Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has returned from the first-ever Group of Eight Agriculture Ministerial meeting in Treviso, Italy held over the weekend.
"I am pleased to report that the G8 Agriculture Ministerial has produced a strong declaration of support for the critically important task of promoting food security," said Vilsack. "We took an important step toward building a consensus around issues affecting access, availability, and utilization of food among vulnerable populations."
The representatives of the G8 drafted a document that lays out a plan for increasing global food security. Vilsack said that it is important to invest in agricultural development as a permanent solution to food insecurity worldwide.
"I think it is very important not only to produce agricultural production to increase the amount of food, but it's also an opportunity to bolster the economy of developing countries," Vilsack said. "To the extent that developing countries can grow food and then export that food, it creates wealth. That wealth then gives people within a country the capacity to purchase food and purchase other items and build a stronger economy."
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