Bangkok - Magsaysay Award winner calls for rights-based approach to hunger during World Food Day ceremony at FAO regional headquarters in Bangkok.

Governments should refocus on agriculture as a remedy for the jobless recoveries and the “crisis of hunger” plaguing many countries in the wake of the global recession, one of the worlds’ foremost hunger fighters said during a ceremony on Friday to mark World Food Day at the Food and Agricultural Organization regional headquarters in Bangkok.

“The famine of jobs or purchasing power is often the cause of famine of food at the household level,’’ said Magsayay Award winner Mankombu Sambasivan (M S) Swaminathan, an agricultural scientist who has been called the ‘Father of India’s Green Revolution’. “Modern industry often leads to jobless economic growth. Agriculture and agri-business promote job-led growth. If farm ecology and economics go wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right.’’

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region have been struggling with rising food prices, food shortages and food security issues during recent years. According to tracking by the FAO, food prices rose 51 percent last year. The figure was released before the global recession caused regional economies to collapse and cost tens of millions of workers their jobs. “Asia and the Pacific is a region in crisis, as we have 642 million people suffering from malnutrition, and it is expected this figure will further increase by 9 percent during 2009,’’ said He Changchui, Assistant Director-General and FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

“The economics of human dignity demands that everyone should have an opportunity to earn his or her daily bread,’’ Swaminathan said, adding that FAO estimates that the number of people going to bed hungry around the world now exceeds one billion.

Proclaiming that the time has come to “make hunger history” in the Asia-Pacific region, Swaminathan called on governments to “shift from a charity-based approach to a rights-based approach to hunger. Access to a balanced diet and clean drinking water must be a fundamental right of every human being.’’

Directing a message at developed countries, Swaminathan said that for too long technology has contributed to the North-South, rich-poor, urban-rural and gender divides. Technology needs to be used to bridge those divides. “Harnessing modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is a powerful method of empowerment of rural communities,’’ he said, citing the Village Knowledge Center movement launched in India.

M S Swaminathan first gained recognition for introducing high-yield strains of wheat in India. A member of India’s parliament, and chairperson of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, he received the Albert Einstein World Science Award in 1986 and the first World Food Prize in 1987. He has been called the “Father of Economic Ecology” by the United Nations Environment Program and holds 58 honorary degrees from universities around the world. M S Swaminathan has been acclaimed by TIME magazine as one off the twenty most influential Asians of the 20th century.
His vision is to rid the world of hunger and poverty through what he calls an “evergreen revolution.” His approach calls for eigther organic farming or green agriculture, ecologically sound farming methods, equity in opportunity, and the sharing of technology and information to improve agriculture and food production.

For more information, please contact Diderik.deVleeschauwer@fao.org