New risks and opportunities for food security

"The progressive policy actions scenario in this brief outlines several of the most important steps for assuring a food-secure world. National governments and the international community must adopt a new focus on agricultural growth and rural development, along with increasing their investments in education, health, and other social services. Policies to encourage synergistic growth in the nonfarm sectors are also needed to spur broad-based economic growth. A firm commitment to reducing hunger and improving the welfare of the world's undernourished people must underpin these strategies and research agendas. But investment in social services and growth-oriented policy actions alone will not be sufficient to reach the Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger by half by 2015 or to end hunger soon thereafter. Only if policy actions include sustained investment in social safety nets will food and nutrition security be achieved in the foreseeable future.." From Text