further sustainable growth in the agricultural sector.

Paul Teng, senior fellow on food security at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said it was easy to fall into the trap of inaction because of the complexities in dealing with food security. What is most challenging is how to translate these complexities into an opportunity for action.

He said the agricultural sector should increase yield and rely on less land and less water. Some countries, including Thailand, need to develop their irrigation system to increase yield, boost production, and lower the cost of farming and transport to help farmers and traders.

To help identify clearly how to develop each country’s agriculture, Syngenta has launched the Rice Bowl Index, a diagnostic tool that provides insight and information on the robustness of the food-security system across the Asia-Pacific region.

This index is designed to facilitate productive dialogue and collaboration among government, non-governmental organisations and the private sector, moving from simply identifying problems to finding solutions.

The index is freely available online.

It comprises information on policy and trade, environmental factors, demand and price, and farm-level factors that would affect production forecasts and price trends.