A meeting of agriculture ministers from the world's 20 leading economies (G20) closed on Saturday with a plea for more efforts to combat hunger and a call for more innovation in agriculture.
The two-day meeting, held in Florence, Italy, addressed how to ensure there is enough to eat for the global population, among other issues.
Italian Agriculture Minister Stefano Patuanelli called for patience, saying that decisions made today might not show any effects for years. Italy chairs the G20 this year.
Patuanelli called it a "great paradox" that on the one hand, hundreds of millions of people are undernourished, while elsewhere, food is wasted on a massive scale.
Some 1 billion tonnes of food is thrown away every year, according to an analysis by the agricultural group Coldiretti, based on UN data. The total amount discarded is some 17 per cent of all agricultural produce.
"We recognize that sustainable and resilient food systems are fundamental for food security and nutrition," the G20 ministers said in their closing statement.
The attendees also weighed how to link producing more food with protecting the climate.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently presented a study saying some 470 billion dollars of annual agricultural subsidies are not sustainable or fair. Only by radically redistributing aid can social inequalities and environmental damage be addressed, the researchers said.
