Maputo - The government of the southern African country of Mozambique is considering proposals for legislation that would make access to food a basic right, a local newspaper reported.

Mozambique's Noticias newspaper reported this week that the state food and nutrition security technical secretariat (SETSAN) had forwarded a declaration to the cabinet of President Armando Guebuza that calls for such a legal instrument.

The declaration was drawn up at a recent symposium on food security and nutrition in Maputo.

In it, experts call for legislation defending the right of every person to have physical and economic access to food at all times, in sufficient quantity and quality.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights lists food as a basic right but it is not a binding document.

The proposal under consideration by cabinet also proposes that food security be at the forefront of all the government's anti- poverty policies.

Enshrining the right to food through legislation would put pressure on the government to come up with ways of feeding the poor, particularly during times of rising food crises.

Annual floods that wash away thousands of hectares of crops, rising food prices and the loss of many able-bodied workers to the HIV/Aids pandemic are fuelling food insecurity in Mozambique, an impoverished former Portugese colony of 22 million people. (dpa)