CLOSING REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE GORTA – WORLD FOOD DAY CONFERENCE
CLOSING REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE GORTA – WORLD FOOD DAY CONFERENCE “INVESTING IN AGRICULTURE FOR FOOD SECURITY”
Dia dhíbh a cháirde. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom.
Good afternoon and thank you for that warm welcome.
I am glad to be here today – my thanks to Brian Hanratty CEO of Gorta for his kind invitation to bring to a close the proceedings of this very special conference marking World Food Day and focussing on that big global challenge of “Investing in Agriculture for Food Security”.
On Friday last I met with James Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Programme at Áras an Uachtaráin and he was kind enough to compliment the big heart that Ireland and her people have for the world’s hungry citizens. Our prosperous nation, now at the forefront of the first world, has a deep and abiding third world memory. The story of our country was twisted into grotesque and inhuman shapes by poverty, hunger and famine and it has taken us many generations to escape from the long shadows they cast.
And across the developing world millions are still shrouded in those shadows without a clear escape and even more immediately without the certainty of a meal this evening, or tomorrow, or any of the days after that. What news do we bring them from this Conference, what hope can we muster for their tables, their stomachs and their health for access to decent and regular food is such a basic human requisite that there is no such thing as a future without it.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, European leaders recognised that food security was an absolutely necessary element of any recovery for the millions of people living in desperate poverty across a devastated Europe. They also realised that it could best be achieved by investing in agriculture. What was true for Europe then is true for the whole world today and especially true for those who live a pitiful subsistence existence that is always on the verge of calamity.
GORTA has played a unique role as the only Irish development agency specializing in sending volunteers with qualifications and expertise in agriculture and rural development to less developed countries. Dating back to 1965, it earned for itself recognition for being Ireland’s first long term development agency. As patron I feel both proud and privileged to be associated with this organisation which has worked tirelessly for, and brought so much good to, the poorest and most marginalized people on our planet for more than four decades now.
Gorta’s particular mission and focus resonates strongly with Ireland’s own collective memory of the Great Famine and its causes. We understand the baleful roles played by bad governance, over-dependence on one crop, landlessness and a lack of investment in education. It was during Ireland’s famine that Ireland, and the world, experienced its first food for work and food aid programmes. A century and a half later, many, many millions still depend on such programmes for their very existence, just as we once did, for one in seven members of our global human family go seriously hungry each day.
The sheer scale of it scandalises us but it cannot paralyse us and so, to put new energy and passion into the eradication of extreme hunger and poverty, 191 nations signed up to the U.N. Millennium Goals, the first of which pledges to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Those goals are a promise not just an ambition.
This year Ireland will contribute €734m in development aid and by 2012 that sum will be doubled as we meet our target of 0.75 % of GDP. The Government White Paper, published last month, contained a commitment to establish a Hunger Task Force to tackle the root causes of food insecurity, particularly in Africa, and it’s a timely initiative, for the role of agriculture in overcoming poverty has to a significant extent been overlooked historically. The message long preached by Gorta is at last being heard, that strengthening the capacity of local farmers to provide sustainable livelihoods has a hugely important role to play in preventing endemic hunger and stabilising food supply. The evidence of returns for investment in agriculture makes for convincing reading. Development literature has shown that, during India’s green revolution, Government spending on agriculture generated returns considerably bigger than the cost inputs. Investment in roads, education, irrigation infrastructure and agriculture research was particularly important. For example, every euro spent on road construction in the 1960s yielded nine euro worth of agricultural output. The potential is clear for sub-Saharan Africa and these lessons are being learnt in techniques being adopted today.
During a recent visit to Mozambique, I met a most remarkable woman, Sr. Ferreira on her Solidarity Farm which she set up in Niassa province. The farm is a model of diversified agriculture encompassing cereal crops, fruit trees, fish farming and livestock rearing. And although only in existence for a few years this wonderful woman and her team provides a significant proportion of the fresh food needs of the local town. Her farm has drawn countless numbers of homeless, landless people, in the area off the streets and into productive and sustainable livelihoods. Sr. Ferreira is affectionately known to the aid agencies and Embassy staff as the ‘Duracell Nun’ because of her dynamism and unstoppable energy, despite her advanced years. What was evident from that visit was the great benefits that could be derived through empowering the poorest of people and enabling them to build small-scale but resilient farms for the benefit of entire communities. It was a great lesson of hope for the future and very much at the heart of what Gorta and other agencies are committed to achieving.
The good news story of Solidarity Farm is complemented by another – the recent emergence of linkages between the Irish corporate sector and the productive sector in developing countries. The Heart of Africa project and the Fair Trade movement highlight that concern for the poor which runs so deep in the Irish psyche. They are underpinned, I believe, by a strong corporate sense of social responsibility, a wish to share the fruits of Ireland’s success with others, and the knowledge that free and fair trade creates a more stable and sustainable platform on which to build a thriving agriculture, so necessary for food security in developing countries, and ultimately for the stability of the world.
Visiting Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania recently brought home to me again that without food security almost everything else falters or fails. Children cannot travel the long journeys to school or concentrate unless they are properly nourished. Babies cannot thrive without food, parents cannot till the land without the energy that comes from decent food. Anti-retroviral drugs are useless unless supported by proper nutrition day in and day out. So all our ambitions for universal primary education, all our ambitions for overcoming the problems of HIV/Aids, are inextricably linked to food. Food security is quite simply the basic building block of a fairer and a better world. Gorta has always known that and preached that. Let us hope that we now listen, learn and act.
I congratulate GORTA, its volunteers and its experts in agriculture and rural development, and the other Irish humanitarian and development agencies working with the rural poor for all they have done for the people of developing countries. In particular I would like to say a special thank you to Gorta’s volunteers who work away quietly in the background, running fund-raising events, charity shops and anything they can think of to provide the finance so that life-saving, life-enhancing projects in far off lands can succeed. The world is a better place because of what you do and what you teach and preach.
I am sure that this Gorta World Food Day Conference has been a great success. I know that Brian and his team have been working hard to make it so. I wish each of you well in all you do to lift the shadows as they were lifted from Ireland. To Kevin Higgins, Gorta’s new president, every fulfilment and success for the future. Kevin knows this terrain well with almost 30 years commitment to Gorta behind him. I hope these coming years will be the very best yet for Gorta and for the people it serves.
Is iontach an obair ata ar siúl agaibh i Gorta. Gurb fada buan sibh agus go raibh míle, míle maith agaibh.