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| UN chief says $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion a year is needed to boost food production to combat hunger |
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Thursday, June 05, 2008
By Kaleem Omar
Speaking at a three-day emergency food summit in Rome on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion a year is needed to boost food production to control soaring food prices that threaten nearly 1 billion people with hunger and could trigger devastating social unrest across the globe.
Delegates at the summit on the food price crisis have been divided on the role that biofuels play in driving up food prices to the point of provoking riots in some countries. Ban said policy guidelines on biofuel production should be put in place because of its impact on food production.
UN officials have urged nations attending the emergency summit to eliminate trade barriers, expand biotechnology research and boost food production with an annual investment of $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion.
Thus, there is already a difference of $ 10 billion a year between Ban’s figure and those cited by other UN officials about the amount of money they say is needed to tackle the crisis.
Soaring global food prices have already forced about 100 million people into hunger. High food prices are pushing about 30 million Africans into poverty. About 850 million people are suffering from chronic hunger worldwide. Food prices have hit the highest levels in real terms in 30 years. The price of rice has gone up by 75 per cent globally. Global food prices rose by 43 per cent in 2007 alone. The US has diverted about 40 million tons of maize to produce ethanol.
“Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made,” the UN Secretary-General told more than 40 world leaders gathered in Rome for the summit. Hungry people, he warned, are angry people.
“Hunger breeds “social disintegration, ill health and economic decline,” he said.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Ban and other UN officials painted a dire picture of potential political turmoil fueled by starvation and shortages, and of rich countries that have failed to keep promises to deal with the global food crisis.
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) berated the world’s wealthy nations for conspicuous consumption and excessive spending on weapons while ignoring the hungry.
The biggest culprit in this regard is the United States of America, which spends more on the military (over $ 500 billion this year) than the rest of the world put together. The US is also the most wasteful society on Earth. With less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, it consumes 29 per cent of the world’s annual output of natural resources.
Moreover, the US, the EU countries and Japan pay a total of a whopping $ 350 billion a year in subsidies to their own farmers, as against a total of only about $ 50 billion in aid given by the rich countries to developing countries worldwide. Thus, the amount given as subsidies by the rich countries to their own farmers is seven times greater than the total amount of aid given by them to poor countries.
Actually, even this aid figure of $ 50 billion a year is highly misleading because it does not take into account an amount of $ 65 billion a year paid by the poor countries to the rich countries in interest charges and repayments on previous loans. Thus, there is, in fact, a net outflow of $ 15 billion a year from the poor countries to the rich countries.
The rich countries, for their part, say that they cannot find $ 30 billion a year to feed the hungry people in poor countries. Yet they have no problem in finding $ 350 billion a year to give as subsidies to their farmers. Moreover, the rich countries refuse to reduce the subsidies they give to their farmers, thus making it virtually impossible for farmers in poor countries to compete with their counterparts in the rich countries.
This is one of the main sticking points that has led to the breakdown of the Doha Round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to reach agreement on a global trade regime.
The double-standards inherent in the position of the US and other rich countries on this account are of a piece with the West’s hypocrisy n general in its dealings with developing countries.
“How can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find $ 30 billion a year” to feed the world’s hungry, respecting “the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and the right to life,” FAO Director-General Diouf said.
US Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that food production would have to grow by 50 per cent by 2030 to stave off starvation.
Ban and other UN officials stressed the need for continual research to improve crop yields and animal health; more seeds and fertilisers for small-scale farmers, and more immediate nutritional food relief.
As the LA Times report noted, record-setting high fuel costs, the growing demand for biofuels, a string of poor harvests exacerbated by climate change, market speculation, changing diets in Asia – all these factors have combined to send food prices through the roof.
Experts say the prices of many commodities, such as rice and wheat, have doubled in the last three years.
Bandana Shiva, an Indian ecologist, farmer and author, who is one of the delegates attending the Rome conference, told Aljazeera net, “We could solve the climate problem and the food problem tomorrow with investments, but not the level of investment the World Bank is talking about, but by supporting ecological agriculture and supporting local economies.”
Shiva said, “Food riots and food wars are not just taking place in the streets of Egypt and in Mexico; they are taking place in the corridors of the FAO.
“On the one hand, the world’s movements and concerned communities are asking for ways in which we will address food scarcity by growing more food sustainably, with less fossil fuel inputs and more fair systems of distribution and trade.
“On the other hand, the very people who have shaped industrial chemical agriculture and created food scarcity in local economies – and the very people who shaped the agreement on agriculture with the WTO – are saying ‘let there be more investment but let it be turned into a subsidy for us. So we can spread the second green revolution in Africa, and so we can get the subsidies for hybrid seeds and chemical fertilisers and we can get new subsidies for supplying the poor world with food.’ What we need is to make local economies robust.”
Shiva said, “The food war in the corridors must now become open and we must recognise the greed and monopolies of agro-business as the real reason people starve on the world.
“Farmers commit suicide and women and children go hungry, but people are capable of producing food. Let the governments and international trade rules stop the obstruction and let the unfair subsidies go into agro-business. Stop the unfair markets.
“(US) President )George) Bush made a statement a few weeks ago, )and) the biofuel industry put huge adverts in the International Herald Tribune (newspaper) to say it was the Asians, Indians eating more, rather than biofuel diversion.
“The first point is that India’s consumption increased by two per cent over the last year in cereals. US consumption of cereals increased 12 per cent and most of that was for biofuels. So if you are looking at pressure, it is coming quite clearly from the US for biofuel, not from countries like India.”
As Shiva said, “The real cause of the rise in food prices is the forced integration of local economies into an international economy controlled by speculative monopolies. If five grain giants control food trade, it does not matter how much food there is in the world, they will make their super profits.
“A second big reason for the decline in food availability at the local level is a very false model of agricultural production. It depends on the name of the green revolution…it goes by the name of industrial agriculture.
“Unfortunately, the World Bank’s package of $ 1 billion for increasing investment in the south is in the form of new seeds, largely non-renewable, and chemical fertilisers. The package is a disaster for poor countries.
“First, the farmers go into debt. They have to sell their food and cannot buy it back at the price at which they sold it. Secondly, climate change has been caused 25 per cent by industrial agriculture. Add another 10 per cent because of rising fuel prices and you’re talking about 35 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions coming from a non-sustainable farming system.”
We can solve the climate problem and the food problem with investments, but not the level of investments the World Bank is talking about by supporting ecological agriculture. “It is about supporting local economies; and the most important point is a valid international assessment. Shiva said.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
