Providing women with educational opportunities, access to resources, and access to income is essential to improving agricultural productivity and family nutrition. Parents in poverty tend to have many children because infant mortality is high and because they need the insurance of knowing that some of their offspring will provide for them in old age. Population control is an essential part of the solution to the long-term food problem. This requires educating young girls and making reproductive health services available. Infrastructure needs must also be addressed.
Irrigation schemes can be crucial to long-term agricultural sustainability.
Roads are needed to get food and agriculture products from rural areas to the cities. But governments must not overlook the importance of agricultural research, extension services and training of farmers, and participation of farmers in finding sustainable solutions to the problems associated with increasing agricultural production. Foreign aid from developed countries must be used to support good agricultural policies, such as policies that encourage technology improvement, and not policies that distort the market, such as artificially low food prices to farmers. It is in the interest of the developed world to find solutions to the problem of food insecurity in developing countries. Food insecurity, poverty, and hunger can lead to social unrest, civil wars, even revolution.