High-level panel releases recommendations to address food security, climate change in anticipation of U.N. meeting

In advance of a U.N. climate change conference this month in Durban, South Africa, the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, a high-level international panel, on Wednesday announced its recommendations (.pdf) for achieving food security while addressing the effects of climate change, VOA News reports. The panel, which includes scientists from 13 countries who are experts in agriculture, climate, economics, trade, nutrition and ecology, "spent the past year analyzing many climate studies -- a year that included climbing food prices, humanitarian disasters and political unrest -- all of which, it says, threaten food security," VOA writes (DeCapua, 11/16). "The seven high-level recommendations include significantly raising the level of global investment in sustainable agriculture and food systems in the next decade; sustainably intensifying agricultural production on the existing land base while reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and reducing losses and waste in the food system," a commission press release states (11/16).

In related news, "[t]he right to adequate food must be at the top of the agenda of next month's global trade talks, an independent United Nations expert stressed [Wednesday], calling for bold policies to ensure food security," the U.N. News Centre writes. "'The world is in the midst of a food crisis which requires a rapid policy response. But the World Trade Organization (WTO) agenda has failed to adapt, and developing countries are rightly concerned that their hands will be tied by trade rules,' said the special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter," who added the WTO "must address" the issue at its upcoming ministerial meeting in December, the news service writes (11/16).