Multinational companies and a relentless drive from the North to promote profit over people are also partly to blame, said Green.
"Instead of prompting us to question the current paradigm, such crises [as the global food shortage], provide opportunities for developed countries and multinational companies to push for solutions that further promote their interests," she said.
Green said that the recent meeting of the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity was a case in point. At the meeting, leaders pushed GM crops as the answer to the food security issue. She said, however, that delegates at the convention overlooked the unequal access of poorer nations to natural resources and food that leads them to experience greater shortages.
Progressio argued that poor countries must be allowed to determine how they feed themselves in the next era of food production, pointing to a recent UN report which championed the need for much greater focus on small-scale agriculture.
Green also called for northern consumers to be "honest about the impact our consumer choices have on poor people in the south and their environments" and said governments must move beyond short-term technological fixes, such as GM and agrofuels, to address the "long-ignored root causes of food crises and other problems".
"I stand here knowing that my society and my attitudes and lifestyle choices are part of the problem like never before", said Green. "We cannot have more of everything but also reduce poverty and have a healthy environment...we rich countries have to change our consumption now".
Concluding, Joanne called for a radically different reality of development and globalisation backed up by "a global social contract" that brings together northern governments, food producers and consumers with their southern counterparts.
She challenged the UK Government to take the lead in learning from its failures and enable developed countries to face up to their responsibilities.
