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MDGs

This paper addresses the role of agricultural research and technology in poverty alleviation. It also considers research priorities and the role of national and international agricultural research in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while reducing the risk of armed conflict and international terrorism.

The author states that poverty, hunger and food insecurity, together with a very unequal distribution of incomes, land, and other material goods, generate anger, hopelessness, and a sense of unfairness and lack of social justice which in turn, provides a fertile ground for conflict. 

The paper considers a number of issues relating to the impact of technological change in agriculture on poverty and armed conflicts. These include:

• Poverty, hunger and the MDGs - past successes in food production have resulted in significant increases in per capita food availability
  
• Does poverty and hunger cause armed conflict and terrorism? Serious instability is simmering in many of the poorest developing countries which suffer from rapid population growth, slow or negative economic growth, weak governments, high child mortality rates, and widespread hunger and malnutrition
  
• Agricultural Research and Technology - rapid scientific and technological developments in molecular biology, information, communication, and energy are offering new opportunities for reducing poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition in ways that assure sustainable management of natural resources
  
• Future policies and strategies for agricultural science should take both poverty and conflict into account 
  
• Failure to take appropriate action to alleviate and eventually eliminate poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and related human suffering is unethical and it makes a mockery of the international agreement that freedom from hunger is a basic human right.
  

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