Food majors triple investment in ending hunger

By Svetlana Kovalyova

MILAN (Reuters) - World majors in agriculture and food sectors have tripled their investments in boosting global food security but need to spend more to help eradicate hunger, participants at an international forum said on Thursday.

With the number of hungry people rising to a record 1.02 billion this year, up 100 million from 2008, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) urged private and public investors to pour more funds in developing countries' farming.

FAO said foreign direct investment (FDI) in agriculture tripled to more than $3 billion in 2007 from $1 billion in 2000 but that still represented less than one percent of total world FDI inflows.

The figure also pales when compared with $44 billion a year of official development assistance that FAO urges world leaders to agree to spend to help poor nations feed themselves.

Private sector, governments, non-government organisations should work together to solve long-term problems in developing countries and eradicate hunger in the world, said Ertharin Cousin, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies in Rome.

"Many of these companies have been working in (developing) countries for many years and know better than many of the donor countries what the problems there are," she told Reuters.

Food and agribusiness majors, including Nestle, Unilever and Cargill which gathered in Milan for a two-day meeting on food security, said they can add value to the global cause with their funds and expertise.

"In our business ... we can make a huge difference in terms of using plant genetics and tools and advise farmers to make a real change in the way they are working in developing markets," Dean Oestreich, chairman of a leading U.S. agricultural biotech company Pioneer Hi-Bred and a vice president of DuPont, told Reuters.