Food crisis sows seed for change
By Alexandra Spieldoch
In July, World Trade Organization director general Pascal Lamy organized a
mini-ministerial to complete the Doha Development Round, and couched it as a
necessary means to address the food crisis. Not surprisingly, negotiations
collapsed over ongoing disagreements about whether WTO members have the right
to protect their food security and "livelihoods" from import surges.
The failed talks signal a growing understanding that trade liberalization has
destabilized local food systems and hurt farmers, contributing to both the
long-term and short-term causes of today's food crisis. This marks a shift from
the earlier globalization debates and deserves our attention.
On the other hand, we can't forget that governments are still
working behind the scenes to complete the Doha Round. Likewise, they are
negotiating free-trade agreements at the regional and bilateral levels that go
even further than the WTO and could very well worsen the food crisis. Even
though the Doha collapse is a signal that the tide is changing, governments
haven't yet fully shifted course.
The G-8, the World Bank, and the UN
In July, the Group of 8 (G-8) leading industrialized nations - Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and Russia - released a statement on
global food security in July, calling for reinvestment in the agricultural
sector. Proposed measures include doubling aid for key food staples in Africa
over the next five to 10 years, improving infrastructure (roads, irrigation,
storage, and distribution), rapid financing to address balance-of-payment
difficulties, sustainable food security and biofuels policies, and support for
country-led strategies to address climate change.
Unfortunately, the G-8's credibility is low because the member countries still
haven't met their 2005 aid commitments, and these summits aren't binding in any
way.
The World Bank's "New Deal on Global Food Policy" calls for building a safety
net and increasing loans for agricultural production and trade liberalization.
Unfortunately, the World Bank's investment agenda is largely defined by
partnerships with international corporations to expand trade flows rather than
to support farmers and promote food sovereignty. In this context, agribusiness
groups that control the export markets will gain the most.
In June, the United Nations launched the Interagency Task Force on the Global
Food Crisis and released a draft comprehensive framework for action. This task
force comprises the UN agencies (including International Fund for Agricultural
Development, the Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Progam, the
Conference on Trade and Development, and the World Health Organization), the
Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and International Monetary Fund),
and the WTO. Civil society is pointedly not invited to participate.
Its draft comprehensive framework for action rightly recommends immediate steps
to provide emergency food assistance, to boost smallholder production, and to
adjust trade and taxation rules in support of national priorities. In the
longer term, the document recommends measures to ensure sustained growth in
food availability through smallholder production, increased social protection
systems, strengthened food security management systems, improved international
food markets, and an international consensus on sustainable biofuels.
However, the task force defines "boosting smallholder production" as including
World Bank loans for public-private partnerships that pave the way for a more
prominent role for agribusiness. The draft framework highlights a stronger role
for the Bank and the WTO to help countries boost trade rather than to determine
what kind of trade is needed.
The fact that the international financial institutions and wealthier nations
recognize the weight of the crisis and have called for urgent responses is a
positive sign, yet their various promises are largely rhetorical, thus
detracting from the possibility for urgent actions. The institutions are still
focused on investment and growth in agriculture based on privatization schemes,
deregulation, and trade facilitation. This is exactly the approach that has
contributed to many of the problems we are seeing today in the food system;
it's likely that this approach will worsen rather than ease the crisis.
A multilateral alternative
Perhaps a more promising set of recommendations comes out of the International
Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development
(IAASTD), which 58 governments approved in Johannesburg, South Africa in April.
This report is the result of a six-year process that involved over 400 authors.
The report is groundbreaking, both in its process and its content. The major
donors for the report were the European Union member states, the Commission and
the United States. The process gave governments, major research institutions,
industry, and civil society equal responsibility in the drafting. The IAASTD
drafting was led by the World Bank and included the UN agencies such as UNDP,
FAO, UNESCO, and the WHO. It also included scientific experts, researchers and
development specialists.
The US, Australia and Canada expressed reservations with the final executive
summary of the report, indicating concerns with some of the specific data as
well as the substance. However, they commented on the report and formally
recognized its contribution to the global debate. It should be noted that
Brazil, China, and India, three countries that are leading much of global
growth, approved this collective critique that includes recommendations for a
radical shift in agricultural policies.
The introduction of the executive summary states that the IAASTD is an
"initiative that all governments need to take forward to ensure that
agricultural knowledge, science and technology fulfils its potential to meet
the development and sustainability goals of the reduction of hunger and
poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and
facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable
development." The report highlights four issues:
The need to redirect agricultural science and technology to support small scale
farmers in developing countries and to counter global warming;
The need to promote innovation, including local knowledge, within farm
communities;
The need for massive investment in agriculture, both in physical infrastructure
such as irrigation and roads) and non-physical, so-called "soft"
infrastructure, such as access to markets and credit provision; and
The need for immediate attention to the growing involvement of women in
agriculture in many developing countries.
Many civil society groups, while recognizing that this multi-stakeholder report
isn't perfect, have supported its call for a radical change.
If we are thinking big, we should be envisioning a new structure for the global
institutions via the creation of a global food convention, which would be
housed at the UN and implemented by an international commission, working with
different stakeholders including civil society and small-scale farmers. The
global food convention would serve as a legal framework to address food
sovereignty and the agricultural dimension of climate change, including binding
commitments to be implemented at all levels. Governments would have sovereignty
to define their own food and agricultural policies, but would also be held
accountable to international human rights, including the right to food, and the
environment.
A global food convention would prioritize stabilizing international supply and
mandate strategic grain reserves for food security at the local, regional and
international levels. An agreed-upon mechanism would also need to be put into
place to ban commodity speculation and to guarantee a fair price for farmers.
The convention would mandate that trade and investment rules allow for national
policy space (flexibility) for countries to protect their local food systems
and to invest in small-scale agriculture. It would also establish
multi-stakeholder participation, including that of farmers, to develop
multilateral and national investment programs that promote rather than
undermine small-scale farming. Lastly, the convention would bind international
economic policies to international human rights and environmental norms,
including the right to eat.
Realizing this kind of vision is no small task, but in the midst of the global
food crisis there is every reason to try. The burning question now is whether
there is political will to do so. It's time to find out.
Alexandra Spieldoch, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is also the
director of the Trade and Global Governance program at the US-based Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), an organization which works locally
and globally to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.
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