Rome, Italy
June 3, 2008
Noting that the time for talk was
over and that action was urgently needed,
FAO Director-General Jacques
Diouf today appealed to world leaders for US$30 billion a year
to re-launch agriculture and avert future threats of conflicts
over food.
In an impassioned speech at the opening of the Rome Summit
called to de-fuse the current world food crisis, Dr Diouf noted
that in 2006 the world spent US$1 200 billion on arms while food
wasted in a single country could cost US$100 billion and excess
consumption by the world’s obese amounted to US$20 billion.
“Against that backdrop, how can we explain to people of good
sense and good faith that it was not possible to find US$30
billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the
most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the
right to life?” Dr Diouf asked.
“It is resources of this order of magnitude that would make it
possible definitely to lay to rest the specter of conflicts over
food that are looming on the horizon,” he added.
Increased production in poor countries
“The structural solution to the problem of food security in the
world lies in increasing production and productivity in the
low-income, food-deficit countries,” he declared.
This called for “innovative and imaginative solutions”,
including “partnership agreements ... between countries that
have financial resources, management capabilities and
technologies and countries that have land, water and human
resources”.
The current world food crisis had already had "tragic political
and social consequences in different countries” and could
further “endanger world peace and security”, Dr Diouf said.
But the crisis was in essence a “chronicle of disaster
foretold”, he noted. Despite the World Food Summit’s solemn
pledge in 1996 to halve world food hunger by 2015, resources to
finance agricultural programmes in developing countries had not
only failed to rise but decreased significantly since then.
Anti-hunger programme
Some US$24 billion would have been needed to fund an anti-hunger
programme prepared for the second World Food Summit held in
2002, Dr Diouf recalled.
In cooperation with FAO, the developing countries did in fact
prepare policies, strategies and programmes that, if they had
received appropriate funding, would have ensured world food
security.
But, he continued, “today the facts speak for themselves: from
1980 to 2005 aid to agriculture fell from US$8 billion ( 2004
basis) in 1984 to US$3.4 billion in 2004, representing a
reduction in real terms of 58 percent”.
Agriculture’s share of Official Development Assistance (ODA)
fell from 17 percent in 1980 to 3 percent in 2006, he also
noted.
“Regrettably the international community only reacts when the
media beam the distressing spectacle of world suffering into the
homes of the wealthy countries,” Dr Diouf commented.
Social, political unrest
The Director-General said he had alerted public opinion as far
back as last September to the risks of social and political
unrest due to hunger and that in December he had appealed for
US$1.7 billion to help overcome the crisis by facilitating the
crisis by facilitating farmers'access to seeds, fertilizer,
animal feed and other inputs.
But the appeal had generally fallen on deaf ears, despite broad
press coverage and correspondence with Member Nations and
financial institutions. “It was only when the destitute and
those excluded from the abundant tables of the rich took to the
streets to voice their discontent and despair that the first
reactions in support of food aid began to emerge,” Dr Diouf
said.
“Important today is to realize that the time for talking is long
past,” he stressed. “Now is the time for action”.
Today there were 862 million people in the world without
adequate access to food, the Director-General said. But the
current food crisis went beyond the traditional humanitarian
dimension because it also affected developed countries, where it
fuelled inflation.
Courageous decisions
“If we do not urgently take the courageous decisions that are
required in the present circumstances, the restrictive measures
taken by producing countries to meet the needs of their
populations, the impact of climate change and speculation on
futures markets will place the world in a dangerous situation,”
Dr Diouf warned.
Sustainable and viable global solutions were needed to narrow
the gap between supply and demand, he said. Otherwise “whatever
the extent of their financial reserves, some countries might not
find food to buy”.
The Director-General noted that contradictions and distortions
at international policy level had contributed to the current
crisis.
“Nobody understands how a carbon market of US$64 billion can be
created in the developed countries but that no funds can be
found to prevent the annual deforestation of 13 million
hectares,” he said.
Food versus fuel
Also incomprehensible was the fact that subsidies worth US$11-12
billion in 2006 were used to divert 100 million tonnes of
cereals from human consumption “mostly to satisfy a thirst for
fuels for vehicles”.
Inexplicable too was that in a time of globalization there has
been no significant investment in the prevention of a long list
of major trans-boundary animal diseases, starting with Newcastle
and foot-and-mouth diseases.
But the basic contradiction lay in the fact that OECD countries
were distorting world markets, spending US$372 billion in 2006
alone to support their agriculture.
“The problem of food insecurity is a political one, “Dr Diouf
concluded. “It is a question of priorities in the face of the
most fundamental of human needs. And it those choices made by
Governments that determine the allocation of resources.” |
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