Thank you very much to Bob for that introduction and it's a great pleasure to join Prime Ministers Harper and Cameron for this very special event.
One statistic really tells the whole story for all of us, and that statistic is that it is estimated that one billion people go hungry each day and we know that 1.4 billion men, women and children, 75 per cent of the world's poorest people, live in rural areas, and they are already struggling to produce enough food for themselves.
And yet the scale of the challenge is going to increase - by 2050 it's estimated that the world will need to feed an additional two billion people, as our global population reaches nine billion in total.
Now these are daunting figures, they are particularly daunting if you live - as we do - in the Asian region of the world, with so many growing nations.
These statistics about how many people are hungry are simply unacceptable and the world can't stand by and just watch this worsen, which is why today we are making a joint commitment to improve agriculture and to improve food production.
We know that we need better agricultural productivity, more open trade, greater investment, increased aid, innovation, research and development.
And we need a more sustained international effort and marshalling of all resources, both public and private.
Ag Results will make an important contribution to meeting this challenge, by investing in creativity and harnessing technological innovation, we can improve agricultural productivity and food security in some of the world's poorest countries, for some of the world's poorest people.
And we can do that in a way that rewards real change, so I'm delighted that Australia will have an opportunity to play a role in this important new initiative and I'm very pleased to be able to announce that Australia will provide a contribution of $20 million.
We are a very efficient agricultural producer. We are in parts a very arid country, so we've got some relevant expertise and we're very happy to share.
I want to applaud the work of my colleagues here today, of Canada and the United Kingdom, and of course the important role of the World Bank in administering this fund.
And I'm looking forward to working with my other G20 colleagues over the coming day on tackling global food insecurity and delivering real improvements to the lives of billions of people around the world.
Thank you very much.