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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Call for steps to check food loss

By Our Correspondent
October 17, 2019

Islamabad: Speakers on the occasion of World Food Day called for concrete measures to check food wastage and losses to help feed over 900 million hungry people across the world.

Addressing a World Food Day event here on Wednesday, they said about one-third of total food production was wasted or lost across the world every year, wherein two-third of families have no access to food.

The event was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization in collaboration with the National Agriculture Research Centre and the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.

The event was attended by many other UN organizations, besides concerned agencies working for food security and research, including the World Food Programme, International Fund for Agriculture Development and Oxfam.

Minister for National Food Security and Research Sahibzada Muhammad Mehboob Sultan reaffirmed the government's full resolve for eliminating poverty and hunger by ensuring equal opportunities of access to food for all. He said the government was focusing to ensure dietary needs of a common man in a dignified manner and it was utilizing all possible resources to fight hunger and address the malnutrition challenges in the country.

In order to revitalize the agriculture sector, the government had enhanced its budgetary allocation from Rs1 billion to Rs12 billion and had initiated an emergency programme with a total cost of Rs287 billion.

He said the allocated amount would be spent on crop enhancement, livestock development, backyard poultry farming and fisheries sectors that would not enhance the rural farmers' income.