When we talk about “Food Security” we refer to the availability, access and consumption of nutritious foods. However, the problem of hunger in the world is as old as the planet’s history and even if some progress has been made, it is estimated that approximately 800 million people suffer from malnutrition. This marks significant progress but we are still facing a real challenge to achieve the sustainable Development Goal n. 2 “Zero Hunger”.
With this is mind and willing as always to take on new challenges, the Provincial Government of Azuay that I represent, has taken on leadership of ORU Fogar’s Food Security Work Group.
However, I must underline and thank the efforts made by both the regions of Basse-Normandie and Champagne-Ardenne to give life and voice to this Work Group, which are reflected in several documents that have even been presented at two world summits that support the theories and work of the Food Security group.
Nowadays, as the Provincial Government of Azuay (GPA), we promote our social innovation model for food sovereignty and local economic development in the province of Azuay, which seeks to increase access to healthy food, reduce malnutrition and avoid food waste; to avoid migration and the reduction of production in the fields; ensuring a social, supportive and sustainable economic system, by means of farming development, promotion of productive and associative linkages, training and technical assistance, integral technological transfer, improvement of the production and marketing systems, healthy nutrition programs, social organization and participation; and productive microenterprises; benefitting directly and indirectly more than 75,000 people of the Azuay province.
This model of social innovation arises from the need to generate better development conditions for the population, strengthening the territory by supporting its local economies and the agricultural sector, promoting autochthonous production with food sovereignty among the participants and the reinforcement of small producers.
With the aim of increasing the share capital, not only at my province’s level but worldwide, I would like to motivate and invite all the regions that share my dream and wish to be part of this renewed Work Group to contact us and join forces.
I reiterate my position that we can build sustainable territories from the regions and from rurality. Life and production in the countryside avoid the rural exodus and preserve the ancestral cultures and practices, and this is why today we need a deep reform of the Food Security world system. By giving life to this work group, ORU Fogar is doing its bit to help end hunger in the world, which currently strikes more than 900 million people, and it will do so with a practical approach.
Paúl Carrasco
Prefect of the Azuay Province and former President of ORU Fogar
