IIMSAM Official urged Governments to ensure better food security management

Feb. 5, 2010 - PRLog -- While expressing his deep concern over increasing rates of malnourishment amid global climate hazard Dr. Naseer S Homoud, Goodwill Ambassador and Director of Middle East office for the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina against Malnutrition (IIMSAM), the Permanent Observer to the United Nations Economic and Social Council asserted that climate change directly affects food security and nutrition. It undermines current efforts to protect the lives and livelihoods and end the suffering of the over 1 billion food insecure people and will increase the risk of hunger and malnutrition by an unprecedented scale within the next decades. “Malnourishment is already the single largest contributor to the global burden of disease, killing 3.5 million people every year, almost all of them children in developing countries. Unless urgent action is taken, I am of firm opinion that it will not be possible to ensure the food security for the growing world population under a changing climate”. Dr. Homoud said in his press statement.

It is an irony that in present world of plenty extreme poverty is a grim reality, affecting around a quarter per cent of the world population.  While extreme income poverty –- defined by a dollar-per-day threshold -- has been declining in East Asia and the Pacific, scant progress has been made in all other regions. Dr. Homoud highlighted some of the projected impacts of climate change on food security. “To address this unmatched challenge, a strong commitment of the international community, particularly the developed countries, is needed. The current negotiation process offers opportunities to identify and endorse some of the actions needed. However, large efforts will be required beyond Copenhagen summit” Dr. Homoud contended.

In the last fifty years the world population has more than doubled: from 3 billion to 6.7 billion people. Over one billion of them are undernourished – an unacceptable situation and a big challenge to global efforts to end hunger and poverty. In the next forty years, world population will increase by another 50 %, reaching more than 9 billion by 2050. Meeting the demand of such a large population will put enormous additional pressure on food production systems. “Notwithstanding climate change, demand for food will increase, while resources needed for its production, such as land, water and petrol-based fertilizers – are becoming scarcer and scarcer.  The risk of hunger is very likely to increase by a large extent in the next decades due to a number of factors attributed and the world community has to prepare itself to meet the demands amid present supply mechanism” Dr. Homoud said.

Dr. Homoud maintained that climate change will act as a multiplier of existing threats to food security: “It will make natural disasters more frequent and intense, land and water more scarce and difficult to access, and increases in productivity even harder to achieve. The implications for people who are poor and already food insecure and malnourished are immense”. He said.

It is estimated that climate change will affect all four dimensions of food security: availability, accessibility, stability, and utilization. It will reduce food availability, because it negatively affects the basic elements of food production – soil, water and biodiversity. Rural communities face increased risks including recurrent crop failure, loss of livestock and reduced availability of fisheries and forest products. Changing temperatures and weather patterns furthermore create conditions for the emergence of new pests and diseases that affect animals, trees and crops. This has direct effects on the quality and quantity of yields as well as the availability and price of food, feed and fibre.

Dr. Homoud while outlining his vision to meet the future demand of food urged for achieving food security under a changing climate requires substantial increases in food production on the one hand, as well as improved access to adequate and nutritious food and capacities to cope with the risks posed by climate change on the other hand. He said “Governments must be assisted in enhancing food production and access, scaling up social protection systems and improving their ability to prepare for and respond to disasters”.

While maintaining that the situation would worsen in future  he said “ if we take stock of the present situation and envisage the future tendency we have to ensure that humanitarian community must get prepared for more extreme weather events and protecting the already food insecure better by strengthening both crisis response and crisis prevention” Dr. Homoud said.


“Climate change poses an extraordinary confront to the aim of eradicating hunger and poverty. In order to meet the growing demand for food security and nutrition under gradually more hard climatic conditions and in a situation of diminishing resources, we must urgently move towards embracing a two-fold approach firstly by investing in development of more efficient and realistic productions systems and secondly, by supplying adequate food like Spirulina to the masses which are at larger risk. We also need to enhance our social protection systems and to better management of weather related disasters” Dr. Homoud said.

Speaking on importance of Spirulina- which is declared as food for future Dr. Homoud said “it can be cultivated using minimum means of the costs of production on each and every level our climate is identified with. Its rich harvest and climate friendly cultivation make it a feasible solution for reducing the concerns over climate change as its ecological cultivation does not cause pollution, soil erosion, water contamination or forest destruction”. He urged governments to join and support IIMSAM for enhancing cultivation and distribution of Spirulina to the masses that are at larger risk and fighting for survival amid hunger and malnourishment

Reaffirming the commitment of IIMSAM for fighting hunger and malnutrition through use of Spirulina, Dr. Homoud said that IIMSAM is leaving no stones unturned to attend these grave issues. He added “IIMSAM is currently undertaking various projects in African countries particularly Kenya for cultivation and distribution of Spirulina. Thanks to His Excellency Ambassador Remigio M. Maradona Director General of the IIMSAM under whom guidance IIMSAM is spreading its mandates in pursuit of its goal to make our world free of hunger and malnutrition”. He urged governments to support IIMSAM and affirmed that Spirulina is the best resource for fighting hunger and malnutrition on very low costs involved.