I n recent days Rome hosted the summit of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, where the main topic of discussion was the issue of hunger and malnutrition which is afflicting a number of nations is Africa and Asia, as well as certain segments of the populations in other countries. As expected it served as an opportunity for a number of heads of governments to air their grievances for the lack of help from the richer countries and for others to lay the blame for their own errors at the doorstep of other countries.

For example Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe described the sanctions against his country as inhumane, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was own way of governing the country that caused the imposition of those sanctions.

Moreover, the decisions he took over the last years to drive away certain segments of the population from the countryside has had the effect of reducing the production of food in Zimbabwe.

The pity is that it is the population of Zimbabwe is suffering as a result of the dictatorial system of government of its leader.

However, to my mind the most important comment was made by the representative of the Vatican, who claimed that it is possible to produce enough food so that no one goes hungry in this world, but for one reason or another, this is not happening.

The issue of food production is very much an economic issue and history has proved it time and time again. Countries have experienced famine because of particularly adverse climatic conditions such as lack of rain. But it is also true that countries have experienced famine and malnutrition in the past because they adopted the wrong economic policies.

Such policies have reduced the production capability of these countries, with the result that they could not meet their food requirements. In order to be able to feed the masses countries need to adopt the appropriate economic policies that enable them to maximise their production capability.

The FAO summit brought out five main action points. The first is very much linked to the point just made - it puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of each single government to adopt the appropriate policies for adequate investment in rural development. This is a clear indication that governments need to ensure that enough resources are allocated to meet the food requirements of their population. Developing industry is positive but this should not be done at the cost of rural development. Worse still, diverting resources to aspects like defence expenditure at the expense of food production starts to become criminal.

The second and third point are very much interconnected because they speak of the need to achieve more effective coordination between national, regional and global strategies and of the need to have stronger multilateral institutions that can meet the challenges caused by emergency situations.

A case in point where this is failing and is having a severe impact on food production, is the issue of climate change. Unless there is agreement on what actions need to be taken to address this challenge, the world's capability to produce the food that is required to feed everyone may be severely impaired.

The fourth point talk about the need to have strategies to deal with the immediate situation as well as strategies to deal with the medium and long term requirements.

One of the aspects that students of economics learn under the broad concept of the price mechanism, is that the price mechanism works with a time lag in the agricultural sector. This time lag can only be overcome effectively if one has strategies that look beyond the immediate future. This is why we need to address issues such as over fishing and the depletion of marine resources.

The final point that emerged from the FAO summit encapsulates the other four and speaks of the need to have multi annual investment programmes that can guarantee a level of safety in terms of availability of food. This strengthens the point even more that to address the need to feed the masses the world over requires us to have suitable economic policies that generate the required resources.

All this may sound as something totally irrelevant to us in Malta. We do not have a situation that is prevalent in other countries where whole sections of the population suffer famine consistently.

Surely our country is generating enough wealth so that no one needs to go hungry, even for one single day.

However, we need to understand that food resources are being wasted, and this in itself implies that something in our economic system is not working out quite right. We also need to understand that we cannot afford to continue to construct buildings, while losing out on green areas. Rural development needs more resources and we are getting to the stage where some land that has been built upon, is given back to the environment.