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G8 farm ministers to attack hunger, feed poor
G8 calls for improving food security and agrees with conducting a study on coordinated food stock; but no concrete measures have been taken yet, Oxfam said.
di Staff
As reported by Jeremy Smith of Reuters, G8 farm ministers urged yesterday, 20th April, that more food be grown to feed the world’s hungry, but champions of the poor bemoaned a lack of concrete measures from the three-day meeting.
The ministers, met in a hillside castle in Cison di Valmartino, northern Italy, denounced protectionism in farming, stressed the importance of a rules-based international system for farm trade, pledged to look at price volatility in commodity markets and also requested a study into coordinated commodity stocks.
A global promise to ease hunger for millions had been made harder by the financial turmoil, while fears about global food security would continue because of price volatility and a delicate balance between supply and demand, the ministers said.
“The enhanced support for agriculture to which this document refers must become a reality and quickly,” said Janayo Nwanze, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
“The wellbeing of 2 billion poor people who depend on small holder farms in developing countries hinges on it.”
Lamenting a lack of real action from ministers representing the world’s most developed nations, international aid agency Oxfam said the buck had been passed to other ministers to pledge funding.
“G8 ministers have made an extraordinary admission of collective failure. This would be an offence in any other arena”, Chris Leather, Italy-based senior food advisor at Oxfam International said.
In a statement issued at the end of the first-ever meeting of agriculture ministers from the G8 group of countries, the ministers said public and private investment in sustainable farming and rural development needed to be increased.
Farmers also needed to be shielded from trade distortions and be allowed to produce nutritious food.
“There should be monitoring and further analysis of factors potentially affecting price volatility in commodity markets, including speculation,” the G8 farm ministers’ statement said.
“We underline the importance of a rules-based international trading system for agricultural trade […]. We wish to support the role of well functioning markets as a means for improving food security,” it said.
The ministers also said renewable energy production from biomass should be increased, calling for policies to emphasise development and commercialisation of second-generation bio-fuels.
Global grain stocks
During their meeting the ministers also thrashed out the merits of buffer grain stocks as an emergency food facility, as a way to ease price shocks and curb speculative commodity trade.
On stocks, the ministers said they would ask international organisations to examine the “feasibility and administrative modalities” of a common stockholding system for commodities.
While the declaration fell short of specifying which commodity stocks might be involved, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said the ministers had discussed grain.
The ministers pledged to explore options on a coordinated approach to stock management, although several delegations — particularly the United States — voiced disquiet about how effective, or necessary, such schemes would be.
It could work on a limited scale for humanitarian aid but would be too costly and unmanageable for more ambitious uses, said economist and commodities specialist Philippe Chalmin of the Paris Dauphine University.
“It’s been a while now since the central banks stopped carrying out joint measures, they don’t have the means any more,” he said. “How then do you expect us to be able to do such a thing in agriculture?”
Apart from the Group of Eight industrialised countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States — agriculture ministers from the G5 were present at the meeting: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa.
The European Commission and various U.N. agencies were also invited, as were ministers from Argentina, Australia and Egypt.
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