Op-Ed: World Food Day by Ambassador Lisa Kubiske

October 16, 2012

Today is United Nations World Food Day, observed annually on the anniversary of the founding in 1945 of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.  Despite the best efforts of many committed partners, extreme poverty still afflicts us.  1 out of every 6 people goes to bed hungry each night, and a child dies from hunger every 6 seconds.  But around the world, there are signs of progress.  Last month, global leaders reported at the United Nations on positive steps toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals, a plan agreed to by all of the world's countries to meet the needs of the world's poorest by 2015.

Just over one year ago, Honduras became one of only three countries in the Western Hemisphere invited to join the U.S. Government's Feed the Future global hunger initiative.  Feed the Future's ACCESO program, centered in the six departments of western Honduras in communities where food security challenges are greatest, is simple, yet vitally important.  It seeks to raise the annual income for a poor family living in the poorest departments of Western Honduras from $1,300 to over $5,000 and reduce malnutrition there by 20%.  Sound impossible?

After just one year, without neither charity nor handouts, we have helped over 4,000 families cross the $5,000 income threshold.  Our objective is to help 26,000 more by helping small farmers grow more profitable crops, particularly horticulture and coffee, and then link them to buyers.  While the program provides the know-how, the work is done by the farmers and their families.  We are also making progress in the health of rural Hondurans, particularly children.  The program has nearly 80,000 beneficiaries, of which more than 10,000 are children under 5.  These children benefit from greater family income, nutritious food, and better sanitary conditions, such as paved floors and cleaner cook stoves.

Still, poverty is multidimensional and requires innovative solutions and partnerships.  We do not have all the answers.  So, it is important to leverage expertise.  Brazil has a compelling track record for lifting millions of its own citizens from poverty.  The Governments of Honduras, Brazil, and the United States recently signed a trilateral agreement to join forces to improve food security and provide renewable energy to thousands of poor Honduras in rural areas.  This type of partnership can amplify and sustain our efforts, and remind us of the power of working together.

If we are to reach the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of cutting in half the proportion of people suffering from hunger by the year 2015, we need to work together to eliminate hunger by giving the poor the tools they need to help themselves through programs like what I've described here.  On this World Food Day, please join me in looking forward to a tomorrow where together we make the dream of a world without hunger and poverty a reality.