Agriculture Report - Actions to Fight Hunger Fall Short of Promises

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Bank	From	He	Now	Special	The	been	but	by
cutting	food	from	have	hungerHe	in	international	invest	investment	last
promises	say	says	security	the	there	to	vitamins	will

VOA Learning English, this is the Agriculture Report in English. To "walk the talk" means to keep your , to do what you said you would do. "Walk Talk" is also the name of a new report the International Food Policy Research Institute. The group says has been a lot of talk about fighting hunger, not enough action. As a result, it says the community could fall far short of the goal of the number of hungry people in half by 2015. report says an estimated 870 million people were hungry year. Two billion did not get enough micronutrients ---- and minerals. Shenggen Fan is the institute's director general. described 2012 as a mixed year for progress against says African countries, India, China and Brazil continue to in agriculture. Donor agencies, he says, including the World and USAID, have also increased their investment in food and nutrition. But he says a lack of political limited progress on food security. After the food crisis 2008 and 2009, many promises were made to increase in smallholder agriculture. These small farms are often headed women. Shenggen Fan says not all those promises have kept. Supporters of greater agricultural investment in poor countries often criticized farm support programs in rich nations. They subsidies hurt food production and sales in developing countries. , many countries, including India and China, are also turning subsidies. Shenggen Fan says that needs to change. He it's time the international community walked the talk on security. For VOA Learning English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. (Adapted a radio program broadcast 19Mar2013)

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