HOW TO REDUCE POVERTY AND MALNUTRITION
THROUGH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Speaker: The Honorable Ann Veneman
Session Chair:
The Honorable Patty Judge
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture
Thank you, Ambassador Quinn. Good afternoon, all of you. It’s a real pleasure for me this afternoon to have the opportunity to introduce a friend of mine and someone that really needs no introduction, Secretary Ann Veneman.
Ann Veneman was sworn in as the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January 2001. Her lifelong commitment to food and farm issues, along with her bipartisan approach to solving problems and confronting challenges, not only won her the nomination of President George W. Bush but also won her unanimous confirmation in the U.S. Senate.
Growing up on a family farm in a small, rural community in California, Secretary Veneman understands well the issues that are important to American farmers and ranchers. She has spent much of her career dedicated to food and agricultural issues and advancing sound U.S. farm and food policies.
Ann earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California Davis, a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California Berkeley, and a juris doctorate degree from the University of California.
She joined the USDA Foreign Ag Service in 1986, served in several positions, and in 1991 she was named USDA Deputy Secretary, the second-highest ranking position in USDA. She held this position until 1993. Then in 1995 to 1999 she served as the Secretary of Agriculture for the state of California.
Her extensive background and experience have been valuable since taking office. American agriculture has been confronted with critical issues, such as our new foreign policy, international trade, homeland security, environmental stewardship and food safety. She has worked diligently to foster economic opportunities for farmers, to eliminate trade barriers and expand our opportunities, and to assure safe and wholesome food supply.
Secretary is here with us today to share her thoughts on a critical issue of how science and technology can reduce poverty and malnutrition.
Now, I’ve known Ann Veneman for several years. In fact, several years ago she and I were both asked by Catherine Bertini to serve on an Advisory Committee for the World Food Programme. And we learned firsthand from the master the effects of hunger and how one woman with a vision can make a real difference.
There are very few of us women involved in agricultural and food policy formation. Catherine Bertini is certainly one, and she has made a difference. Ann Veneman is also making a difference, creating opportunities for farmers and ensuring a safe and abundant food supply for all the citizens of the United States.
I’m real proud to call both of these women my friends, and I am pleased to be here to introduce the first woman in the United States that we can call Madam Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. Would you please join me in welcoming the Secretary of Agriculture.
The Honorable Ann Veneman
United States Secretary of Agriculture
Thank you. Well, thank you, Patty Judge, for that very, very nice introduction. I’m truly honored to be here today, and I thank all of you here in Iowa who are responsible for hosting this World Food Prize this year and each and every year.
On this day, as we work to build an international alliance against hunger, the commitment of the United States to the reduction of hunger and poverty around the world remains strong. Our shared goal is challenging, the problems are complex, but it is the noblest of goals, because as long as there is suffering, we must not relent.
Americans are fortunate to live in a society where our greater challenges lie not in the chance of death by starvation but in ensuring the people who are entitled to benefits know about them and get access to them.
In this country many don’t think twice about buying a four-dollar cup of coffee at Starbucks, but how many of us give a second thought to the fact that half of the world’s population live on less than two dollars a day. For most of us the next meal is only a trip to the refrigerator away, but more than 800 million people in the world, nearly 1 in 7, including 300 million children are chronically hungry. Among children, one in three is undernourished, and every five seconds we lose a child to hunger.
It is a sad irony that acute poverty and hunger are worse in many areas where agriculture is the predominant way of life. About one billion of the world’s poorest people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Many of them are trapped in a life of subsistence. In many developing countries 90% of the food consumed is locally grown. It follows that people who are hungry are less able to feed themselves and to be productive members of society.
The global ramifications of hunger are hard to overstate, not just for people in the least developed countries, but also in nations with greater wealth. Persistent hunger causes suffering and death. It results in lost productivity and the unrealized potential of entire nations and regions. It leads to political instability, economic stagnation, civil unrest and war. It limits economic growth and trade opportunities in other countries.
We should all be concerned out of a sense of compassion for our fellow human beings. But we should also care about hunger because hunger relates to so many of the world’s most intractable problems.
A recent analysis by the International Food Policy Research Institute suggests that an annual increase in crop and livestock productivity of just 3-4% in Africa would triple per capita income, and it would reduce the number of malnourished children by 40%. This is truly a textbook example of a little going a long way.
Last year in Rome I led the U.S. delegation to the 2002 World Food Summit. At that time I discussed the President’s ongoing commitment to the goal of cutting in half the number of hungry people in the world by the year 2015, what the President calls a “moral imperative.” The priorities of the United States in that meeting were: reducing hunger by increasing agricultural productivity, ending famine, and improving nutrition.
The delegates in Rome found progress to be clearly lagging behind. As ministers discussed ways to speed the pace of hunger reduction, there was agreement that science and technology play a key role in accelerating agricultural productivity.
It was in Rome that I announced the United States would host a Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology. I want to thank Administrator Natsios for USAID’s support and co-sponsorship of that ministerial meeting, which was held this past June in Sacramento, California. Andrew Natsios has been an outstanding partner in the administration’s efforts to address poverty, hunger and development around the world.
The Sacramento Ministerial was the next logical step on a road that took us through Doha, where developing countries became a major focus of the WTO negotiations, to Monterrey, Mexico, and the International Conference on Financing for Development, to Rome and the 2002 World Food Summit, and to Johannesburg and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
About a thousand participants – including 119 ministerial-level participants, including ministers of agriculture, ministers of health, environment, science and technology, commerce, trade – all attended. There were 117 countries represented at this Sacramento conference. It was one of the largest and most diverse gatherings ever of decision-makers around the world to address the issue of global hunger.
We looked at technology’s role in helping feed the hungry, to provide nutrition to the malnourished, and lift those in need out of poverty. The application of science and technology, along with supportive policies, can help achieve all of this by raising agricultural productivity in an environmentally sustainable way. Raising productivity will not merely reduce hunger, it will provide a whole host of additional benefits, including higher incomes and economic growth.
This story has been repeated over and over throughout history, most recently in Asian countries that have been transformed from subsistent economies into powerhouses of manufacturing and high technology. It would be incredibly myopic to believe that these successes cannot be replicated in other developing countries as well.
It is great to have with us at this meeting the father of the Green Revolution, Dr. Borlaug. The Green Revolution not only saved hundreds of millions of lives, but it helped bring stability and economic growth from the countries that benefited from it. Dr. Borlaug was also present at our Sacramento conference. In his address to the conference, he discussed extending the Green Revolution to the Gene Revolution, in order to feed the world’s hungry.
Biotechnology can produce higher yields in crops that require a fraction of pesticide applications of other varieties. It can produce crops that withstand climate extremes and are better adapted for the needs of individual regions. And it can produce plants fortified with nutrients that promote health and nutrition needs, such as vitamin A in rich golden rice, which I’m sure you’ve discussed already at this conference. I noted just this week that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $25 million to a project to combat malnutrition around the world, including research on golden rice.
It is an international alliance in the spirit of the theme of World Food Day, and the type of public/private partnership that must be embraced. Just last week the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa urged the adoption of biotechnology to increase productivity in an environmentally sustainable way and combat poverty.
And I noted that The New York Times has been tracking the plight of the developing world, and a few days ago an editorial echoed that recommendation. It said, “The world shouldn’t ban genetically modified food. It should develop a cassava root resistant to the melee bug and drought-proof corn. The real crime of genetic modification,” the editorial went on, “is not its risks but that it is squandering its promise.”
While biotechnology and other advancements hold major potential for productivity gains, even basic approaches can make a big difference. Just a few days ago the World Food Programme reported that areas in Ethiopia where they invested in basic irrigation and other practices helped to break an endless cycle of drought and famine. Irrigation and issues of water quality and quantity emerged as major topics of discussion at the Sacramental Ministerial.
We need to learn from these success stories, many of which were highlighted at that meeting, and many of them apply on a larger scale. For example, small-scale farmers in Uganda increased maize yields 46% from 1996 through 2001, through improved conservation practices.
In... crop losses to the potato tuber moth dropped 16% with the use of integrated pest management practices. Research by the World Fish Center in Malaysia has produced a strain of tilapia that grows 60% faster and yields three harvests per year. Contoured terraces in Peru boosted potato yields 70% compared with traditional planting on sloping fields. And in Malawi farmers are benefiting from a high-yielding, pest-resistant variety of cassava.
The answers are not all found in the developed world. We can make great strides by helping developing countries adopt and develop their own appropriate agricultural technologies from conventional to state of the art. We must harness the information that already exists to help farmers. Research is keeping the technology pipeline filled, but we must find additional ways for farmers to tap into that pipeline. If that agricultural research isn’t applied, it can be of little practical use. It is also vital that we help expand the knowledge base through research and support for local institutions.
Delegates in Sacramento discussed the need to revitalize indigenous research institutions, and the lack of research on many staple foods, especially those in Africa. Many developing countries are also looking for ways to get new blood into the study and application of the sciences, especially genetics.
After the end of the Cold War, many institutions that once provided scholarships and educational opportunities, withdrew from these activities. We’ve lost a generation as a result, and we need to refocus this as a top priority.
In order to achieve many of our goals, the building of additional partnerships between and among nations, academia and industry will be critical. The momentum and enthusiasm that were generated in Sacramento are still continuing today. Already we’re working to build on these efforts. We want to establish and continue follow-up sessions in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Ministers from Africa and Latin America offered to host follow-up regional conferences. We already have a Central American Regional Conference scheduled for February in Costa Rica, and we anticipate that a regional conference in Africa will take place sometime next year.
Finding solutions to global hunger and poverty will involve rearranging the priorities of individual countries to address the most critical areas. The search for solutions should be our goal, not just on World Food Day but every day. The United States is committed to these efforts. We are by far the largest contributor to the World Food Programme, accounting for more than 50% of donor funds.
President Bush has made an unprecedented commitment to international development, included what is now called “The Millennium Challenge Corporation,” a 50% increase in our foreign assistance funding over three years, or an additional $5 billion per year.
The administration is also pursuing a number of other approaches, including an initiative to increase education funding in Africa, a project to provide clean drinking water to a million people in the developing world and a 200-million-dollar Foreign Emergency Rapid Response Famine Fund.
We at USDA have been working hard in many areas to support this agenda. We help administer the International Food Assistance programs, which are budgeted this year at nearly $1.6 billion. This includes $50 million for the new McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program. This program is based on a pilot that provided school meals to nearly seven million children in 38 countries. Food for Education not only encourages greater numbers of children to attend school, but it also enhances the performance and learning ability of students in the classroom.
We are also looking for ways in which our experts can help replicate our own successes in the developing world. For instance, USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is providing guidance for domestic food assistance programs in other countries. The Zero Hunger initiative in Brazil is based on our own food stamp program. USDA also has a close partnership with the 1890 Land Grant Institutions, which are addressing nutrition and agricultural research assistance in Africa.
While poverty and hunger are major challenges, no discussion of solutions would be complete without addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS. This horrible disease has already killed 20 million people around the world, including seven million farmers in Africa who once tended their land and provided food for their people. And additional 42 million people live with the HIV virus.
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which he signed into law this year, would direct $15 billion over the next five years to battle HIV/AIDS with the focus on Africa and the Caribbean.
The USDA is fortunate to have had several outstanding individuals who have focused on improving the lives of people in this country and all around the world. Catherine Bertini is one of those people, and it is an honor to join her and her fellow laureates on this World Food Day. It was a privilege to be among those who nominated her for the World Food Prize. In fact, it was a very easy call.
Whether it was her work at USDA or later at the World Food Programme, Catherine’s main concerns have always been mothers and children. She has personally answered the call in places that were torn by war, natural disaster and famine, improving the condition of a suffering child or a hungry mother. She came, she saw, she cared. Congratulations, Catherine.
While our collective goal is to reduce by half the 800 million hungry people around the world, even one hungry person is unacceptable. That one person is someone’s child or mother or father. It is one person who was denied the sustenance they need to be a productive member of society. It is one person who is prevented from meeting their full potential. Behind our efforts, there are statistics, but there is also a human face.
As we search for solutions, as we work to apply technology to its fullest potential, we must always remember that human face.
Thank you very much.