Goal 2. Hunger & food security

Zero Hunger

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

To feed a growing population, agriculture is increasingly knowledge-intensive. ICTs help farmers improve crop yields and business productivity through better access to market information, weather forecasts, training programmes, and other online content tailored to their needs.

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Stats

In 2015, almost 800 million people worldwide are undernourished. ¹

¹ Source: United Nations, July 2015, as reported by the Guardian -

Case study – Bangladesh

The Krishi Call Centre (Agriculture Call Centre) is a public-private initiative that aims to help end hunger and achieve food security by promoting sustainable agriculture. The service acts as an agriculture extension service, providing easy, rapid, real-time and low-cost extension services to all farmers, particularly smallholders and the marginalized, via the toll-free short number 16123. The service leverages the widespread availability and adoption of mobile cellular telephony in Bangladesh, and by the end of 2014 was receiving 3,000 calls a month, with a total of 64,000 calls received.
Related link:
The Krishi Call Centre and WSIS Stocktaking

ITU150 Story: Innovating with Fatoumata

How m-farming can feed the next 2.4billion people
With a rapidly growing population, we must think differently about water if we want to ensure food security, conserve delicate ecosystems and reduce poverty by 2050. Fatoumata Kebe’s project CONNECTED ECO, a winner of ITU Telecom’s Young Innovators Competition, addresses this issue head on.
Read the story

Sound Bites

"In a world of plenty, no one, not a single person, should go hungry"

Ban Ki-moon

United Nations Secretary-General

"There is a marked global trend towards sustainable agriculture, building on traditional methods which use fewer chemical inputs, carefully manage soil and water resources, and work hand-in-hand with nature."

Helen Clark

UNDP Administrator & Former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Blogs
Resources
Goal & Targets SDG-2

E-agriculture in action:
E-agriculture or ICT in agriculture holds great promise in providing access to innovative solutions to many challenges faced by smallholder resource-poor farmers. FAO and ITU publication

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

2.1 By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.
2.2 By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons.
2.3 By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.
2.4 By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters and that progressively improve land and soil quality.
2.5 By 2020, maintain the genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants and farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species, including through soundly managed and diversified seed and plant banks at the national, regional and international levels, and promote access to and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, as internationally agreed.
2.a Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries.
2.b Correct and prevent trade restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets, including through the parallel elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect, in accordance with the mandate of the Doha Development Round.
2.c Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.