Food security and the fight against hunger: a global issue
*Aldo Rebelo
On the 28th and 29th of May, the International Relations Secretariat of the City of São Paulo will hold the ‘Josué de Castro’ International Conference on Food Security and the Fight Against Hunger. The conference is named after the Brazilian doctor who presided over the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and pays homage to the former Minister of Agriculture, Alysson Paulinelli, as its patron.
Josué de Castro
Josué de Castro is the author of classic books on hunger in Brazil and around the world, including “Geography of Hunger” and “Geopolitics of Hunger”, and chaired the FAO Executive Council between 1952 and 1956; He received the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Award from the United States Academy of Political Science and the International Peace Prize from the World Peace Council.
Alysson Paulinelli
Alysson Paulinelli, an agronomist trained at the Escola Superior de Agricultura de Lavras, in Minas Gerais, was Minister of Agriculture between 1974 and 1979, and strengthened the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) as a research institution focused on knowledge in tropical agriculture. Paulinelli and Embrapa can be attributed the agricultural revolution in the Brazilian Cerrado.
The conference will bring together authorities and experts in the debate on food security and the fight against hunger in Brazil and around the world, with multidisciplinary approaches to the topic, including Global frontiers of production and trade: Latin America, Asia and Africa; New geopolitics of food: trade versus sustainability; Protests by European farmers and reorientation of agricultural and trade policies; Amazon: food production and regional development; The social role of meat; Cooperativism and work: new times, new challenges; future of production in the countryside: science and biotechnology.
The meeting will highlight the true protagonists of food production and the fight against hunger – farmers and their representatives, researchers and scholars on the subject.
The FAO itself, when assessing the risk of food security in the world, pointed to Brazil as the country to assume the greatest responsibility for the future of food production. According to the UN organization, we would meet the three essential requirements for the task: the immensity of natural resources, the availability of knowledge in tropical agriculture, and the existence of a class of experienced and dedicated producers.
Demand for food is expected to grow rapidly in Asia and Africa. In the first case, there are already clear limits blocking the growth of agricultural production, while in the second case there is insufficient organization of production, distribution and financing of the activity, and a deficiency in research and knowledge.
São Paulo, Brazil's main metropolis, fulfills the mission of highlighting the agenda in which the country is the most notable international protagonist.
*Aldo Rebelo is a journalist and writer, secretary of International Relations at São Paulo City Hall, presided over the Chamber of Deputies, was rapporteur of the Brazilian Forest Code and minister in the portfolios of Political Coordination and Institutional Relations; of Sport; Science, Technology and Innovation and Defense.