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Inside Story

Feeding global hunger

Can the new head of the UN’s food agency secure greater commitment from governments to feed one billion hungry people?

Jose Graziano da Silva, a Brazilian agronomist and writer, has formally taken the helm of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to fix the problem. Food prices will escalate due to the construct of the global marketplace, increasing appetite of investors and speculators in food markets, weather and world population, all of which are creating a perfect storm.”

– Aly-Khan Satchu, CEO, online financial portal Rich.co.ke

He has announced new measures to tackle the global hunger problem; by focusing on food security and scaling up support to low-income and food deficit countries.

The UN says nearly one billion people are suffering from chronic hunger.

And many countries are still far from achieving the first Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people living in hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.

Can Da Silva make a difference? Can he convince the world’s rich countries to get on board?

Inside Story, with presenter Hazem Sika, discusses with guests: Duncan Green, head of research, Oxfam UK; and Aly-Khan Satchu, CEO, online financial portal Rich.co.ke.

“What we need is a real dynamic UN organisation like the FAO could be to lead the conversation between governments. But the FAO has not picked up on the issue of women in agriculture, that if you just gave women equal access to credit, equal access to ownership to the kind of extension services the governments provide, the calculations are that you could feed another 150 million people because they can produce more food.”

– Duncan Green, head of research, Oxfam UK