Canada is worst than Africa on food security. United Nations will assist Harper's government in improving food deficit

Click here for this in full @ : http://rabble.ca/news/2013/03/reducing-canadas-food-security-deficit-un-reports-outlines-key-policy-recommendations

Reducing Canada's food security deficit: UN report outlines key policy recommendations

Last week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released its annual Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), which contains a number of recommendations around food and nutrition programs. The government's federal budget will be released late this week, and we'll have full coverage including reaction from the CCPA and other civil society organizations. 

Earlier this month, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, also made a number of recommendations for addressing food security in Canada. In a previous article, Hannah Renglich provided an overview of De Schutter's report, with a particular focus on his recommendations regarding Indigenous peoples. Here, she analysis the four other main sections of the report. 

Olivier De Schutter's report contains five subsections both commending Canadian civil society and government for many progressive and positive actions toward realizing the Right to Food, while also criticizing shortcomings and putting forward many recommendations for improvement through both a legal and policy framework.

While De Schutter suggested that Canada is behind in Economic and Social Rights protection, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canadian Human Rights Act could be used to protect the Right to Food.

UN Report says: Canada worst than Africa on food security?

Click here for this @ : http://www.ipolitics.ca/2013/02/11/canada-needs-a-national-food-strategy-un-report/

A United Nations report says Canada needs a national food strategy, raising specific concerns about food security issues facing Native and northern communities.

The 21-page Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, was released in December. The report’s conclusions were based on De Schutter’s 11-day fact-finding mission across Canada last May, where he met with numerous government departments including Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada, as well as Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq.

“The Special Rapporteur was disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity faced by Aboriginal peoples living both on- and off-reserve in remote and urban areas,” read the report.

Are you wondering where Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was/is ? Wonder no more : United Nations has engaged his services as best practices to fight hunger in Africa !

UN, African Union and Instituto Lula join forces to fight against African hunger

Click here for this story :  http://www.un-foodsecurity.org/node/1371

 in 

• Africa

21 November 2012 – A new initiative fusing United Nations know-how, African leadership and the political backing of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kicked-off today as the three partners declared their intent to join efforts in the fight against hunger and undernourishment in Africa.
During a meeting at the African Union’s (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the African Union (AU) and the not-for-profit Instituto Lula agreed to pursue their “shared vision” of a hunger-free Africa through a coordinated campaign against malnutrition and food security, according to an FAO news release announcing the partnership.
“Building a food and nutrition-secure Africa requires better governance, renewed political will and strong commitment to work together through innovative and comprehensive food security and nutrition programmes and strategies involving all concerned stakeholders,” said FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.
According to FAO statistics, the number of undernourished people on the African continent has steadily increased since the early 1990s, from 175 million to 239 million today.
Despite the negative trend, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, underscored Africa’s agricultural potential, noting that 60 per cent of the continent’s arable land was still unutilized.
“This enormous potential can make a real difference to improve our agricultural production and food security,” said Ms. Zuma, adding that the time had come for African farmers to move beyond subsistence agriculture to more expansive methods of agro-industrial production.

Kevin Rudd says: " FAO and United Nations are to be blamed for food crisis - they are only printin reports instead of executing their mandate to really fight poverty and develop agriculture"

Click here to read this @ Nation.com.pk: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/28-Sep-2012/un-criticised-on-food-security

HONG KONG - Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday criticised the UN food agency for failing to do enough on food security, as fears mount of a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis.

Rudd told a conference in Hong Kong that the leadership of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), based in Rome, needed to get its act together and not just release “another set of reports”. “The fact that we’re having this kind of conference is an indictment of the failure of the FAO,” he told the meeting - titled “Feeding the world: Asia’s Prospect of Plenty” - which was organised by The Economist magazine.

“The execution of its mandate, which is food security, must now be done.“A practical programme against the billions of people who are hungry in the world today needs to be done - not another set of reports, not another set of committees. Action, action, action,” he told reporters later.

The FAO has called for “swift, coordinated international action” this month as a sharp rise in maize, wheat and soybean prices renews fears of a looming food crisis.Drought in the United States has pushed grain prices to record highs, and the FAO has cut its global 2012 rice output forecast due to low monsoon rainfall in India.

UN estimates say the world population is projected to increase by two billion people between 2012 and 2050 to around nine billion, with Asia accounting for more than half of the increase.“Hunger is the world’s most challenging problem,” UN World Food Programme China director Brett Rierson said.“There is a common perception that hunger is an African problem, but two-thirds of them are from Asia so hunger is here in Asia,” he said.

Manila-based Asian Development Bank warned in April that food shortages could slow poverty reduction, and a rise of 10 percent in domestic food prices could push 64 million more Asians into poverty.

This news was published in print paper. Access complete paper of this day.

Click here to read this @ Nation.com.pk: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/28-Sep-2012/un-criticised-on-food-security