FAO has suggested shifts in international governments' policies are gradually coming to favour those at risk of food insecurity.

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Speaking in Brazil earlier this week, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said that policy shifts are gradually coming to favour FAO's vision for sustainably addressing food insecurity. He spoke of a developing trend towards growing and marketing traditional foods, towards improving local infrastructure and markets and helping small-scale producers, which he believes is good for both the environment and the economy of rural areas, where hunger is worst.

Graziano da Silva told those assembled in Pollenzo that the Green Revolution of the 1960s increased per capita availability of food by over 40 percent, but at the cost of a loss of food diversity because of a focus on a few crops and significant impact on the environment from intensive use of chemical inputs. The FAO director has repeatedly called for a "paradigm shift" towards a genuinely sustainable and more equitable food system.

FAO has championed growing more diverse crops, including cassava and quinoa, which it has suggested are suitable for a wide range of conditions and geographical locations. Graziano da Silva told an audience of academics supporting the Slow Food movement on Monday, "Under-utilized crops ... can have a positive impact on food security. Recovering these crops is a way towards food security. It also means rediscovering lost flavours and identifying new ones. That is something that unites all of you to the poor farmers throughout the world."

He said FAO's vision for addressing food insecurity would "complete a virtuous circle," with the potential to "recover traditional crops, support local production and link [small farmers] to markets, allowing for an increase in their income." The FAO chief added that, “interest in rediscovering different foods is a way to recognize the cultural value of food, a value that is often forgotten in today's globalized and fast world."