Welcome
Policies against Hunger Conference on 4 and 5 June 2024
Berlin, 4 - 5 June 2024 - The Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture, Cem Özdemir, opened a special edition of the “Politics against Hunger” conference in Berlin today on the twentieth anniversary of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Right to Adequate Food.
The two-day conference takes place under the title “Twenty Years of Action: Advancing the Human Right to Food” and takes stock of the realization of the human right to adequate food and the challenges that still lie ahead.
German Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture Cem Özdemir said:
The global community has made a promise to end global hunger. With the conference we want to show perspectives for more sustainable, resilient and fairer food systems.
But we also have to recognize that this goal is threatened by the climate crisis, wars and conflicts - all of which are man-made, but conversely also mean that we have it in our hands.
We must therefore direct our energies more towards crisis prevention rather than crisis response.
A sustainable food policy is always also a security policy: it paves the way for peace and stability worldwide.
Based on an international inventory, the conference will also discuss how the right to food is being realized in Germany and what contribution Germany is making nationally.
The BMEL will incorporate the results of the “Politics against Hunger” conference into the 52nd plenary debate of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in October 2024 and support it in making a decisive commitment to strengthening the right to food in the anniversary year to formulate.
Background information
The “Policy against Hunger” conferences organized by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) since 2001 provide a platform to place hunger and malnutrition at the center of the international discussion about food security.
In 2004, the Voluntary Guidelines for the gradual realization of the right to adequate food were adopted by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.
This was the first time that it was formulated how the human right to adequate food can be specifically realized and what conditions are necessary for this.
The guidelines provide recommendations for
- securing access to production resources such as land, water or seeds,
- improving agricultural structures, productivity and marketing, and
- establishing social security mechanisms.
The “Politics against Hunger” conference brings together representatives from politics and administration, international organizations, civil society, the private sector and science to exchange ideas internationally on rights-based approaches to transforming food systems and to discuss how food systems can be made more sustainable, resilient and fair become.
(Source: BMEL press release)