New UN resolutions sharpen focus on plant health, food safety and pulses

FAO applauded the decision by the United Nations to create two new international days and one entire year devoted to central issues in global food security and nutrition.

The UN General Assembly approved three new resolutions creating three awareness-raising initiatives, focused on plant health, food safety and pulses.

FAO and the International Plant Protection Convention Secretariat, based at FAO, welcomed the decision to proclaim 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health. With up to 40 percent of global food crops lost annually due to plant pests, the importance of fostering healthy plants is critical for public opinion and policymakers. In economic terms alone, plant diseases cost the global economy around $220 billion annually and invasive insects around $70 billion.

“The International Year of Plant Health is a key initiative to highlight the importance of plant health to enhance food security, protect the environment and biodiversity, and boost economic development,” FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo said.

Meanwhile, from now on, 10 February will mark World Pulses Day, keeping alive the positive momentum surrounding these healthy, nutritious, protein-rich, nitrogen-fixing legumes after FAO’s successful 2016 International Year of Pulses Campaign. Growing pulses contribute to sustainable crop production.

And 7 June will be World Food Safety Day, paying tribute to an increasingly important issue in today’s highly-interconnected food systems. FAO notes with satisfaction that the UN resolution expressly recognized that “there is no food security without food safety”.

Plant Health

The UN General Assembly invited FAO, with the IPPC Secretariat, to serve as the lead agency to spearhead activities related to International Year of Plant Health, and called on governments, civil society, and the private sector to engage at global, regional and national levels. An International Plant Health Conference will be among thousands of plant health events to be held around the world during the course of 2020.

“Pests and diseases don’t carry passports or observe immigration requirements and, therefore, the prevention of the spread of such organisms is very much an international undertaking that requires the collaboration of all countries. This is why Finland proposed to proclaim 2020 the International Year of Plant Health,” Jari Leppä, Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Finland said.

Food Safety

Unsafe food causes more than 200 diseases worldwide, including some forms of cancer, highlighting how food security and the battle to eradicate hunger stretches well beyond production and distribution issues.

The UN resolution urges FAO and the World Health Organization to facilitate the observance of World Food Safety Day – which was first promoted by Costa Rica – and to help meet the urgent need to raise awareness of the global importance to improve food safety.

Pulses

The special annual day for pulses, which was promoted by Burkina Faso, builds on the successful International Year of Pulses that FAO led in 2016.

Pulse crops such as lentils, beans, peas and chickpeas have multiple virtues, being strong sources of plant-based proteins and amino acids for human diets and offering invaluable ecosystem services, thanks to their ability – when grown as cover crops or explicitly for food – to fix atmospheric nitrogen in soils. On average, cereals grown after pulses yield 1.5 tonnes more per hectare than those not preceded by pulses, which is equal to the effect of 100 kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer.

Original source: FAO
Published on 20 December 2018