SECRETARY KERRY'S STATEMENT ON WORLD FOOD DAY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

World Food Day

Press Statement

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

October 16, 2014

On World Food Day, the United States reaffirms our commitment to the fight against poverty, hunger, and under-nutrition – and to addressing one of the greatest threats to food security: climate change.

Today more than 800 million people around the world are chronically undernourished. By 2050, the global population is expected to increase by 2 to 3 billion people. That means agricultural production will need to increase by sixty percent if there’s any hope of meeting the increased demand.

And at the same time, the impacts of climate change to both land and ocean resources could slow global food production for the rest of the century.

The nexus between climate change and food security is undeniable. And it’s nothing new. I remember discussing this intersection more than two decades ago, when I attended the Earth Summit in Rio as a U.S. Senator. So today, as the threat of climate change continues to grow – and as more and more regions around the world are experiencing historic droughts, extreme weather, and, consequently, serious food shortages – addressing this nexus, staving off the worst impacts of climate change, and improving food security around the world must be a global priority.

As Secretary of State, I want these issues front and center in our foreign policy. That’s why I brought my longtime colleague, Dr. Nancy Stetson, to the State Department – to make sure we’re doing everything we can to combat hunger and advance global food security. I’ve seen firsthand her ability to break down global challenges like malaria and AIDS that are very complex and multi-layered, and find new ways to tackle them. With her on board, and with the help of her terrific team at State and throughout the U.S. government, I’m confident we’ll be able to improve food security in every corner of the globe.

We’re already making progress. Last year, our Feed the Future initiative helped nourish more than 12.5 million children and brought improved technologies to nearly seven million food producers. In June, I hosted the Our Ocean conference to prompt urgent actions to confront the threats to global ocean resources. Last month, we also helped launch the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture to bring governments, businesses, civil society, and others together to empower farmers and fishers to adapt to climate change and mitigate greenhouse gases – all while sustainably increasing agricultural production.

There’s no question that the challenges to global food security are significant, but so is our capacity to meet them. The United States will continue to advance creative solutions to food insecurity, under-nutrition, and climate change, so that people everywhere can develop to their fullest potential and live the strong, healthy lives they deserve – and so their countries can be prosperous and peaceful.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS FOOD SECURITY IN A CHANGING CLIMATE

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at a Working Session on Resilience and Food Security in a Changing Climate

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

National Academy of Sciences

Washington, DC

August 4, 2014

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Thank you very, very much. My apologies that we are beginning just a couple of minutes late, and we’re delighted to welcome everybody here. Let me just say at the outset I had the chance to speak here earlier today on civil society, but I want to reemphasize the degree to which President Obama and the whole Administration are genuinely very excited about these several days. This summit has been long in the making. It is an historic gathering. And we want it to be as substantive, as productive – in the end, as agenda-driving as possible. And in the end, of course, that will depend on all of you and the participation of the next days.

But I want to begin by thanking all of their excellencies who are here – presidents and prime ministers, foreign ministers, others representing more than 50 countries – mostly I would say to you heads of state, but for a few who are unable to make it for a number of reasons. We are distinctly pleased to be able to welcome you here to one of the signature events, really, of these next three days. And it’s on a topic that means a great deal to many of us on a personal level in the Administration. I know John Podesta, who will be taking part momentarily, Raj Shah, and others who are deeply, viscerally connected to this issue and all that it entails.

But it also affects every person on earth in very real ways. Climate change, food security, and resilience are interrelated challenges that we all need to be thinking about as we plan for the future, and I’m delighted that so many of you are here to think about this and to sort of take idea from laboratory to shelf, and in some cases augment what is already on the shelf.

So let me start by thanking all of the remarkable leaders who have agreed to serve on the panels coming up. Each of them are true leaders in their sectors or their countries, and you will judge that for yourselves. But particularly, we are grateful to several heads of state and the African Union chairperson herself, leaders from the private sector, in addition from the nonprofit world – all of the partners that we really need if we’re going to be able to achieve what we want to achieve and to get this right.

I want to especially thank the two moderators of the panel – the Administrator of USAID Raj Shah, who I’ve already mentioned, and John Podesta, likewise. Finally, thank you to the Second Lady of the United States, Jill Biden, who will join us here a little later to share some of her thoughts.

When you talk about food security, it doesn’t take very long to have the name, Norman Borlaug, come up. Norman would have been 100 years old this year, and he dedicated his entire life and career to feeding the world’s hungry. He won a Nobel Prize for his work. And he pursued that path for one reason. As he put it, “You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery,” pretty simple.

It’s been five years since Norman passed away, and you don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to understand that the statistics around hunger today are nowhere near what he hoped for. Every day, 8,000 children die because they don’t have enough to eat. They don’t have a healthy, nutritious diet – 8,000 children every single day. Around the world, one in eight people suffers from chronic hunger. And in Sub-Sahara Africa, that number, regrettably, is one in four.
So looking to the future, it’s only going to become more difficult to bring these numbers down, if you look at the realities of what is happening. For one thing, over the next several decades, the population of Earth is expected to grow and it’s expected to grow quickly. The 7 billion people that we’re focused on feeding today is going to become more than 9 billion people by 2050 – 35 years. And more than half of this population growth, I would add, is expected to occur in Africa.

But on top of that, the growing impacts of climate change are going to put extraordinary stress on our ability to be able to produce the amount of food that we need to be able to feed those increasing numbers, and, I might add, to feed from increasing numbers from increasingly – from agricultural locations that are increasingly under greater stress and duress.
Now, one thing to understand here this afternoon: We’re not talking about some distant future. We’re not talking about some pie-in-the-sky unproven set of theories as they were in the earliest days of population growth or other challenges that we face. The impacts of climate change are already being felt everywhere in the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic and everywhere in between and around. And they’re only going to get worse unless we are successful next year in President Obama’s and many other leaders’ goal to go to Paris and get a global agreement with respect to the reduction of greenhouse gases.

All you have to do is look at the extreme conditions that farmers are dealing with around the world: hotter temperatures, longer droughts – just look at California, for our instance, and other parts of the world – unpredictable rainfall patterns. I just came from Delhi where they’re having torrential rains in some parts way above the levels they’ve ever had, and as – India as a whole, 25 percent below their average. Intense wildfires, and you can run the list; I’m not going to run it today. But there’s a legitimate question that has to be asked, which is: How do livestocks thrive or even survive under those conditions? What happens if the great rivers of the Himalayas that literally are the life source for so many billions of people on both sides begin to be diverted and dry up because the glaciers are disappearing and the snow levels change?

All you have to do is look at our ocean. The same carbon pollution that drives climate change is literally changing the ocean’s chemistry. And we just had two days of a major conference in the State Department on the subject of the oceans. That is making it more and more difficult for species like clams and mussels to exist in its waters. Crustacea, all crustacea, are affected by increased acidity.

Between ocean acidification, over-pollution – excessive pollution and overfishing, the three great challenges of the ocean, our fish stocks are in serious trouble in almost every fishery of the world. And what will that mean for the 3 billion people who today exist on seafood as their major source of protein? In some African countries, the importance of fish to nutrition and to their economies is particularly high. In Sierra Leone, 70 percent of the animal protein people absorb comes from fish. In Ghana, it’s 51 percent. In Gambia, 49 percent. So what will people do if those fish stocks change because the ecosystem itself begins to collapse?
But the intersection between climate change and food is not just about quantity. We’re now seeing that carbon pollution is also making some of the food that we do grow less nutritious than it used to be. For example, rising carbon dioxide levels translate into lower levels of zinc and iron in wheat and other cereal grains. This means that people not only struggle to have enough food to eat; they may also suffer from a so-called hidden hunger; they’re eating, but they’re still deficient in certain micronutrients that keep them healthy.

President Obama has made clear how committed he is to cutting carbon pollution and reducing emissions, and this Administration has taken unprecedented, unilateral administrative steps in order to try to keep faith with those promises. But we also have to make sure that we are asking ourselves: On top of our efforts to deal with the causes of climate change, how do we help ensure that farmers, fishermen, and the billions who depend on the food that they produce are able to endure the climate impacts that are already being felt, let alone yet to come?
The answer is clear: By focusing our efforts on the intersection of climate and food security, by adopting creative solutions that increase food production and build resilience to climate change, all the while cutting greenhouse gases. That’s how you do it.

And now, another part of this story is that certain agricultural processes can actually release carbon pollution and help contribute to the problem in the first place. It’s a twisted circle, always complicated. But we also know there are ways to change that. For example, rather than convert natural areas to new farmland, a process that typically releases significant amounts of carbon pollution, we can instead concentrate our efforts on making existing farmlands more productive.
Now this is an area where African leaders have actually been ahead and significantly ahead of the game for some time. More than a decade ago, the AU launched the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program, which requires all member-states that sign on to create and implement national, effective food security investment plans. These national plans are by nature created to cater to each country’s specific needs, abilities, and limitations, and they’re actually the basis for the work that we do with African nations through various joint initiatives that we’re currently engaged in.

This year, the AU went even further, not only by naming 2014 the year of agriculture and food security, but also by launching the Malabo Declaration. This declaration requires all signatories to pursue investments that protect people and ecosystems. And each of these countries have signed on to an agreement to ensure that over the next decade or so, at least 30 percent of all African farm, pastoral, and fisher households should be resistant to climate and weather-related shocks.

Now, these are challenges that have frankly been on the top of President Obama’s agenda since he first came into office. I know that they were there the day that I sat down with him to discuss becoming Secretary of State. And he told me that food security was one of those looming issues that he really wanted to make a difference on and address. And he’s proven as much by spearheading a number of initiatives in order to do just that.
Feed the Future, his signature initiative, is supporting farmers in 19 different countries, including 12 in Africa, by investing in various ways to make the food that they farm more plentiful, more accessible, and more nutritious.

Another important initiative that President Obama launched is the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. At the 2012 G8 Summit at Camp David, several African heads of state, corporate leaders, and G8 members pledged to help raise 50 million people out of poverty in Africa by 2022 by increasing private investment in agriculture. After two years, the New Alliance now includes 10 African countries, 180 African and international companies, and it has leveraged 8 billion in planned private investment in agriculture. Commitment to this partnership is strong, and we are looking forward to announcing more updates throughout this week.
These initiatives are actually really making a difference, my friends. But in light of the enormity of this challenge, they are not going to be enough by themselves. We need more governments, more businesses, more research institutions, more civil society, more people all over the world focused on improving agricultural productivity, on investing in innovation and technology like seeds that withstand drought and floods, and on ensuring the world’s agricultural sector is operating as sustainably as possible.

That is the idea behind the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture. Now I know that governments and other partners around the world are still in the process of deciding exactly what this alliance is all about; what’s it going to look like? But I encourage all to get on board, particularly countries and organizations represented here at the African Leaders Summit. This is a priority for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who will hope to formally launch this initiative at the Climate Summit in New York this September. And today, I’m happy to announce that the United States intends to formally sign on.

I know that several other – (applause) – I know that several other African countries here are prepared to make similar announcements, and we are working together to produce a declaration announcing our mutual intent to join this effort. Let me add that we are planning to leave this document open until the end of this leaders summit, and we invite as many other leaders as possible to join us in committing to the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture.

So obviously, we have to continue to foster efforts like this. This is a gigantic initiative. And all of us who have had the privilege of traveling somewhere in the world, almost anywhere, have seen too many pockets of poverty, including right here in the United States – too many people still struggling, too many kids going to bed at night hungry, and perhaps in some cases never waking up to see the next day. We also have to continue to innovate, and we have to, above all, cooperate. That’s how we’re all going to help end hunger and malnutrition and cut carbon pollution and improve the resilience of our farms, our forests, our fisheries. And if we do that, we will live up to our responsibilities for the future that help empower another generation that follow to do the same.

Now, I think that all of us know what Norman Borlaug believed is absolutely true: Whether you’re talking about countries in Africa or right here in North America, when people don’t have to worry about where their next meal will come from, they have a greater ability to fulfill their dreams and become constructive, contributing citizens of the world.

Like so many of the global issues that we deal with, what we have here is a question of political will. We have solutions, but none of these solutions will implement themselves. The will of governments, of companies, of civil society, of research institutes and international organizations – all of these are the key. We know the challenges. We know what it’s going to take to address them. It’s a matter of all sectors coming together, applying their energies and efforts to make sure that we make the right decisions, the right commitments, so that millions of families living in poverty – really, an anachronism – it’s so contrary to everything that’s possible when we look at the affluence in so many parts of the world. We can change this. We can set goals and we can pledge money, but unless people’s lives have improved, unless we buy into the realities of what’s staring us in the face in terms of better agriculture and better food production, the better distribution we will fail.

So that is exactly what this portion of the African Leaders summit is all about, and let’s get started. We have a terrific panel. It’s my pleasure to turn it over to my friend and my colleague and a great advocate for this, a passionate advocate for this, the Administrator of USAID Raj Shah. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT WORLD FOOD PRIZE CEREMONY

FROM:   U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

Remarks at the World Food Prize Ceremony

Remarks

John Kerry

Secretary of State

Dean Acheson Auditorium

Washington, DC

June 18, 2014

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Ken, thank you very, very much for reminding me of the years that have passed. (Laughter.) And first, let me begin with a profound apology to everybody here. I don’t make it a practice to run over your schedules; unfortunately the world is not cooperating with mine today. (Laughter.) So I was not able to get down here in time, and I’m going from here upstairs for the unveiling of former Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s portrait, which was supposed to start about half an hour ago. So you see what’s happening. This is sequential.

I’m very, very grateful to all of you, and I understand you had a young piano player – I just met him a few minutes ago who entertained you for a good period of time, and I think everybody should say – I don’t know where he is, but I’m looking for him. (Applause.) A profound thank you. There he is. I’ll just let you all know that in the brief time I had to say hello to him, he let me know he plans to be Secretary of State. So – (laughter) – good plans.

Ken, thank you. It really is special for me to be able to be here with Ken Quinn – Ambassador Quinn. All the way back to Ken’s six years working as a rural development advisor in the Mekong Delta – six years – he has really understood how closely food security is connected to peace and to stability. And last year, Ken and I had an opportunity to reminisce a little bit about the time we did spend together, 45 years ago now, in a beautiful, beautiful community called Sa Dac. It’s a little hamlet on the Mekong River, where we were both serving during that period of time – the difficult time in Southeast Asia. And our friendship has endured and I’m so happy to see that he, like the energy bunny, is just still at it. He never stops. So thank you, Ken, very, very much.

I want to thank Assistant Secretary Charlie Rivkin, also the son of a Foreign Service officer, a former ambassador, for bringing this remarkable group of diplomats and development professionals together – people from all over the world who are committed to the fight against hunger and to the fight to lift men and women out of poverty – and I’m delighted that they are here. And your excellencies, our various ambassadors, and distinguished guests, thank you for being here with us.

I particularly want to single out my friend Tom Harkin, who is here. Tom and I came to the United States Senate together – the class of 1984, elected in ’84, sworn in ’85. We came with a couple of guys named Al Gore, Mitch McConnell, Paul Simon – a great class, and Tom and I took our maiden voyages as freshman senators overseas to Central America in 1985. And in between Tom’s accomplishments as chairman of the agriculture committee and his efforts to support innovation and research, not just for Iowa but across the world, he will leave an extraordinary legacy in the Senate – the Americans with Disabilities Act – and also really the leader in the Senate on the issue of food security. So Tom, we thank you for your incredible service in the United States Senate. (Applause.)

And Barbara Grassley, thank you for being here, indeed, and making this a bipartisan affair, which is great, and that’s in the Iowa best tradition. I want you all to know, I grew incredibly fond of Iowa. I spent a lot of time – (laughter) – lot of time in Iowa. Loved it. I celebrated New Year’s Eve way back in 2003, 2004 with my 300 best friends in Sioux City, and we had a great time. We had a great time. I actually learned to measure my life by the height of the corn while I was there. (Laughter.) It was a lot of fun.

There is no group of people more committed, obviously, to the challenge of food security than all of you who are here in this room today. So this an opportune, appropriate moment for me to make an announcement of my own about the person who will be leading our food security efforts here at the State Department going forward. She’s someone that I turned to 18 years ago when AIDS in Africa was an issue that very few people talked about – very few people dared to talk about. And no one had really constructed a policy. She was the person who led my efforts, who worked with me and Bill Frist on the first AIDS bill that passed the Senate. We went to Jesse Helms, actually got his support, managed to pass this bill at a different point of time of the United States Senate, unanimously in the United States Senate. And I’m proud that this bill ultimately became PEPFAR as we know it today.

When I first sat down with President Obama to talk about being Secretary of State, he told me then that food security was one of these looming, emerging issues that he really wanted to make a mark on, that he wanted to address. He felt compelled to for a lot of different reasons. And Nancy Stetson was the first person that I thought of to lead that effort at the State Department, so I want you all to welcome with me my new Special Representative for Global Food Security Dr. Nancy Stetson, who is right here in the front row. Thank you. (Applause.)
Actually, it’s a little bit of irony here playing out today – serendipity. Both Nancy and Ken have actually crossed paths before, which is great in terms of working on this, because they were both absolutely pivotal in our efforts to ultimately make peace with Vietnam. And by that I mean to really put to bed the residual issues of that war, which were encapsulated in the issue of POW/MIA and the fact that we still had an embargo. And Nancy did unbelievable work in that effort. I saw so many of the benefits of that work and how closely we worked together when I visited Vietnam for the first time as Secretary. I’ve seen the product of that.

And on that visit I had a chance to go down the Mekong again, where 45 years ago the threats on the Mekong, as Ken has alluded to, came from snipers and came out of spider holes and ambushes. Today it’s a place where there’s a very different kind of threat and a very different kind of atmosphere. For farmers and fishermen along that river, threats from climate change are not a gathering storm, they’re here. The consequences are already being felt. They’re threatening food supplies and they’re threatening the way of life for millions of people.
I just want you to think about what’s happening here. This is a waterway, the Mekong, that has been the lifeblood of an entire region for thousands of years, one of the great rivers of the planet. Today its ability to supply food to the millions who depend on it is under serious strain; could conceivably be eliminated, depending on what we choose to do. And what I saw along the Mekong River recently is not too different from what we see in our rivers, in our lakes, in our oceans. We just had a two-day conference here on the oceans. The vitality of these ecosystems and their ability to be able to provide food to billions across the planet is under stress like never before. With our ocean conference, we brought leaders from across the world to discuss how we meet these challenges, especially threats to food supplies. We have billions of people who depend on their protein – about half of the world, really, of today’s population, depends on significant source of protein from the fish that they can catch.

So I was proud to announce yesterday an initiative that will make all seafood sold in the United States traceable, allowing all consumers to see that the fish that have been caught was caught sustainably, that they know where it came from, how it came to the market, and how long ago it came to the market. That is how we are going to use the size of our market to drive changes and attitudes and behavior around the world. And it’s just one step. But for the more than three billion people across the world who depend on fish for protein, we are committed to doing whatever we can to preserve their access to it.

Now, as all of you know, there is a lot of work left to be done. Just last month, the Chicago council released a study showing how hotter temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more intense weather events could slow food production by 2 percent a decade for the rest of the century. That report came on top of findings from an elite group of retired U.S. military leaders who said that because of frequent drought and depleted crop yields, climate change is already, now, a catalyst of global conflict. People fighting over water; it’s already happening. In some parts of Africa you can find tribes that fight over water, and this will grow worse if that water supply grows – diminishes.

Now, frankly, we shouldn’t need to be told what happens when food becomes scarce and food prices spike. It obviously can plunge millions of people into poverty. It can feed vicious cycles of desperation and violence. And that is why the struggle for food is truly the struggle for life itself. Because when access to food is limited, so is what we can achieve by investing in public health, which we try to do. So is what we can accomplish by investing in schools or in infrastructure or in conflict prevention. That’s why the work to promote food security is, in fact, so vital to every single thing that we try to do here at the State Department and at USAID.
Everyone in this room knows, and Ken alluded to it, when Norman Borlaug accomplished to spark a Green Revolution. By inventing hardier crops and new species, he was able to save – that effort saved nearly one billion lives on our planet. And when you do the math, when our planet needs to support two billion more people in the next three decades, it’s not hard to figure out that this is the time for a second green revolution.

That’s why Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram is being honored now with the World Food Prize, and we’re grateful for the hundreds of new species of wheat that Dr. Rajaram has developed. These will deliver more than 200 million more tons of grain to global markets each year. And Dr. Rajaram has helped to feed millions of people across the world through his lifetime of research and innovation.

That’s what President Obama’s feed the food initiative – Feed the Future Initiative is all about: bringing the full force of American research and innovation to the global food markets; funding research at universities like Kansas State and Washington State to make crops more resilient to climate change, to climate shocks; supporting scientists and students at Michigan State who are connecting farmers to markets and strengthening global food chains.

This research is really a small piece of how Feed the Future is working to fight global hunger and to promote food security across 11 different U.S. Government agencies. These efforts were born out of the President’s commitment at the 2009 G8 Summit, when a commitment was made to mobilize at least 3.5 billion in public funding for global food security which leveraged more than 18 billion from other donors.

Last month, I had the pleasure and the privilege of being in Ethiopia, and I visited one of these partnerships at work. Working with DuPont and 35,000 small farmers in that country, we’ve been able to increase maize productivity by 60 percent. Feed the Future is also improving access to nutritious food where it’s needed most, where pregnant women and their children are at the risk of not getting proper nutrition. Feed the Future emphasizes nutrition during the thousand days from a woman’s pregnancy to her child’s second birthday. And the science shows us exactly how critical, how important that outcome is. When children don’t receive the nutrition that they need during that critical period, their chance of success at school is dramatically reduced. That’s proven. And as adults, if that happens, you wind up with a chronic deficiency through your life. You never make up for it, and it’s harder, then, to compete for fair participation in society to compete for a good job.

That’s why targeted investments in prenatal and early childhood nutrition are in fact a moral imperative. That’s why we invested more that 12.5 – we invested to provide more than 12.5[i] children with nutritional support and higher quality food options for 2013. And when we know that agriculture is often the most effective way to pull people out of poverty, investing in food security is obviously also then an economic imperative.

The growth of food supplies means the growth of the middle class. That means larger markets for American products, more jobs, and ultimately that means a stronger middle class right here at home in the United States.

At the G8 Summit two years ago, President Obama announced a new effort to grow the world’s middle class by supporting agriculture in Africa. It’s called the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, and here is how it works – let me just take a moment to share it with you. Partners from the private sector outline plans to make responsible investments in agriculture within African nations. The nations themselves commit to making reforms that attract private investment. And by bringing these partners together and attracting support from global donors, the New Alliance aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty by 2022. The New Alliance has already attracted $7 billion in pledges, and from the private sector another 700 – 970[ii] million was invested last year alone.

Across Africa, agricultural productivity remains unnecessarily low, while hunger and under-nutrition remain dismally high. In partnering with African countries, Feed the Future and the New Alliance obviously have incredible potential. Harnessing that potential – especially in the face of climate change – will be a critical part of President Obama’s African Leaders Summit this summer, in the early part of August, first week of August. We will have more than 40 African leaders coming here to the State Department for a two-day summit – very, very, critical, and this will be one of the major subjects that we will broach.

So when it comes to food security, make no mistake: Our challenges are great, yes. But so is our capacity to meet them. When I think of what is required to strengthen global food security, I do think back to what I saw years ago in the Mekong Delta and what I saw last winter, the differential. But I also think about a Vietnamese proverb that Ambassador Quinn may know quite well – and he speaks Vietnamese fluently; I don’t, but I can get by with this. It’s: Cai kho lo cai khon. It means that adversity breeds creativity; the necessity, the mother of invention. And what that really means for all of us is actually quite simple: Innovation and invention are the way forward and the way that we can face the challenges of food security and climate.

When it comes to climate change, when it comes to food security, we are literally facing a moment of adversity – perhaps even dire necessity. It’s hard to convince people – hard to convince people of a challenge that isn’t immediately tangible to everybody particularly. But it is clear to at least 98, 99 percent of all the scientists in our country that to confront these challenges, we must invent and we must innovate, and most of all, we need to work together and we need to get to work. I have every confidence that we can do that. That is our mission. It’s our call to conscience as citizens of this fragile planet, and I am convinced that with people like Ken and all of you and the others who committed to this effort to feed people on this planet and to strengthen our unity as a consequence of those efforts, we can and will make the difference.
Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.)

[i] 12.5 million

[ii] For 2013, companies reported making $970 million worth of investments

U.S. URGES SUPPORTING GLOBAL AGRICULTURE, FOOD SECURITY

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 

United States Urges Partner Countries To Increase Support for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

April 12, 2014

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Trust Fund Produces High Impact, Sustainable Results in the Global Fight against Poverty and Hunger

The Secretaries of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of State yesterday sent a letter to international partner countries urging nations around the world to expand their support for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP).
The United States spearheaded the creation of GAFSP in the wake of the 2007-2008 food price crisis. It assists in the implementation of pledges made by the G-20 in Pittsburgh in September 2009. GAFSP promotes food security by providing merit-based financing for the agricultural sector in low-income countries, with a focus on smallholder farmers in poor communities. GAFSP financing and technical assistance helps to increase agricultural productivity, link farmers to markets, reduce risk and vulnerability, and improve rural livelihoods. Managed by the World Bank, GAFSP is a multi-donor trust fund and partnership among developing countries, development partners, civil society, and the private sector.
“Since GAFSP was established, we have seen sustainable reductions in hunger and malnutrition, but the challenge of meeting the global demand for food is just as pressing as ever,” wrote Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew and Secretary of State John F. Kerry. “We are proud to champion this innovative program, and we call upon our international partners to join us in supporting the work of GAFSP. Together, we can make progress in the effort to eradicate hunger and poverty.”

As leaders gather for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund 2014 Spring Meetings this week, yesterday’s letter highlights the important role that GAFSP is playing in supporting the efforts of some of the world’s poorest countries in alleviating hunger and malnutrition. The letter calls on international partners to pledge additional support to meet funding goals for GAFSP. In October 2012, the United States challenged the international community to provide much needed funding for food security, by committing to contribute $1 to GAFSP for every $2 from other donors, up to a maximum U.S. contribution of $475 million. Since the announcement of the funding challenge, other donors have provided $230 million in new pledges. An additional $720 million in pledges from other donors is needed in order to fully leverage matching funds from the United States.

GAFSP consistently produces high impact, sustainable results, and the program is expected to improve the livelihoods of at least 13 million farmers across 25 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Already, some countries have seen rural incomes increase by more than 200 percent. In Bangladesh, GAFSP has already reached more than 430,000 farmers in the first two years of a five-year program, providing smallholder producers with training and improved drought- and heat-tolerant seeds and fertilizer that will help farmers adapt to climate change. Two and a half years into its five year-long Rwanda project, GAFSP has already reached more than 92,000 direct beneficiaries, of which half are women. By helping to increase soil fertility in hillside areas, GAFSP has enabled farmers to improve their yields by an average of fourfold across various crops. GAFSP has also supported the introduction of new high nutrient crop varieties that could improve nutritional outcomes for farmers and their families.

STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL'S COMMENTS ON POSTHARVEST LOSS AND FOOD SECURITY

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Food Security and Minimizing Postharvest Loss
Remarks
Robert D. Hormats
Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment
Marshall Center East Auditorium
Washington, DC
February 19, 2013

Thank you for participating in today’s conference on post-harvest losses. In particular, I would like to thank many of you here today. Your work to reduce post-harvest losses and support food security and sustainability throughout the globe is critical. Finding and supporting efforts to stop post-harvest food loss has been a high priority for me since I took this job over three years ago.

Especially because the measures to avoid post-harvest losses are within reach if we and other countries take bold action.

The scale of post-harvest food loss is tragic. Nearly one-third of global agricultural production never makes it to the consumer or arrives in poor condition. Beyond the threat to food security, post-harvest losses adversely affect farmers and consumers in the lowest income groups. And, post-harvest food losses are a waste of valuable farming inputs, such as water, energy, land, labor, and capital. Having lived in East Africa earlier in my life, I saw the magnitude of post-harvest food losses in that region, and the tragic repercussions for human hunger, loss of farmer income, and harm to economic growth.

I have discussed the importance of reducing post-harvest losses in my meetings with leaders in India, Africa, and other parts of the world—and, indeed, at the G-8 and at APEC. Post-harvest losses can be reduced through:
The development and dissemination of regionally-appropriate technologies and techniques, and
Adoption of policies and incentives for investment in post-harvest infrastructure.
Developing New Technologies and Techniques

First, it’s important to develop technologies and techniques to reduce post-harvest losses that are appropriate to the needs of local communities. Needs vary widely, depending on crop type, region, weather, and other variables. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The U.S. government is taking a comprehensive approach to helping countries solve the problem of post-harvest food loss. This includes, the Obama Administration’s Feed the Future initiative, which promotes a series of programs to reduce post-harvest losses. In Ghana, for example, Feed the Future is improving grain storage through better technology and processing techniques.

And, at the 2012 G8 Summit at Camp David, President Obama, other G8 leaders, and leaders from African partner countries launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition.

The Alliance emphasizes engaging more partners from the private sector in these efforts and taking bold steps to reduce post-harvest food losses.

Indeed, a number of world-class companies, such as ADM, Cargill, Ingersoll-Rand, and Walmart, have already successfully deployed food storage and preservation technologies in several regions of the world. These companies are making a difference—supporting local farmers by efficiently moving their food products to store shelves with little loss.

In addition, companies such as ADM, NGO and individual donors, and many others are investing in universities and research institutions—such as at the University of Illinois and at the University of California, Davis—to carry out cutting-edge research programs, some of which you will hear more about during today’s program.

Several entrepreneurs have also stepped up to develop new technologies and approaches to reduce food loss. I recently met with Promethean Power Systems—a start-up co-founded by an MIT graduate and a Boston entrepreneur. They have partnered with an Indian company called Icelings to develop a solar-powered refrigeration system for transporting fruits and vegetables from rural farms to city markets. Technologies like this will improve the livelihoods of farmers in India by reliably getting their produce to market and will help consumers by increasing the availability of food. In June 2012, Secretary Clinton awarded the Promethean-Icelings partnership the first ever grant of the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund.

There are many examples of new technologies and techniques being developed to reduce post-harvest food loss. These innovative solutions are essential.

Policies and Incentives to Invest in Post-Harvest Loss Mitigation

But even with the right technology solutions, many countries lack meaningful incentives, affordable financing options, and necessary government policies to encourage farmers to adopt efficient practices. Many countries lack the incentives for retailers to invest in equipment, facilities, and stores needed to reduce food loss and broaden market opportunities. And, government policies and regulations in some countries make it difficult for investments to be profitable. That’s why—in addition to developing new technologies and techniques—it is critical that governments adopt policies that encourage greater investment in post-harvest storage and distribution network infrastructures.

Some important progress is being made.

I recently returned from a trip to India, where I met with government officials who have taken steps to open India’s multi-brand retail sector to encourage foreign direct investment. This policy shift was aimed, in part, at building modern food supply chains, developing cold storage infrastructure, and improving overall agricultural efficiency and sustainability in India. Foreign direct investment in the multi-brand retail sector—as well as the development of India’s own storage and distribution industry and post-harvest technologies—are critical for India’s overall economic growth prospects as well as for the success of its agricultural sector.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh explained that an organized and efficient retail sector "will help to ensure that a third of our fruits and vegetables, which at present are wasted because of storage and transit losses, actually reach the consumer." Prime Minister Singh makes a compelling point—one that was echoed in my meetings with the Global Cold Chain Alliance’s India Division and the Agra Cold Storage Owners Association.

I have heard similar sentiments in other parts of the world. The need for investment in post-harvest infrastructure is clear and present. It’s time to remove bottlenecks and unlock business investment. The Department of State, USAID, and others in the U.S. government are working with foreign governments across the globe to help facilitate and make viable investment in post-harvest infrastructure.

Meeting the food demands of an ever-increasing world population presents a major challenge for the 21st century. Among the most important and efficient ways to improve food security, nutrition, and incomes for millions of small farmers is to make certain that every bushel of wheat, liter of milk, or kilogram of rice that is produced is stored properly and delivered efficiently from farm to table. A great deal of work is being done to improve agricultural productivity in a sustainable way around the world. But, at the same time, we must also work to ensure that goods produced by farmers actually have good markets and reach consumers in good condition. It’s high time to make solving the problem of post-harvest food losses an urgent global priority—and to make such losses a thing of the past.

Success will improve the food security of hundreds of millions of people around the world, boost the incomes of millions of small holder farmers in villages and towns throughout the world’s developing and emerging countries, and represent a giant step forward to better conserve our planet’s natural resources.

Thank you.

SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON ANNOUNCES OVER ONE BILLION DOLLARS WILL BE SPENT ON FOOD SECUREITY

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Secretary Clinton Announces Pledge From Civil Society Partners to Invest Over One Billion Dollars in Food Security
Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
September 27, 2012
On the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary Clinton announced that members from InterAction have committed to spend over a billion dollars over the next three years to support food security and nutrition worldwide.

"Civil society organizations are crucial to our success, both in the public and private sector; they have long standing relationships in communities and valuable technical expertise, and they work every single day on their commitment to try to make this world a better place for all of us" remarked Secretary Clinton during an event focused on highlighting progress under Feed the Future, and the importance of civil society organizations as key partners in achieving common food security and nutrition goals in support of country-led priorities.

InterAction, an alliance of 198 U.S.-based civil society organizations, committed its members to spend over a billion dollars of private, non-government funds to improve food security and nutrition worldwide over the next three years. Of that, five U.S.-based organizations, World Vision, Heifer International, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children and ChildFund International together committed to investing 900 million dollars to advance these goals. They will report progress annually at the time of the UN General Assembly meetings each September.

Feed the Future is the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative. With a focus on smallholder farmers—women and men, and their children—Feed the Future supports partner countries in developing their agriculture sectors to spur broad-based economic growth and improve nutrition.

U.S. OFFICIAL’S REMARKS AT OAS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

FROM :  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Remarks to the 42nd OAS General Assembly
Remarks Roberta S. Jacobson
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs As prepared for delivery
Cochabamba, Bolivia
June 4, 2012
(Remarks delivered by Ambassador Carmen Lomellin, United States Permanent Representative to the OAS)
I want to begin by thanking President Evo Morales, Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, and Assistant Secretary Albert Ramdin for organizing and hosting this 42nd General Assembly of the Organization of the American States.

It is a pleasure to be with all of you in Cochabamba to advance this dialogue that is so important to all the citizens of our hemisphere, and indeed, all the citizens of the world.

Mr. Chair, the United States is deeply committed to food security. Shortly after taking office, President Obama identified addressing global hunger and food insecurity as one of the top priorities of this administration. Over the past three years, the United States has launched an unprecedented effort to forge a strong and swift global response to alleviate the misery of chronic hunger that affects an estimated 1 billion people around the world.

This global campaign began with the commitments made by President Obama and our partners at the G-8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy in July 2009. The United States pledged $3.5 billion over three years to fight global hunger that helped to leverage and align resources from other partners and donors. Our efforts ultimately mobilized more than $22 billion for a global food security initiative to revitalize investment in the agricultural sectors of poor countries and increase food supply for the neediest among us.

In May 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched “Feed the Future,” a comprehensive effort by the United States to enhance food security. We have focused on investing in nutrition and agricultural development to reduce hunger, while addressing critical emergency needs through humanitarian food assistance. At the Camp David Summit last month, President Obama announced the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a shared commitment to achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth in Africa to raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years, in partnership with the G-8 countries, Africa’s leadership, and private sector support.

President Obama has described combating food insecurity as a moral imperative, an economic imperative, and a security imperative. And this imperative extends to the Americas, as our Bolivian hosts have so rightly recognized. Despite marked progress in reducing levels of malnutrition, the stark fact remains that the levels of food security in our hemisphere still do not match our natural abundance. Our region is now a major agricultural supplier to the world, but every day millions of people in the Americas still struggle to put food on the table, and every night too many children still go to bed hungry.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, an estimated 53 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean were undernourished in 2010. And the repercussions of food insecurity go far beyond its impacts on health and life expectancy. Food scarcity can deepen social tensions, contribute to levels of crime and violence, and even undermine the quality of democratic governance. As a noted French essayist wrote nearly two hundred years ago, “The destiny of nations depends on the manner in which they feed themselves.” Today, those words still ring true.

If we can help the rural poor produce more food and sell it in thriving local, regional, and global markets, we can decrease chronic hunger today and build an ample food supply for tomorrow.

Our flagship “Feed the Future” program targets investments in poor rural areas of three focus countries in the Americas: Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti. Over the next five years, these programs will assist almost one million vulnerable women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. We have advanced with Brazil our trilateral partnership in Honduras and Haiti, and we salute Brazil's leadership in our work together to improve health and food security in Africa. This cooperation provides concrete examples of how, working as equal partners, we can seek to spark positive economic growth that allows people and nations to rise from poverty.

Indeed, in addressing the problem of food security, we need to build on the important policy lessons learned over the past two decades. Governments must create sound policy environments that foster clear property rights and encourage domestic and foreign investment. Farmers need to have access to improved agricultural technology and the training to use it effectively. And, critically, real food security depends on lowering barriers to agricultural trade. While we all recognize that each government in this room, including my own, faces important political and economic constraints to further opening trade in agricultural products, this step would contribute markedly to hemispheric food security.

Moreover, fighting hunger is not an isolated challenge. Our efforts can only be sustainable when based in a strategy to promote socially inclusive economic growth. And this will require partnership between donor and partner countries, civil society, international organizations, and the local and multinational private sector.
Mr. Chair, the United States is certain that by working together, the members of the OAS can contribute collectively to food security at both the hemispheric and global levels. But to achieve that ambition, we must safeguard the political and economic progress that we have made to date.

In our work to contribute to global common goods – on issues as diverse as food security, climate change, or combating transnational crime – we know that our common cause does not compromise sovereignty, but safeguards it. As Secretary Clinton has said, “We must turn the Americas, already a community of shared history, geography, culture, and values, into something greater – a shared platform for global success.” That is why we must strive to strengthen the underpinnings of our democratic societies – good governance, responsive institutions, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms – that are essential elements of democracy and the founding principles of this Organization. As enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, we are bound to uphold the dignity of all persons by honoring their human, political, and civil rights to participate fully and freely in our societies.

This is a useful moment to remind ourselves that the Charter indicates that “freedom of expression and of the press are essential components in the exercise of democracy.” When citizens or media outlets speak out, dissent, or criticize, they are ensuring that this essential component is functioning as designed. We celebrate that our hemisphere has codified this profound truth, and undertake to ensure that these freedoms are always preserved. We should collectively value this record and seek to build upon it.

At this General Assembly in Cochabamba, we will adopt a Social Charter that, as a complement to the Inter-American Democratic Charter, will improve economic opportunity, social inclusion, and respect for human rights.

We will pass a resolution that continues the discussion on strengthening the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and we will agree on a document that ensures the autonomy and independence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

We must stand together in full and robust support for these accomplishments along with our inter-American institutions and principles. In recent months, our discussions have sometimes seemed as if we are seeking to weaken the fabric that binds us together in the inter-American system, rather than focusing on how the countries of the Americas can work together to address the issues that most concern our citizens. I sincerely hope that this General Assembly will mark an inflection point that will guide us back to our core values and how we can work collectively to advance them.

Mr. Chair, let me conclude by reaffirming the commitment of the United States, and my personal commitment, to work with all of you in the spirit of genuine and equal partnership, to advance liberty and prosperity for all the citizens of the hemisphere.
Thank you.