“Sharing power with women is a shortcut to reducing hunger and malnutrition, and is the single most effective step to realizing the right to food,” the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“Family agriculture has become gradually feminized, with men frequently moving away from the farm in search of work. Yet the women who increasingly face the burden of sustaining farms and families are too often denied the tools to thrive and improve their situation – on and off the farm.”

While De Schutter welcomed initiatives to empower women such as quotas in Indian public worker schemes, he warned that there are multiple barriers to female participation in society which need to be addressed.

“Women will not benefit from female quotas in work schemes if no provision is made for childcare services,” he said. “Individual measures will not suffice – gender roles and responsibilities must be challenged holistically and systematically.”

De Schutter said one of the measures that must be implemented immediately is the removal of all discriminatory laws and practices that prevent women from accessing farming resources such as land, inputs and credit.

He also called for women to be relieved of the burdens of care responsibilities in the home through the provision of adequate public services such as childcare, running water and electricity. Taking care of children and fetching water can amount to the equivalent of 15 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in middle-income countries, and as much as 35 per cent in low-income countries, he said.

The right to education is also vital, De Schutter said, as data shows that from 1970-1995 as much as 55 per cent of the reduction in hunger can be attributed to improvements in women’s situation in society.

“If women are allowed to have equal access to education, various pieces of the food security jigsaw will fall into place,” Mr. De Schutter said. “Household spending on nutrition will increase, child health outcomes will improve, and social systems will be redesigned – for women, by women – to deliver support with the greatest multiplier effects.”

The Special Rapporteur called on countries to actively redistribute traditional gender roles and responsibilities while still being sensitive to the constraints of women. Less labour-intensive assets such as poultry can be provided to them, he said, along with extensive asset management and social development training.

“There is a fine line between taking into account specific constraints and reinforcing gender roles and stereotypes,” he said. “Food security strategies should be judged on their ability to challenge gender roles and to truly empower women. Gender sensitivity is important, but is not a substitute for empowerment.”

Independent experts, or special rapporteurs, are appointed by the Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

A UN mission undertaken from 18 to 22 January found that cereal, fruit and vegetable production has been halved in some areas, which have also seen massive destruction of irrigation and other infrastructure, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“The mission was struck by the plight of the Syrian people whose capacity to cope is dramatically eroded by 22 months of crisis,” said Dominique Burgeon, Director of FAO’s Emergency and Rehabilitation Division, who joined with representatives of six other UN agencies in the mission led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“Destruction of infrastructure in all sectors is massive and it is clear that the longer the conflict will last, the longer it will take to rehabilitate it,” he added.

Affected areas in the capital, Damascus, as well as in the governorates of Homs and Dera’a were visited by the mission, which was coordinated with both the Government and the opposition.

The mission found that vegetable, fruit and olive production declined significantly in both Homs and Dera’a governorates, including a 60 per cent drop in vegetable production in Homs and a 40 per cent drop in olive oil production in Dera’a.

The production of poultry, a traditional source of cheap animal protein, has also been severely hit with major farms destroyed in Homs, Hama and Idlib.

In addition, movement of livestock to grazing areas has not been possible and their survival is compromised by the lack of animal feed and veterinary drugs, the importation of which is hampered by sanctions.

Of the 10 million Syrians who live in rural areas – about 46 per cent of the population – 80 per cent derive their livelihoods from agriculture, according to FAO, and the sector is critical for the survival of millions during the crisis.

“It is clear from discussions with NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and technical officers of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, that security conditions permitting, agriculture has a huge role to play in helping people to stay on their land and generate income to cope with their most urgent needs,” Mr. Burgeon said.

“They however need urgent agricultural support in terms of seeds, fertilizers, animal feed, veterinary drugs, poultry and rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure,” he said.

Meanwhile, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos, who last week sounded the alarm over catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Syria at the UN Security Council, brought her plea for an urgent ramp-up of aid to Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum has convened.

Relaying the results of the multi-agency mission, she said that agency representatives were shocked at what they saw. “They were very clear that the effect of nearly two years of conflict has had a terrible impact on people, especially on children.

“I repeat: four million people need help, two million are internally displaced and 400,000 out of 500,000 Palestinian refugees have been affected,” she said.

She said that despite the dangerous environment that humanitarian partners faced, they were making a difference. “But it is not enough, especially as we cannot keep pace with the rising number of people in acute need,” she stressed.

“We need more people, we need more partners and we need to be able to deliver more quickly,” she added, noting that the humanitarian community had also requested $1.5 billion to help displaced people and their host communities in Syria and neighbouring countries for the next six months.

A funding conference for humanitarian aid for Syria is planned for 30 January in Kuwait, to be hosted by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Emir of that country, she noted.

“We hope that the conference will yield the resources we need,” she said.

Speaking at a week-long meeting of the World Cooperatives Congress in Manchester, England, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, told gathered delegates that cooperatives can help small- and medium-scale farmers and fishermen add value to their production and gain access to wider markets.

“Cooperatives follow core values and principles that are critical to doing business in an equitable manner, that seeks to empower and benefits its members and the community it is inserted in,” said Graziano da Silva.

“This is especially relevant in poor rural communities, where joining forces is central to promoting sustainable local development,” he added.

Graziano da Silva stated that in a world that produces enough food for all and despite gains in the fight against hunger, it was “unacceptable” that close to 870 million people continue to suffer from chronic malnutrition. He further stated that greater cooperativization would help reduce hunger and poverty across poor rural communities.

“Whether you are in the UK, Brazil, Kenya, Thailand, or Nepal, cooperatives help to generate employment, boost national economies and reduce poverty,” he noted. “This, in turn, helps to improve food security.”

The FAO chief emphasized that his agency was committed to fostering the growth of agricultural cooperatives around the world and hinted at the appointment of special ambassadors for cooperatives to promote the issue, as well as develop approaches, guidelines, methodologies and training tools on organizational development and policy.

Moreover, he called on those gathered to contribute to the global plan of action expected to emerge from events held in honour of the International Year of Cooperatives – a year-long celebration currently being observed in 2012.

With as many as 19 million people living with the threat of hunger in Africa, it comes as a surprise that food can not move more freely between African countries, expecially from fertile areas to those where communities are suffering food shortages.

The new World Bank report Africa Can Help Feed Africa: Removing barriers to regional trade in food staples says that Africa’s farmers can potentially grow enough food to feed the continent if countries remove cross-border restrictions on the food trade within the region. According to the Bank, the continent would also generate an extra US$20 billion in yearly earnings if African leaders can agree to dismantle trade barriers. The report was released on the eve of an African Union (AU) ministerial summit in Addis Ababa on agriculture and trade.

According to the report, rapid urbanization will challenge the ability of farmers to ship their cereals and other foods to consumers if the nearest trade market is across a national border.

“Africa has the ability to grow and deliver good quality food to put on the dinner tables of the continent’s families,” said Makhtar Diop, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “However, this potential is not being realized because farmers face more trade barriers in getting their food to markets than anywhere else in the world. Too often borders get in the way of getting food to homes and communities which are struggling with too little to eat.”

The new report states that if the continent’s leaders can embrace a more dynamic inter-regional trade, Africa’s farmers could potentially meet the continent’s rising demand and benefit from a major growth opportunity. It would also create more jobs in services such as distribution, while reducing poverty and cutting back on expensive food imports.

Moreover, the new report notes that only five percent of all cereals imported by African countries come from other African countries while huge tracts of fertile land, around 400 million hectares, remain uncultivated.

In Africa, also poor roads blunt progress. What is more, transport cartels are still common across Africa, and there are no incentives to invest in modern trucks and logistics. The World Bank report suggests that countries in West Africa in particular could halve their transport costs within 10 years if they adopted policy reforms that spurred more competition within the region.

Other obstacles to greater African trade include export and import bans, restrictive rules of origin, and price controls. These policies are also poorly communicated to traders and officials; and this process in turn promotes confusion at border crossings.

Authorities are called to promote the establishment of a competitive market which will enhance food production and food distribution networks. The reports notes that competitive food market will help poor people the most. A good food distribution networks would benefit poor farmers and poor consumers and avoid, for example, that poor people in the slums of Nairobi pay more for their maize, rice, and other staple food than wealthy people pay for the same products in local supermarkets.

“The key challenge for the continent is how to create a competitive environment in which governments embrace credible and stable policies that encourage private investors and businesses to boost food production across the region.” said Paul Brenton, World Bank’s Lead Economist for Africa and principal author of the report.

For the time being, the World Bank Group’s continues to support trade and agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. The Bank is recognized as a key source of knowledge on trade policy issues, analysis and investments for trade-related infrastructure at the country level.

The institution’s agriculture support for Africa has grown significantly over the past decade. The share of trade-related lending in total Bank lending, for example, has grown from an average of two percent in FY03 to five percent in FY12. New trade-related commitments in FY13 are expected to increase to US$3 billion, 70 percent of which will go to Africa.

The 2012 World Food Prize was awarded to Dr. Daniel Hillel for conceiving and implementing “micro-irrigation”, a new mode of bringing water to crops in arid and dry land regions. His scientific work was able to revolutionise food production, first in the Middle East, and then in other regions around the world. His work laid the foundation for maximizing efficient water usage in agriculture, increasing crop yields, and minimizing environmental degradation.

First drawn to the critical needs of the water supply when living in the Negev Desert, the new approach Dr. Hillel developed provided for a low-volume, high-frequency, calibrated water supply to plants, which applied water in small but continuous amounts directly to the plant roots, with dramatic results in plant production and water conservation.

The development and promotion of better land and water management demonstrated that farmers no longer needed to depend on the soil’s ability to store water. Dr. Hillel proved that plants grown in continuously moist soil, achieved through micro-irrigation, produced higher yields than plants grown under the old flooding or sprinkler irrigation methods. The new technology Dr. Hillel advanced has improved the quality of life and livelihoods throughout the Middle East and around the world.

Daniel Hillel’s first posting upon returning to the nascent state of Israel in 1951 was with the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, where he took part in the first mapping of the country’s soil and irrigation resources. He soon left the Ministry to join a group of idealistic settlers dedicated to creating a viable agricultural community in the Negev Desert highlands by nurturing the region’s meager but vital resources.

In 1956 , Hillel was sent by Ben Gurion on goodwill missions to promote sustainable agricultural techniques in Burma. What followed was a long list of similar missions around the world, working for and with international agencies and organizations such as the World Bank, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, to promote water-use efficiency in Africa, Asia, and South America.

Dr. Hillel has also worked with the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Development Research Center of Canada. He is currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research, part of the Earth Institute of Columbia University, and is working on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in association with NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

He has written over 20 books on soil and water science; and published more than 300 scientific papers, research reports, and practical manuals, on healthy agro-ecosystems. His achievements have been and will continue to be essential to extending the Green Revolution, and confronting the many global challenges in fighting hunger and poverty.

Dr. Hillel’s water management concepts has been promoted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization as HELPFUL (High-frequency, Efficient, Low-volume, Partial-area, Farm-unit, Low-cost), and have spread from Israel to Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. The irrigation technology implemented by HELPFUL is now used to produce high-yielding, nutritious food on more than six million hectares worldwide.

“Agriculture is the most important sector of the African economy and will have to be its driving engine out of poverty. It accounts for 65 per cent of the continent’s employment and 75 per cent of its domestic trade,” the Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Kandeh K. Yumkella, said in a news release.

He added that Africa is also urbanizing at a fast rate, noting that “in order to turn bright prospects into employment opportunities for its young people, Africa needs to embrace economic diversification.”

Yumkella’s comments came at the Africa Caucus Meeting in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which brought together Africa’s finance ministers, central bank governors, and representatives of international development agencies and financial institutions and where he was a keynote speaker.

The Director-General stressed the need to boost agricultural productivity to achieve sustainable industrial and agribusiness development as a means of wealth and job creation.

“The transformation of agricultural raw materials into industrial products depends increasingly on the capacity of African entrepreneurs to participate and compete in global, regional and local value chains.

“Accordingly, African agribusiness value chains will have to adapt to changing market conditions, continuously improve efficiency and strive to meet consumer requirements in a competitive global trade system,” said Yumkella.

He added that Africa needs “new learning and innovation systems involving regional cooperation, new types of partnerships between farmers, sellers, investors and researchers, and the right incentives and public actions that crowd-in rather than crowd-out private investment.”

Investment in transport infrastructure, access to energy and water, information and communication technologies and management efficiency were vital for agribusiness to thrive, he noted.

In 2012, in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), UNIDO launched the Accelerated Agribusiness and Agro-industries Development Initiative, or 3ADI, to promote value addition to agricultural commodities. The initiative is now operational in 12 African nations.

These figures reflect change recorded live by pollsters in an intermission of their usual metric tasks that will keep them increasingly busy during the pre-election period that is already rolling. At the same time, people eyeing an agrarian life would really like to hear some real policy talk coming out from political parties that will ask for their vote in a month or so. Most probably, most of these people, when they hit the fields at their home village or in fields rented by the state, they will bring along their laptop and some degree of specialty of doing business; agro-business or other. This means that they will not be the usual crowd local politicians used to meet in provincial Greece. They have gone through an awakening process in the last couple of years and are about to rely on their personal efforts to escape the crisis and pursue a new level of work-life balance that could prove more productive and sustainable in terms of its finances.

The agrarian economy is a key driving force for Greece to move forward; its obvious strong points are climate conditions, the purity of the Greek land, as well as taste and history associated with the ‘Greekness’ of products. According to a study by the Agricultural University of Athens on Greek agriculture, at the top of the list of opportunities are: first, European preference for traditional products: marketing of PDO’s Greek products (Protected Designation of Origin), second, development of functional food: Greeks have the technological knowledge to develop such products; third, a tendency to Mediterranean diet: chance to market Greek vegetables and olive oil.

Greece is producing about 340 thousand tons of olive oil (13% of the world’s production), ranking third in world olive oil producers. Studies show that current production structure hardly takes any profit from the potential added value of the product. A turn of both exports and domestic demand to packaged and labeled products will considerably assist existing enterprises to upgrade their equipment and machinery and additionally will provide new employment opportunities in Greek rural areas. Combining innovation with traditional qualities in this sector could start formulating a set of practices that could bring a wider change in other agricultural sectors in the country.

The Agrarian Economy has always been associated with the survival of Greeks, especially in difficult times. It entails a strong symbolism that appears as a meaningful restart for many people who see a change in lifestyle associated with the need to change the national economic paradigm.

In the path from crisis to stability and growth, Greece has to rely primarily on its ability to change. For instance, we have to change the way we describe growth and progress (new indices should be employed to supplement our view of the economic world), we need to alter the ways we explore natural and human resources, we need to reconsider our entrepreneurial drives towards new opportunities for prosperity. Most importantly, we need to put in order key national competitive advantages, which constitute a new economic environment defined by new ways of doing business, as well as new channels of communication, promotion and commercial delivery.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya

According to the UN announcement, Ban said: “every household needs to be able to afford safe, nutritious foods”, in a  message to a high-level roundtable on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture. “Markets need to be open and fair. Women and children need better nutrition to avoid the hidden disgrace of stunting, which affects nearly 200 million children. And the poorest people need to know they can count on social protection that will not let them go hungry.”

“We want everyone to enjoy their right to food,” stated Mr. Ban. “To achieve these objectives, we need to transform the way we approach food security, in particular by unleashing the potential of millions of small farmers and food producers, of whom the majority are women.”

The Secretary-General also cited the need to encourage the production of more – and more nutritious – food while protecting natural resources, and to recognize the important links between food, water and energy.

“And as weather patterns become more unpredictable, agriculture needs to become more resilient and ‘climate-smart’,” he noted.

It is also necessary to stop wasting food along the value chain, and start reflecting the benefits of natural resources in calculating the value of food, he said, adding that only then will it be possible for governments, farmers, businesses and consumers to choose the most sustainable options for food security.

To transform agriculture and food systems, all stakeholders should be involved in decision-making, especially women and small-scale farmers and food producers, Mr. Ban stressed.

“Sustainable agriculture and food security will be best achieved when consumers and producers, and the private and public sectors agree on principles and build partnerships.”

Today’s roundtable comes less than 100 days before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20, that will be held in Brazil in June.

Sustainable development is one of the five priorities of Mr. Ban’s Action Agenda for the next five years, and food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture figure prominently in that plan. Also, his High-level Panel on Global Sustainability calls for a “21st century Green Revolution” that increases productivity while reducing resource intensity and protects biodiversity.