Food security - Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne launches France’s new international strategy on food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture (22 October 2019)

On 22 October 2019, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Minister of State, attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, opened the event launching France’s new international strategy on food security, nutrition and sustainable agriculture. In attendance were Laurent Thomas, deputy director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); representatives of the World Food Programme and the Ivorian government; and representatives of the government, the scientific community, civil society and the media.

More than two billion people today, i.e., more than one-quarter of the world’s population, are living in a state of food insecurity. These people do not have regular access to sufficient amounts of healthful, nutritious food. The rural and agricultural populations of developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, are hit particularly hard.

In the face of this challenge, France reaffirms its commitment to the second of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), zero hunger by 2030. The new strategy launched by the minister today is designed to focus France’s international development activities for the period of 2019-2024 on this issue, in particular by supporting more sustainable, nutritious food and agricultural systems and by developing a type of agriculture that is more productive from an economic, social, and environmental standpoint.