In 1992, the Rio Summit recognized food security as a basic human right. Henceforth, ensuring universal access to adequate, nutritious food has become a global objective and responsibility and has been fully included in the Sustainable Development Goals recently set by the United Nations.

Although the number of hungry people in the world has declined in the last decade, the latest figures released by the FAO show there has been an upsurge in the last two years. This failure is both a cause and a consequence of increasing international migration and armed conflict.

In order to achieve the Zero Hunger goal within the next three decades, it will be necessary to boost food production by 70%. Such productivity enhancement will not be easy and it will have to be supported by appropriate action to address two additional interrelated problems.

On the one hand, future food demand will mostly come from only a few Asian countries that are not able to expand production in a considerable way as they lack the natural resources necessary for agriculture (land and water). Therefore, ensuring food security in that region will require a significant expansion of the international trade of food products provided by other regions with greater availability of agricultural natural resources.

On the other hand, agriculture and livestock are major sources of greenhouse gases emissions and thus contribute to global warming. The increased agricultural productive capacity required to satisfy global demand may led to a substantial rise in GHG emissions, unless effective measures are taken to adapt current farming and ranching practices and technologies.

Adequately managing the relationships between food security, agricultural productive capacity, international trade and climate change requires a joint, global effort that calls for active participation of the G20 and other global governance mechanisms.

In this regard, the inclusion of food security as one of the central topics of the agenda of the G20 meeting to be held in Buenos Aires at the end of 2018 is highly promising, as President Macri highlighted at the Argentina G20 presidency kick-off event. It is a favorable opportunity for member countries, and particularly for Argentina as chair of the group, to formulate proposals for global action towards an efficient and sustainable production of food. To that end, it will be necessary to develop policies that encourage and support the widespread implementation of sustainable agricultural practices and the expansion of a more effective agricultural trade that would allow for the best and most efficient use of the available agricultural natural resources of the world.