An international conference is being staged to review agrarian reform and rural development that could contribute to poverty alleviation, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Thursday.

The International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) will take place in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on March 2-7, 2006.

According to the FAO, three out of four people suffering from hunger live in rural areas and depend on natural resources such as land and water for their survival.

"If we want to reduce hunger and poverty in the world, we must go to the root causes of the problem," said Parviz Koohafkan, executive secretary of the conference.

"In the poor rural zones, one of the main problems is the lack of secure access to factors of production, particularly land and water," he added.

The main objective of the conference is to analyze agrarian reform and rural development experiences in different countries, and to identify policies, practices and lessons learnt that can bring about a new rural development paradigm based on social inclusion, environmental sustainability and livelihood security for the poor.

Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, is known for hosting the World Social Forum.

Source: Xinhua