Buchanan – Agriculture Minister Dr. Moganna S. Flomo, Jr. has expressed fear that Liberia risks poor educational and health systems if hunger cannot be curtailed by 2030 in the country.
Report by Elton Wiah, Contributor
Speaking Thursday, November 15, 2018 at the celebration of World Food Day held at the Unification Pavilion in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, Dr. Flomo said zero hunger in Liberia and the world is possible if the citizens are fully involve with agriculture activities.
He said it is possible for the world to have a Zero Hunger by 2030 if the entire country gets involve with agriculture.
“We all know that when you are hungry, you can’t be strong to learn even if the best teacher is teaching. You will lack strength as well, but this can stop if everyone see agriculture as the only way to end hunger in Liberia,” the Minister stated.
He continued: “We all need to collaborate and find different ways of ending hunger in Liberia, because it signals that the common people lives are changing if they can afford to eat everyday”.
Minister Flomo noted that it would be impossible for one to adequately learn while undergoing hunger struggle, a situation he says has the propensity of placing Liberia’s educational system into shambled.
This, according to him, is also dangerous to the Health sector of Liberia.
The Agriculture Minister disclosed that the George Weah led government has provided US$1.9 million Dollars to be used for rice production in the country. He noted that the government has also seen the need for producing more home grown food.
“If Liberia will not achieve any other goal; let us achieve the goal of ending hunger in Liberia by 2030. This can only be done when we all invest in agriculture and be serious about ending hunger in Liberia,” he told the audience.
Making remarks, FAO Representative in Liberia Mariatou Njie said reaching zero hunger in the world falls is part of the Sustainable Development Goals approved three years ago, in September 2015 by all United Nations Member States.
Madam Njie said World leaders agreed that the eradication of hunger and all forms of malnutrition (Sustainable Development Goal number 2) are cardinal objectives of the Agenda.
According to her, latest estimate reveals that the number of undernourished people in the world increased in 2017, for the third consecutive year, saying there is a need to seriously tackle hunger.
“Last year, 821 million people suffered from hunger (11 percent of the world population – one in nine people on the planet), most of them family and subsistence farmers living in poor rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia” The country representative averred.
She continued: “However, the growing rate of undernourished people is not the only big challenge we are facing, other forms of malnutrition have also increased.
In 2017, at least 1.5 billion people suffered from ‘micronutrient deficiencies’ that undermines their health and lives, while 2.6 billion people were overweight (30 percent of the global population) including 672 million obese adults”.
The FAO Country Representative asserted, that Hunger is mainly circumscribed to specific areas, namely those ravaged by conflicts, droughts and extreme poverty, yet obesity is everywhere, and it is increasing all around the world.
“As a matter of fact, we are witnessing the globalization of obesity. For example: obesity rates are climbing faster in Africa than any other region – eight of the 20 countries in the world with the fastest rising rates of adult obesity are in Africa. Furthermore, childhood overweight affected 38 million children under five years of age in 2017. About 46 percent of these children live in Asia, while 25 percent live in Africa,” she said.
She continued: “If we do not call for urgent actions to halt the increasing obesity rates, we may soon have more obese than undernourished people in the world.
The growing rate of obesity is happening at a huge socio-economic cost, Njie noted.