19
Oct
2022
Watch
Global food security as follow-up to the G20 Agriculture Ministers meeting (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. 828 million people are hungry and don't know what to eat tomorrow. Our primary task must be to equip the World Food Programme to provide acute assistance. But we also need to address the long-term causes – why are so many people starving? One reason is the climate catastrophe. You only look around in Africa. Many countries no longer have harvests. That is why the fight against climate catastrophe is our primary task. Putin, yes, uses hunger as an instrument in war. But we also need to see clearly: Poverty is the main cause of hunger. Inequitable distribution of food is a core problem. And that's why we have to deal with it: How do we deal with food in Europe? We're still putting grain in the tank. We are still putting a lot of grain in the feed trough – that needs to change. Above all, we need to make our systems sustainable. This is only possible with agroecological systems. We must stop the fact that our agriculture is extremely dependent on fossil energy in many areas. We have to get away from that. And then we have truly sustainable agricultural systems, including in Europe.