November 16, 2009 22:42 PM

Malaysia Committed To Increasing Food Output For Universal Peace

ROME, Nov 16 (Bernama) -- Malaysia is committed to increasing world food production which is becoming more critical, so as to ensure adequate food supply and continued universal peace, said Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

The deputy prime minister said if the issue was not earnestly addressed, it would become a burden and impact food supply and world security.

"We are aware and share concern over this issue. We know how difficult it will be if there is no seriousness in overcoming the problem among the developed and developing nations.

"This is a big and serious issue because it there are no serious efforts to address agriculture production, poverty will continue to rise and this will threaten world peace," he told Malaysian journalists, here, Monday.

Muhyiddin is leading the Malaysian delegation to the three-day World Food Security Summit here organised by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, beginning Monday.

Muhyiddin is scheduled to deliver on Tuesday Malaysia's statement on the global management transformation pertaining to food security.

He is among more than 60 heads of state and government attending the summit, aimed at pressing for a new momentum to combat famine that affects 1.02 billion people.

This high-profile summit is also aimed at deriving the political will of world leaders in addressing the causes of famine in some countries of the world.

In Malaysia, Muhyiddin said, the government through the Agriculture and Agro-industry Ministry was one of the main agencies that initiated efforts to increase food production and the measures are seeing success.

"Nevertheless, there must be continuous efforts to eradicate poverty. We are all together in this. God willing, we will be able to eradicate poverty next year.

"The poverty rate has also dropped to 2.7 per cent. I hope we can get rid of hardcore poverty and relative poverty," he said.

The deputy prime minister also hoped that through this summit, the developed countries particularly, could give their commitment to combating poverty.

"This is because the UN statistics show that almost one billion of the world's population are facing starvation compared with 800 million two years ago.

"This year, the number of poor has increased to 1.5 billion and this is a huge burden for the world. We hope an understanding can be reached at this summit on how the world community can ensure adequate food production and food security."

Muhyiddin said at the G8 meeting, there was realisation to create a US$20 billion fund to help poor and developing nations, but it was not known how much had been collected and channelled to the recipients.

On the summit, he said among the objectives were eradicating universal poverty and instituting a more effective and integrated food supply and food security management system.

"It is also to get cooperation and consensus on coming up with regulations and mechanisms to help farmers in the developed and developing nations earn income that is on par with that in the other sectors."

Muhyiddin also believed that the Rome summit would be a platform to see how far the developed and developing nations could solve the problems together.

Also attending the summit is Agriculture and Agro-Industry Minister Datuk Seri Noh Omar.

-- BERNAMA

We provide (subscription-based) 
news coverage in our Newswire service.