Dear colleagues,
Many thanks Prof. Pogge, for your comment and for your hugely important work on "how to count" the poor, or the hungry, to make sure we do not fall into complacency.
The 1.3 billion people "employed in the livestock sector" comes from the 2006 FAO report "Livestock's long shadow". It refers not to the people whose main or exclusive occupation is as herders or livestock keepers or producers, but to people in households who own some animals - very often, a pig, a few goats, or some hens in the backyard, which supplements their diets on a more or less regular basis. As to the figure of 1 billion people employed in agriculture, it is much lower than most figures cited by FAO or the World Bank (who put the figure at around 1.6 or 1.8 billion), but again the discrepancy may be explained by the fact that many poor households in rural areas in developing countries have some agricultural production, for own consumption ("subsistence agriculture"), but are not marketing what they produce or do so only very occasionally. These people survive by diversifying their incomes: they have a few animals, half a hectare on which they cultivate maize, and they work periodically as farm workers on large industrial plantations or in cities.
Best wishes,
Prof. Olivier De Schutter
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food
tel. ++32(0)2.640.4295 / ++32(0)488.482004
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm
http://www.srfood.org/
Postal address:
SSH/JURI/PJTD - Coll�ge Thomas More
Place Montesquieu 2, bte L2.07.01
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
For official communications related to my mandate as UN Special Rapporteur:
Special Rapporteur on the right to food
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR, CH1211 Gen�ve 10, Suisse
E-mail: srfood@ohchr.org
Tel: +41 22 917 9323
Fax: +41 22 917 9006
Many thanks Prof. Pogge, for your comment and for your hugely important work on "how to count" the poor, or the hungry, to make sure we do not fall into complacency.
The 1.3 billion people "employed in the livestock sector" comes from the 2006 FAO report "Livestock's long shadow". It refers not to the people whose main or exclusive occupation is as herders or livestock keepers or producers, but to people in households who own some animals - very often, a pig, a few goats, or some hens in the backyard, which supplements their diets on a more or less regular basis. As to the figure of 1 billion people employed in agriculture, it is much lower than most figures cited by FAO or the World Bank (who put the figure at around 1.6 or 1.8 billion), but again the discrepancy may be explained by the fact that many poor households in rural areas in developing countries have some agricultural production, for own consumption ("subsistence agriculture"), but are not marketing what they produce or do so only very occasionally. These people survive by diversifying their incomes: they have a few animals, half a hectare on which they cultivate maize, and they work periodically as farm workers on large industrial plantations or in cities.
Best wishes,
Prof. Olivier De Schutter
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food
tel. ++32(0)2.640.4295 / ++32(0)488.482004
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index.htm
http://www.srfood.org/
Postal address:
SSH/JURI/PJTD - Coll�ge Thomas More
Place Montesquieu 2, bte L2.07.01
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
For official communications related to my mandate as UN Special Rapporteur:
Special Rapporteur on the right to food
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR, CH1211 Gen�ve 10, Suisse
E-mail: srfood@ohchr.org
Tel: +41 22 917 9323
Fax: +41 22 917 9006
