I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, to the House.
My topic is the need for the nation to take its full part in the celebrations of World Food Day tomorrow, 16 October. The Minister and I were away last week. We met at the World Trade Fair in Germany and I was unaware that tomorrow was World Food Day. The Minister and I spent some time together in the company of Chancellor Kohl. We saw what is happening to the world trade in food at the largest trade fair in the world. There were hectares of stands. There were Irish stands, one of which we can be immensely proud. The food represented there showed the food of Ireland to an extent that would make anybody whose taste buds were not even whetted gasp with delight. Some 103 nations and 6,500 different companies were represented. The opportunity for business and the way we could create a market came to mind. The cornucopia of delights took my breath away.
Then I stepped on the plane to come home and picked up a magazine carrying an article called "Food for Thought". It said "It is world food day on 16 October but who will notice and who will care?" I was struck by this because it showed the most horrific pictures of people starving in eastern Asia, including India, in Africa south of the Sahara, Latin America, China, North Korea and so on. Many people are starving, they will wake up in the morning knowing they will not get enough to eat. Yet we were coming from this Utopia, if I could call it that, of food in Cologne and reading this article.
I will touch on something I learnt from this article. I was ten years of age in 1947 when we commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Great Famine. I am delighted to see members of the Catholic Guides of Ireland from Drimnagh here tonight; they range from ten to 15 years of age, and I can remember the huge impact the commemoration of the Great Famine had on me at that age. I remember seeing people hungry in Biafra in the 1960s and in Ethiopia in the 1980s. I thought all this was in the past until I read that article. I was struck by the recognition that we have almost forgotten that there are people hungry in the world. When I concentrated on this I realised that the purpose of the celebrations tomorrow is to draw the world's attention to the fact that there are people hungry.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 800 million people in the world are suffering from malnutrition and that number is growing considerably. The FAO estimates that in 40 years time the world population will be increased by 3 billion more than the present 5.7 billion. If hunger were a disease it would be of epidemic proportions. That is why every year the FAO nominates 16 October, the anniversary of its foundation in 1979, as World Food Day. The objective is to heighten public awareness of hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the world.
This year's theme is "Investing in Food Security". Food security means it is the human right of each man, woman and child on this planet to at least have enough food to lead a healthy and productive life. Hopefully, World Food Day will stimulate interest and activity throughout the world. We must not hold our breaths, however, nor be too sure that it will happen. It is interesting to note that enough food is already produced to feed everybody — the real problems are its availability and affordability. The poor need the means to grow food and Third World countries need the means to set up adequate distribution systems.
Some years ago an interesting book was written by a Canadian economist and futurist called Frank Feather. He said we will not have a problem in future with lack of food or lack of space. There is plenty of space and the world's population could fit into the state of Texas. We produce enough food but what is lacking is the ability to distribute it. That is surely a management problem. We can face up to that challenge and manage to do something about it. A rocket was due to travel to Saturn today at a cost of $3 billion. At a time when we are able to achieve that sort of thing, the challenge of being able to distribute the food that already exists is surely not too big for us.
We must ensure the technology we use is safe in the area of food security. We must support only the highest standards if we are to apply the development of such systems as genetic engineering to food. In the interests of those who are hungry, however, we must also insist that we adhere to the very best practices our scientists and agriculturalists can come up with.
Crop varieties that were developed over centuries to resist pests, disease and climatic conditions are being lost. Once a crop variety is lost its attributes can never be recovered. Therefore we must work hard, not as a nation particularly but as a world community, to make sure this does not happen.
Some 30 per cent of domestic animal breeds are at risk. In Europe half the breeds that existed at the beginning of this century are being lost to intensive production. Many challenges are facing us, but these are only management challenges. In our own hands we can solve them.
I raised this matter on the Adjournment so that we will think of it on World Food Day tomorrow and we will use the opportunity to do something about it. Future generations will look back on what is happening at the end of the 20th century — just as we look back on slavery or capital punishment for minor offences 100 years ago — and ask how we put up with a system of paying farmers not to grow something under the set-aside system when others were hungry.
As a State we cannot solve this problem on our own, but our nation suffered from famine 150 years ago and it is that very feeling and emotion inside us that encourages us to do something about it. We must begin to look at food needs from a global perspective, not purely from a European one that only serves local interests.
Given our history we should be a leader within the European Union in pressing for a reformed agricultural policy that encompasses a moral dimension as well as an economic one. I want Senators to consider that tomorrow at lunch and dinner when we enjoy food that many in the world do not have.
