FAO stresses food security and nutrition

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Representative in Liberia, Madam Mariaton Njie, says food security and nutrition are important for overall development of the Country, and have been highlighted among long-term fundamental issues in national economic development.

Speaking through a proxy, a staff of the program support unit of the FAO, Jesse Yuan says food security and nutrition are for the Pro-poor development agenda as a means of poverty reduction.

Jesse made the statement Tuesday, 7 August at program marking the 2018 Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey (CFSNS) Validation and Response Option workshop held at a local Hotel in Monrovia.

According to him, fighting hunger in a changing world demands that they stay vigilant in their efforts to collect, analyze and disseminate information that is so very critical for designing and implementing hunger solutions which can save lives in emergencies, and put the hungry poor on the path to food security.

He stresses that understanding food security and vulnerability has always been challenging and notes that yet, the emergence of relatively new phenomena such as high food and fuel prices, terrorism, global financial crisis, and climate change, all highlight the need to better understand livelihood of vulnerable populations.

Jesse points out that to tackle hunger, three key factors should be understood: how food is made available to people; how they economically and physically access food and how they utilize the food.

He continues that understanding the constraints underlying each of these factors is a necessary condition for designing and implementing and effecting hunger reduction strategies.

He says Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey Validation and Response Option are unique tools designed to understand these factors, adding that it describes the profile of the food –insecure and vulnerable households, identifies the root causes of hunger, and analyses risks and emerging vulnerabilities among populations.

He further explains that it provides crucial information on the type of interventions that would be most effective in reducing hunger, targeting the neediest, informing preparedness and developing contingencies.

But Jesse also says despite current efforts, poverty in Liberia remains pervasive, especially within a significant portion of the population whose economic activities evolve around agriculture, fishing and natural resources.

He stresses the potentials of the agriculture sector remain largely untapped with less than half of the arable land under cultivation, yields well below global average and persistently vulnerable to low levels of technology and mechanization.

–Editing by Jonathan Browne