The Vietnamese leader made the statement while attending the plenary session on food security, which was held in Davos , Switzerland , on January 29 as part of the World Economic Forum 2010.
The world’s demand for food is forecast to almost double the current volume to feed more than 9 billion people in 2050, he said.

He spoke highly of the efforts of many countries and international organisations, especially the UN bodies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in supporting agricultural development and ensuring national and world food security in the recent past.

However, the PM said, progress in ensuring food security remains tardy and unstable, and it’s time for the international community to seek new ways of ensuring food security for the world in a faster and more sustainable manner.

To ensure food security, each country needs to maintain certain farmland acreage for food crops and boost investment to increase yields and quality of food, said Mr Dung.  

Nations should also create favourable conditions for trading of agricultural products, building a stable food distribution system and generating jobs and income, as well as increasing people’s access to food, the Vietnamese leader said.

PM Dung said that Vietnam is ready to share its knowledge and experiences in food security with other countries and the international community through bilateral and multilateral cooperation programmes, especially the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s South-South Cooperation Programme for Food Security.

Vietnam is one of the few countries forecast to be hardest hit by climate change, particularly rising sea levels, but it is a country that annually provides one fifth of the world’s total export rice volume, he said.

He, therefore, called for international support for Vietnam to cope with climate change, firstly in implementing the agricultural sector’s action plan on adaptability to climate change during the 2008-2020 period.