mr president the question addresses very important issues
ensuring that every citizen has access to nutritious food is a main aim of development cooperation
reducing the proportion of hungry people by half is therefore rightly the first of eight millennium development goals that the global community promised to reach by twenty fifteen
food security will also remain a top priority for the european union in its relations with africa where many countries are off track in reaching this mdg one where more than seventy of the population live in rural areas and where some ninety of agricultural production is carried out by smallholders on family farms
food security was already a priority of the first eu-africa action plan within the partnership on the mdgs and we will propose to maintain this as a priority area for the next action plan that is currently being drafted
we will also ensure that cross-sectoral aspects with direct links to food security such as research trade and regional integration are given appropriate relevance in this next action plan
the european union's focus on food security goes hand in hand with the importance that african leaders themselves have attached to agriculture and food security
the comprehensive africa agricultural development programme is the common framework for action in this area and we will continue to support this
having said that i believe that we have enough mechanisms at this stage to care about nutritious food supply and that it is not necessary to introduce a new specific partnership for food security in the joint africa-eu strategy
as i have said this dimension is already covered by the partnership on the mdgs among others
