FAO And Minster of Agriculture Validate Food Security Study

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

Annia Gaye

11 May 2011

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, on Monday 9 May, held a one day validation workshop on food security study in three vulnerable communities in the Gambia at the Seaview Garden in Kololi.

The validation of the study came as a result of the contract of national consultants in 2008 by both the FAO and the Ministry to conduct a study on food security in three regions: Central River Region, North Bank Region and West Coast Region. In his opening remarks, the FAO Representative in the Gambia, Dr. Babagana Ahmadu, said when the FAO cereal price index doubled in 2007/2008, food security became a global crisis. He noted that the world’s poorest households spent 60%-80% of their incomes on food and they had no mechanism to cope with the rising prices rather than to reduce the volume or nutritional quality of their consumption. He further noted that the global crisis temporarily pushed the global count above one billion that led to “food nots” in 23 countries. He revealed that the Director General of FAO launched the initiative on soaring food prices in December 2009 so as to respond to the crisis that threatened to push millions of people into hunger and poverty.

“The high food prices have become a matter of survival for some 2 billion people worldwide. The world’s poorest spend up to 80% of household income on the food they eat to survive. Most live in rural areas and make their living from agriculture,” he said.

Dr. Ahmadu said that FAO through its sub regional branch of West Africa (SFW) in response has been carrying out food security studies on vulnerable groups in poor areas in selected countries in the sub region of West Africa for them to come up with actions to mitigate the effects of high food prices and other internal and external factors that affect or influence household food security.

He stated that the document on food security that they validated was commissioned in 2008. He highlighted that the main objective of the study is to identify and assess a number of factors that influence food security at house hold levels.

Dr. Ahmadu mentioned that over 900 million people experience the hardship that hunger imposes as the world food prices scale new peaks. Food security threatens to dominate the humanitarian headlines in 2001. “Engulfed within a vortex of population growth economic instability and climate change, food security presents a demanding challenge for national and global governance,” he said. He expressed hope that the validation process would critically review the food security study findings. He urged for recommendations to focus on the spotlight of the participative approach which, he said, would validate the actions for the food security plan for this country.

In conclusion, he said his expectation of the validation exercise is for participants to deliberate on, and advance appropriate suggestions for, resource mobilisation to implement the plans and actions that would be proposed to address the food security needs of the vulnerable groups in these three regions.

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