Thank you for giving me the floor. I am honored to share India's views on the subject of agriculture, food security and nutrition.

 

India associates itself with the statement made by the distinguished representative of South Africa on behalf of the Group of 77.

 

 

India applauds the inclusion of a standalone and comprehensive goal on ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

 

In the context of this debate, and taking into account the recent adoption of a new and comprehensive 2030 development agenda, India strongly favors a multi-pronged approach to tackling global food insecurity and malnutrition challenges.

 

The Sustainable Development Goal 2 on this issue provides us with such a multi-pronged template and it is important we ensure its balanced implementation.

 

Mr. Chairperson,

 

While adopting the 2030 Agenda for sustainable Development, world leaders have aspired to a world free of poverty and hunger where food is sufficient, safe, affordable and nutritious for all.

 

The Sustainable Development Goal on this issue has focused targets on ending hunger and malnutrition. In addition, it also has targets on policy imperatives that will help us reach these objectives. 

 

These include doubling the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, ensuring sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agricultural practices, strengthening capacity for adaptation to climate change and progressively improving land and soil quality.

 

 

Of equal importance are the targets which call for enhanced investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks as also for correcting and preventing trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets.

 

Only a balanced emphasis on all these policy imperatives will help us achieve our ambition of a hunger-free world by 2030.

 

 

For our ambition of a hunger-free world, the SDG 12 on ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns will also play a key role.

 

It is indeed a travesty that the world today produces enough food to feed the global population and yet millions of poor go hungry every day. 

This happens because over one-third of all food produced - as much as 1.3 billion tons - is wasted every year. 

 

Such colossal wastage is inexcusable.

 

Most of this wastage happens in the developed countries due to unsustainable and wasteful consumption patterns. FAO estimates that per capita food waste by consumers in the developed countries works out to over 100 kilograms per year.

 

The scale of this problem can be gauged from the fact that wastage of food at consumer level alone in industrialized countries is nearly as much as the total food production in sub-Saharan Africa. 

 

It is important to focus greater efforts at awareness creation and attitudinal change in the developed world which will enable us to save huge amounts of food.

 

There is unacceptably high level of post-harvest losses in the developing countries as well. However, this is more a function of poor infrastructure and lack of advanced technologies for production, post-harvest processing, packaging and transportation. 

 

This problem needs to be addressed by means of enhanced investments in rural infrastructure and transportation and storage facilities as well as better access to and deployment of technologies.

 

In this context, the SDG target 12.3 of halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses is of critical importance.

 

 

India feeds 17 percent of the world's population on less than 5 percent of the world's water and three percent of its arable land. 

 

Even today, agriculture continues to be a vital component of India's economy contributing over 16 per cent of national income in 2014-15 and providing employment to the majority (55%) of its population. 

 

It is a matter of pride for us that Indian agriculture has achieved self-sufficiency. Today it is not only able to meet the needs of India's population but is also playing a major role in agricultural trade, be it in rice, wheat, milk or poultry.

 

 

We recognize the need to support our farmers in enhancing their productivity, combating the negative impact of climate change and safeguarding their production from adverse impact of declining international commodity prices. 

 

To do this, Government of India has launched major programmes for revival of public investment in agriculture, both through targeted schemes of the federal government as well as through greater devolution of resources to the provincial governments.

 

One of our flagship programmes is the setting up of Krishi Vigyan Kendras or Agriculture Science Centers in every district of every state in our country. These centers make the latest information about agricultural science and research available to the farmers including through latest technologies including mobile phones.

 

 

United Nations has declared 2015 as the International Year of Soils to increase awareness of the importance of soil for food security and essential ecosystem functions. 

In keeping with this Declaration, in India a new ambitious scheme has been launched to provide Soil Health Cards to all farmers in the country in a time bound manner. The aim of this exercise is to issue more than 140 million Soil Health cards over a period of 3 years.

 

At the same time, the National Food Security Act which aims to provide food and nutritional security to all by ensuring access to quality food at affordable prices has already started showing positive results in combating hunger and malnutrition.

 

The Midday Meal Scheme launched by the Government of India has been remarkably successful in ensuring greater enrolment of students as well as combating malnutrition among them.

 

Besides these, we also have advocacy groups like the Citizens' Alliance, which enjoy support across party lines and under the guidance of the Indian Prime Minister are working across India to fight malnutrition and hunger.

 

Mr. Chairperson,

 

In line with our steadfast commitment to South-South Cooperation, India remains committed to sharing its technical assistance to ensure food security in fellow developing countries. 

 

At the recently concluded India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi, cooperation on agriculture and food security was a prominent component of cooperation. 

 

The Delhi Declaration adopted by the Leaders of India and Africa has a dedicated element on Agriculture. This includes joint cooperation in agriculture and food security to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP); further increasing cooperation in improving farming techniques through appropriate and affordable technology, appropriate use of irrigation, improving crop varieties and other measures; and promoting investment in agribusinesses and food processing industries to generate employment and greater revenue. 

 

These initiatives are geared towards meeting the food security of the people of Africa.

 

 

Allow me to conclude by emphasizing that a key determinant of our success will be for our policy responses on food security to fully take into account gender perspective. 

 

To ensure food security for all, we must prioritize gender equality and women's empowerment, in particular, social inclusion and equal access of women to economic opportunities and resources in the rural areas.