We’re watching Senator Clinton’s confirmation hearing to become Secretary of State live, and a couple important things to note. During his opening remarks, Senator Richard Lugar named combatting the global food and hunger crisis as one of the top priorities for the next Secretary of State as both a humanitarian and security issue.

Also during Senator Clinton’s remarks, she mentioned the need to fight pandemic disease and worldwide poverty as her priorities as well. We’ll have transcript and video shortly.

Here are Senator Lugar’s opening comments on the global hunger crisis (transcript below):

Eradicating global hunger must be embraced as both a humanitarian and national security imperative. Precipitous food price increases that occurred in 2007 and 2008 created havoc in many parts of the world causing riots in some 19 countries and plunging an additional 75 million people into poverty and increasing vulnerability to malnourishment.

Nearly 1 billion people are presently food insecure. It is predicted the world’s population will grow to such an extent that by 2050 current food production will need to double to meet demand. There is no reason why people should be hungry when we have the knowledge, the technology, and the resources to make everyone food secure.

The United States is uniquely situated to help the world feed itself, and has the opportunity to recast its image by making the eradication of hunger a centerpiece of United States foreign policy.

-Chris Scott