World Food Summit 16-18 Nov ‘09

by Antonino John Scoppettuolo (staff) | Friday, November 13th, 2009

One year on from the June  2008 summit the FAO’s 192 members gather in Rome this November 16 to pick up discussions on food security against a backdrop of worsening forecasts and undiminished concerns. Arguably the strongest of UN platforms for developmentalists, the FAO, despite its candid appraisal of conditions on the ground, still remains the target for some of the strongest NGO and aid agency criticism. Topic ‘hunger’ stays on the agenda, but has vision concerning solutions changed?

Targets favoured over method
In spite of the grief, the effects of last year’s combined soaring energy prices, commodities speculation and the financial (now economic) crisis can at least claim to have had the positive effect of sobering the international debate on hunger. Though international solutions to global hunger remain, by and large, part of a coherent free trade framework, the UN’s Millenium Development Goals of halving the world’s hunger-stricken by 2015 have been shown to the door. An agenda which, however principled, may have conspired to cloud the debate and delay solutions, favouring targets at the expense of ‘method’. However, a firm and frank appraisal of the present day predicament is what the FAO continues to provide, with unparalleled scientific accuracy.

Food security down the line from yesterday
Director General at the FAO since 1994, Jacques Diouf will not relish memories of last year’s food security summit. Fourteen years into his mandate, the Senegalese diplomat was variously accused by mainstream European media of being “incapable of foreseeing the current situation” (ABC, Spain), of privileging dialogue with “manufacturers of genetically modified foodstuffs, seed traders and junk food producers” (La Repubblica, Italy), of “failed leadership, in contrast to excellent FAO expertise” (FAZ, Germany), and of foregoing to criticise “rich countries throwing subsidies at their farmers” (The Guardian, UK). Opinions formed, ironically, despite a firm understanding of the FAO’s non political – or politically ineffectual – nature.

The price of consistency
This year, however, there was little sense that the Director General was going to take any of last year’s flak without setting a price for the West’s public opinion to meet. Speaking at the organisation’s annual World Food Day last October, Diouf urged world leaders to reach a “broad consensus on the total and rapid elimination of hunger”, calling for agricultural aid to top 17 percent of official development assistance; more than just a passing reference to rich nations’ near-boycott of UN development goals, given their current 5 percent contribution and given the fact that a 17 percent benchmark was last practised in 1980 (in pre-WTO days). Leaders may choose to not pay attention, but the message is clear: the track record on farm aid was better at the height of the cold war – with higher levels of G7 unemployment – than it is today. The assessment is ‘we have moved backwards’.

Millennium failure?
In 1996 the FAO set itself the goal of lowering the number of people suffering from hunger, which then stood at 800 million. In 2008, at the time of the last food security summit it stood at 850 million, with the food crisis threatening to raise that figure by an additional 100 million. Weeks prior to the November summit, confirming the undeclared (but accepted) failure of members to deliver on Millennium goals, the annual  report on The State of Food Insecurity, produced in collaboration with the World Food Programme, placed the world’s undernourished at 1.02 billion. The pejorative departure from last year’s estimate is a direct consequence of the global economic crisis. Yet again, the message is a clear one: with most of the development eggs having been placed in the free trade basket, the UN is urging “urgent  reform” of a “fragile world food system” to tackle what are “historic levels” of hunger.

Staring at the problem
But for all the strong hints – tantamount to strong wording – at developed nations’ misplaced emphasis on free trade as the key to tackling hunger, the UN’s November agenda on food security delivers developing nations and NGOs a tough 2050 target of 9 billion mouths to live up to if their vision of sustainable agricultural development is to be met by hotly advocated country-specific and traditional means. The views of the latter camp are well exemplified by Johannesburg based anti-poverty agency ActionAid, which clinched the spotlight at last year’s Food Security Summit by parading a 200-metre long banner saying “Stop Profiting from Hunger – Right to Food Now”. The view held by ActionAid and other NGOs is that deregulation of trade and food production will only lead to poor and developing nation’s dependence on food imports, clearing the field for multinational agribusiness. While developmentalists and the FAO may agree on beefing up aid, what they fail to agree on is just about everything else: how much aid, where and accountable to whom.

The demographics of thirst, hunger and climate
Addressing the debate during October’s summit, director-general Diouf sought to tap into the arguments of both camps providing assurances that the UN would not waiver from a “twin-track approach”; a view shared  by the UN’s food aid branch, the World Food Programme (WFP). “The combined effect of population growth, strong income growth and urbanisation” Diouf posed, “is expected to result in almost the doubling of demand for food, feed and fibre.” And the answer to that problem – according to the UN consensus – is productivity. “Agriculture will have no choice but to be more productive,” Diouf added, noting that increases would need to come mostly from yield growth and improved cropping intensity rather than from farming more land, despite the fact that there are still ample land resources with potential for cultivation. He also noted that “while organic agriculture contributes to hunger and poverty reduction and should be promoted, it cannot by itself feed the rapidly growing population.” Adding climate change and competition for the world’s freshwater resources to the equation, the science of FAO warnings – regardless of opposed visions – points to investments, now.

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