Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 4 • 4th February 2009
Meeting in Madrid Calls for ‘Food Security for All’
Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say
A meeting of the heads international organisations and representatives from 126 countries was convened in Madrid by the Spanish government to address ongoing problems caused by high food prices in the developing world. The crisis, which drew significant media attention over the summer, has recently been overshadowed by the turmoil in the global economy.
The gathering was one of a series of meetings on the global food crisis, including a prominent meeting hosted by the FAO in Rome last year.
At the conclusion of the meeting last week, the government of Spain pledged to provide €200 million per year over the next five years “for the fight against hunger.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Spanish Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero emphasised that they “will work together with nations and other stakeholders to explore options for a global partnership that sustains a movement against hunger and promotes smallholder agriculture.”
Reactions to the meeting were mixed. Some participants were critical of the fact that, although the gathering put a strong emphasis on the need to support smallholder farmers in alleviating poverty and addressing the food crisis, few such farmers were present at the meeting..
Anne-Laure Constantin of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy noted that “no substantial discussion took place” and there was “no real confrontation of the problem” of the current model of agricultural production. However, she welcomed an initiative to build a new global partnership on agriculture.
Discussions on the role that trade has played in the food crisis were limited, although the final statement that emerged from the meeting called for “eliminating all forms of competition-distorting subsidies in order to stimulate and conduct agricultural trade in a fair way.”
In recent weeks, the EU has faced strong criticism from WTO Members for reinstating a policy of providing export subsidies, one of the most controversial trade-distorting subsidies, for dairy products and increasing the payments on some poultry exports (see Bridges Weekly, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/38827/, 28 January 2009). Some observers have blamed subsidies for agricultural production in developed countries for destroying the economic incentives for investment in and production of farm goods in developing countries.
A session on monitoring short- and long-term measures to ensure food security addressed trade issues directly. Background documents for the meeting were uncritical of the role that tariffs and export taxes may have played in influencing food prices. Instead, the documents detailed how some countries that have eliminated or reduced food tariffs in an effort to bring price reliefs have suffered a loss of revenue as a result.
WTO Deputy Director General H. Singh, in his intervention in the session on trade, sounded a positive note on trade liberalisation, pointing out that “from 2008 and January 2009…the number of countries adopting trade liberalisation policies [to address the global food crisis] were more than those resorting to trade restriction.”
To ease the concerns of those seeking domestic food security, Singh elaborated on the existing flexibilities in the WTO Agreement and the safeguard mechanisms included in the most recent draft modalities on agriculture at the WTO.
One of the “biggest achievements” of the meeting, according to Oxfam representative Jenny Heap, was that “it instilled a participatory approach to the process.” Meeting participants agreed that “the South should be given a strong voice” in the food crisis response, Heap noted.
But Heap underlined the importance of maintaining international attention on the food crisis and fulfilling funding pledges made at the FAO meeting in Rome last year. Only about 20 percent of the monetary commitments made in Rome have been met so far, she said.
ICTSD reporting.
Add a comment
Enter your details and a comment below, then click Submit Comment. We’ll review and publish the best comments.