Ambassador Carmen Lomellin’s Remarks to the 42nd OAS General Assembly

Our flagship “Feed the Future” program targets investments in poor rural areas of three focus countries in the Americas: Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti. Over the next five years, these programs will assist almost one million vulnerable women, children, and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty.

We have advanced with Brazil our trilateral partnership in Honduras and Haiti, and we salute Brazil’s leadership in our work together to improve health and food security in Africa. This cooperation provides concrete examples of how, working as equal partners, we can seek to spark positive economic growth that allows people and nations to rise from poverty.

Indeed, in addressing the problem of food security, we need to build on the important policy lessons learned over the past two decades. Governments must create sound policy environments that foster clear property rights and encourage domestic and foreign investment. Farmers need to have access to improved agricultural technology and the training to use it effectively. And, critically, real food security depends on lowering barriers to agricultural trade. While we all recognize that each government in this room, including my own, faces important political and economic constraints to further opening trade in agricultural products, this step would contribute markedly to hemispheric food security.

Moreover, fighting hunger is not an isolated challenge.