World farming resources should be focused on ensuring the 2008 harvest is a success in order to ease the food crisis, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Wednesday.
Increased demand from rapidly developing nations such as China, the use of crops for biofuels, global stocks at 25-year lows and market speculation are blamed for pushing prices of staples like wheat, maize and rice to record highs. That in turn has sparked food riots in several African countries, Indonesia and Haiti. The FAO has said 37 countries face food crises but Director General Jacques Diouf said solutions were available.
"This is not Greek tragedy where fate is decided by the gods and humans can do nothing about it. No, we have the ability to influence our futures," he told a news conference in Paris.
"It's a good thing that international institutions .. are helping the poor gain access to food, but on our side we need to fight the most important battle today which is to ensure the 2008 farming season is a success."
In Tokyo, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the World Trade Organisation (WTO) should pressure food-producing countries to maintain exports. Some nations have banned exports of staple foodstuffs in an attempt to avert domestic shortages.
"If we restrict trade, we're simply going to add food scarcity to the already large problems of food shortages that exist in different countries," Mandelson said in an interview.
"The WTO stands for free trade. It needs to exert its pressure and influence to reduce tariffs and thereby encourage trade. It's also got to stand up against export restrictions, export taxes, which too will stop the free flow of trade in foodstuffs and agricultural produce."
Prices of rice, a staple in most of Asia, have risen 68 percent since the start of 2008. US rice futures rose to an all-time high on Wednesday. Trade bans on rice have been put in place by India, the world's second largest exporter in 2007, and Vietnam, the third biggest, in the hopes of cooling domestic prices.
The export curbs have been criticised by the Asian Development Bank which said Asian governments were over-reacting to surging prices by resorting to market-distorting measures. In Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, farmers have planted a rare third crop and are expected to reap another 1.6 million tonnes of rice paddy this year.
Diouf said the Rome-based FAO had been signalling the dangers for years. "The situation we are in is the result of inappropriate policies over the past 20 years. Between 1990 and 2000 we lowered food aid for agriculture by half." Generous farm subsidies in wealthy countries had also discouraged agriculture in the developing world, he said.
"We have lacked two things: the political will and resources. I hope that this current crisis will give us the political will and the resources to do things."
Mandelson said concerns over food and global financial turmoil were spurring progress towards an agreement on the Doha round of WTO negotiations, which aims to forge a deal to liberalise world trade.
The next ministerial meeting on the Doha round may be held in late May or June. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged a concerted effort to dampen food price inflation and said the issue would be raised at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan in July. Already one of the poorest countries in the world, Afghanistan has been struggling to cope with higher prices.
President Hamid Karzai's government has allocated $50 million to buy food from neighbours, a spokesman said. "We will make sure to have enough food stuff in our markets in order to avoid any humanitarian crises," said presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada.
But many Afghans were unmoved and blamed the government. "What should we eat? How can a poor man afford to buy food?" asked Kamaluddin Khan out shopping in Kabul on Wednesday. "Mr Karzai sits in his palace and doesn't know what is going on."
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