Economic advance in Asia and the Pacific has been impressive in the last decades, and a recent World Bank report has highlighted the dramatic progress made in poverty reduction across the region. In 1981, 77 percent of Asians lived in poverty, but just 20 years later the proportion had dropped to 14 percent.

Nevertheless, the Asia-Pacific region remains home to two out of every three of the world's hungry. That means around half a billion people going hungry; that is half a billion people too many.

The region's challenge over the next decades will therefore be threefold: to eradicate hunger and assure everyone's right to food; to increase agricultural production in the face of climate change and rapid urbanization; and to do so in an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable manner.

Those are of course global challenges, facing populations not just in Asia but elsewhere too. But they are of particular relevance to the world's most populous region, which is home to the vast majority of the world's small farms and where almost all of the potential arable land is already in use.

It follows that much of the food needed to feed the predicted two billion extra mouths between now and 2050 will need to come from intensifying smallholder agriculture on existing land rather than by opening up new areas for cultivation. Doing this without further jeopardizing delicate ecosystems and limited natural resources calls for new and sustainable approaches.

In rice production, for example, new Sustainable Rice Intensification techniques that include non-flooded, aerobic rice fields are starting to replace traditional paddies. Smallholders can achieve yield increases of a ton per hectare or more, while sharply reducing water and fertilizer use and greenhouse emissions.

But while producing more food is vital, it will not be enough on its own. The world already has enough food, and yet 925 million people are still undernourished. The main cause of hunger is lack of adequate access to food. The main issue is assuring that, starting at the local level, people have the money to buy food or can grow enough for themselves and their families. Hunger may be a global challenge, but people eat in their homes, in their cities and villages.

That means breathing new life into rural communities through support to small-scale farmers so they can produce more, more sustainably, and it means ensuring they have markets to sell to. Cash transfers and cash for work programmes; rural employment creation; and targeted safety nets that put money in people's pockets, will also help to make sure that the kids of these small-scale farmers are well fed and go to school. Social and productive policies can and should be linked, to complete a virtuous cycle in which local consumption and production feed off each other.

Another aspect to consider in global and regional food balances is food consumption. On top of the world's 925 million hungry, more than a billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies while another billion are overweight or obese. Meanwhile, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tons - is lost or wasted.

Cutting that waste would help keep food prices down, reduce pressure on natural resources and contain greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course ending hunger in Asia or indeed at the global level requires a concerted international effort, which lends special significance to the 31st Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which takes place in Hanoi this week.

Regional cooperation is the key to addressing hunger, especially through South-South cooperation, which enables developing countries to benefit from the expertise of other developing or emerging economies.

The FAO has 47 South-South cooperation agreements so far in the Asia Pacific region, with more than 1,500 experts and technicians from 13 countries sharing what they know in 35 host countries. Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam have been among the providers of South-South support.

Working together as part of the global community the Asia-Pacific region can ensure that its impressive economic advance is matched by rapid progress towards a hunger-free region.

The author is director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

(China Daily 03/16/2012 page9)