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World Food Prize winner says investing in women is the best way to feed the world's hungry

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World Food Prize winner says investing in women is the best way to feed the world's hungry

One in eight people worldwide, do not get enough food to eat to live a healthy and active life.

The necessity to produce more food will become even more urgent as the global population increases to an estimated nine billion people.

Catherine Bertini has worked in the area of food and agriculture for several decades. She argues that most of the population increase will be in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa, where women are the major food producers.

She believes that investing in women is the most efficient and effective way to increase food production.

'Women are the cooks, they are usually the farmers. They fetch the water and the firewood. They care for the children and they know what the family needs.'

Her awareness of the importance of enabling women began when she worked on food assistance programs in the United States, and she became aware of the critical role of women in poor families. She then moved on to become executive director of the United Nation's World Food Program.

In that role she tackled famine in North Korea, starvation in Afghanistan, delivering food to war-torn Bosnia and Kosovo and preventing mass starvation in the Horn of Africa. She was named World Food Prize Laureate, in 2003, for her UN work.

Professor Bertini used her prize to set up a foundation to educate girls.

She says investing in women can be as simple as ensuring they can listen to radio programs about what to plant, and how to produce food crops. 'Girls often have to fetch water. So why don't we site wells at schools? It is very simple but it will make a difference.'

Professor Bertini says Australia could lead in combating world hunger.

'Australia has wonderful reputation in agriculture. Helping to share the knowledge with developing countries is crucial and I hope people would support it,' she said.

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Mozambique, Rural, Rural Women, Poverty, International Aid and Trade