A missed opportunity

The first G20 Agriculture Ministers’ meeting, which was held in Paris on June 22 and 23, failed to make the decisions needed to avoid the imminent food crisis.

Although the G20 Ministers’ Action Plan contained stronger language on smallholder farmers and recognized the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organizations’Committee on Food Security as the leading body for food policy decisions, ActionAid warned that this was not enough to avoid another global food crisis.

“We are disappointed that the Ministers are delaying the implementation of regional co-ordination of food reserves which are urgently needed to prevent the next food crisis”. Said Soren Ambrose, ActionAid’s International Policy Manager.

According to ActionAid G20 Ministers missed another important target: they did not commit to remove financial incentives for biofuels which require large amounts of land and lead to food insecurity.

“The G20 has chosen to ignore the clear recommendations made by ten international organizations on tackling food price volatility by removing targets and financial incentives for biofuels.” Said Marie Brill, ActionAid’s biofuels expert.

ActionAid also declared that despite the failure of this meeting, the organization will continue to hold President Sarkozy and G20 ministers to account on their promises on global food security ahead of the November G20 summit.