Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 25 October 2012 - Strasbourg

14.5. Conclusion, on behalf of the EU, of the Food Assistance Convention (A7-0309/2012 - Nirj Deva) (vote)

− Before the vote:

  Nirj Deva, rapporteur. − Mr President, thank you for giving me this opportunity to thank my colleagues in the committee and Parliament for allowing this report to go through so quickly.

15 000 people will die of hunger today. Just to put this into perspective, that is equivalent to all of Parliament and its staff, the Council and its staff, the Court of Justice and its staff, the Ombudsman and his staff and one third of the Commission.

The global population is expected to double and go up to nine billion people, and our food production output has to double to meet that appalling number of people that the world will have to feed. The current Food Aid Convention falls short of what is required. The new Convention which we will pass today will introduce new forms of assistance: local producers with local purchases; untied food aid; vouchers for farmers in developing countries that they can turn into money and food and that help agriculture in developing countries. I would like to thank everyone for working so hard to get this report through and for trying to save so many lives.