However, many of these countries also require strong external support to reinforce their national effort. Genuine food security will only become a reality in the world if all the interested parties developing and developed country governments, private investors and international funding agencies demonstrate that they have the clear, coherent and sustained political will to make it happen, even if this entails questioning concepts, criteria and attitudes that have long been taken for granted. Whether the focus is on the technical, the financial or the political, there is one key element that must always be borne foremost in mind - the time dimension. The pace is slower. Changes do not happen overnight.
Results take time to emerge.
Analysis of trends needs to cover the medium or long term if it is to have any significance. Implementation and evaluation need to be framed in a much longer perspective. In short, the patience of the farmer must become the principal virtue of the investor. The implications of food security are vital for the world today, for what we have before us is no less than the survival of humanity. Such, Honourable Ministers, is the nature of the challenge that our governments and peoples have to take up now and in the future.