“We should think of reform and increase of mandates and power for the FAO,” said PM Nguyen Tan Dung at the WEF’s session on rethinking how to feed the world on January 29.

Hereafter is the PM’s full speech at the session:

Food security is not merely an economic or humanitarian issue, but also plays a key role in keeping political and social stability of each country and the entire world. Amidst the ongoing globalisation, if a country or a region fails to ensure their cooking security, it will result in the spillover affecting other countries and regions.

I very much appreciate the theme of our session today as feeding the world is a global issue, which needs a special attention, notably when more than 1 billion people are still suffering famine, and the global demand for food is expected to double by 2050 as the world population mounts to above 9 billion.

Food security in the world is facing a lot of challenges, especially due to the shrinking of agricultural land as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation, natural disasters like typhoons, floods, draughts, sea level rise and other climatic extremes. Moreover, epidemics continue to occur with increasing complexities and cause grave losses. On the question of investment to scale up food production, limitations constitute major hurdles, notably for the poor countries. Trade barriers against agricultural products and low income of the poor also limit their access to food. Indeed, use of food for other purposes including the increased production of biofuels has affected food security.

Viet Nam deeply values the enormous efforts of countries and international organisations, particularly the United Nations’ bodies including the FAO in supporting agricultural development, keeping food security around the world over the past years. However, progress in food security is still slow and unsteady. It is now time for us to work out new measures to ensure food security across the globe in a faster and more sustainable manner. As a country suffering famines in the past decades, Viet Nam is now one of the leading rice exporters in the world. On this occasion, I would like to share with you my thoughts on the following points:

First, it is important to guarantee three majors factors including the availability (supply of food at any time and everywhere), sustainability (a stable supply system) and access of the people (opportunity to buy food). It is essential that each country should take efforts in safeguarding the agricultural land, work out policies to keep the interests of food producers so they are taken care of in their production. It is also critical to increase investment to enhance production output and food quality, create favourable conditions for commercial agricultural products, develop a stable distribution system, generate employment and income, and undertake appropriate supporting measures to assure the public access to food. Moreover, we should be prudent in using food for other purposes and push the international cooperation to take concerted actions for food across the globe.

Second, the food crisis in 2008 is primarily the crisis of food management in the world. Therefore, we should think of the reform and increase of mandates and power for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) so that FAO is able to play a more effective role in coordinating the assistance related to food development direction, production and distribution in the world. This is obviously not an easy task. However, if FAO, as a global management organization for food, is empowered with greater authorization and capability, it will have a key role to play in attaining the smooth and stable operation of both supply and demand for food in our world.

Third, in our diverse world today, countries have fairly different conditions for agricultural development. There are 3 groups of countries: (i) countries possess agricultural development technology and experience, but lack of financial sources; (ii) countries have enormous agricultural potentials, but lack of finance, technology and experience and (iii) countries with high tech and financial sources, but lack natural conditions for agricultural development. Therefore, it is imperative to establish a match-making mechanism for these countries to collaborate and generate complementary strengths in the efforts for agricultural development and food security. I recommend the international organizations especially FAO to intensify its efforts to help the collaboration of those groups of countries so that the poor countries can develop agriculture.

We think that it is necessary to increase sources and expand the operational areas of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to enhance the assistance for agricultural development in the poor countries, particularly under the model of tripartite cooperation among those three groups. Within the framework of the IFAD, it is possible to organize a regular international forum on multilateral cooperation, first and foremost, to assist the countries most-impacted by famine. The most sustainable and long-term solution to the global food security is how to effectively assist these countries in their self-help efforts.

On the side of Viet Nam, we stand ready to share our experience and knowledge of food security with all countries through the bilateral and multilateral cooperation programmes, especially the South-South Cooperation for Food Security by the FAO. The 2+1, 3+1 cooperation models are very suitable to Viet Nam as a country transferring technology and knowledge to countries in need of agricultural development. We are ready to multiple these cooperation models together with developing countries in Africa and Asia including the West and South Asia to support them in agricultural development and food production.

Forth, climate change, especially sea level rise is becoming a major threat to agricultural countries including Viet Nam. Besides, the shortage of food as a result of crop losses, natural disasters and floods caused by climate change should be tackled. As one of the few countries to be worst-hit by climate change, particularly sea level rise and also a country supply one-fifth of the total rice export in the world, I call upon the international community to support Viet Nam in responding to climate change, notably in implementation of our Action Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change in Agriculture and Rural Development from 2008 to 2020 to keep food security in Viet Nam and the world at large.

For an effective cooperation, I propose the agricultural exporting countries to establish an Alliance of Agricultural Countries in response to climate change like Cairns group for agricultural liberation. Networks and alliances to combat climate change in every sector will be a very good supplementation to global efforts in response to climate change.

Fifth, we should avoid a similar food crisis like 2008 in many countries, especially in Africa and Asia making food price go up sharply and then creating false food scarcity. It is important that the United Nations should opt for 50 countries vulnerable to food crisis to provide assistance. An early warning system should be also established to detect the food crisis in advance, so effective and timely responses can be taken.

Last but not least, the international community needs to make commitments to reduce and remove all tariff and non-tariff barriers for agricultural and food products.

Developed countries should take the lead to lift immediately and unconditionally their huge subsidies for domestic agriculture and eradicate barriers preventing the access of agricultural and food products from developing countries. Such actions will not only encourage food producing and exporting countries to increase their production and provide higher quality products to the world, but also help lower food price for the poor countries to buy more food for their people. I urge the developed and developing countries, importing and exporting countries to show their good will to put aside differences and speed up the Doha round to finalise it in this year.

Thank you.