The World Food Summit
Last week, we highlighted the crucial world food summit taking place in Rome and also touch on it in this week’s podcast. Here, Nicola Bradley, a medical student from Brighton and Sussex Medical School, summarises what went on at the talks. Rhona
The World Food Summit (WFS) met in Rome over three days last week to engage in talks aimed at producing a short and long term plan to tackle the world food shortage. It is estimated that 850 million people worldwide face famine or malnutrition, something that the 1974 World Food Summit hoped to eliminate within ten years of their meeting.
The WFS consisted of heads of state and government and representatives from 180 countries including President Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who has been accused by the British government of causing the Zimbabwean food crisis, and President Ahmadinejad of Iran against who hundreds of Italian Jews protested in Rome in defiance of his presence. This has somewhat overshadowed the talks but controversy was not just confined to these leaders.
Long-term plans devised by the USA with regards to biofuel have led to mounting concern from other countries. Biofuel is made from corn and other crops to produce ethanol for fuel. For the USA this means that they are less reliant on imports of fossil fuels and can also raise the price of corn because of this new emerging market. This has pronounced effects on low-income countries that are reliant on imports of corn. Currently, the USA is aiming to use 25% of its corn crop for ethanol production by 2022. This has been heavily criticised for putting the hunger for fuel before the hunger of millions of people. Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, the President of Brazil, which has a thirty year history of biofuel production, accused critics of hypocrisy; “It offends me to see fingers pointed at biofuels, which produce clean energy, when those fingers are soiled with oil and coal.”
However, Brazil is far from seeing eye-to-eye with the USA, claiming that biofuel produced from corn rather than sugar-cane is far less efficient and is shot up with subsidies and shielded behind tariff barriers. Ed Schafer, the US agricultural secretary defended the US biofuel plans by stating that the US is planning to fight the crisis by spending nearly $5 billion in 2008 and 2009 to fight world hunger. However, they seem to have missed the point because what is needed here is not money, but food. Disappointingly, although this issue was addressed in depth, it did not feature prominently in the long term plans and conclusions made by the summit with a vague reference to encouraging international talks regarding the effects of biofuel on food production.
It has been widely noted that food prices are rising throughout the world. This is thought to be due to several factors. These include the rising cost of fuel, the increase in consumption of dairy and meat products by rapidly developing countries such as India and China and the increase in the use of biofuel, which restricts the amount of corn available for consumption. The WFS has devised short and long term plans which are summarised as follows:
Short-term plans:
- Stronger commitment from governments to increase assistance to developing countries
- UN agencies should be assured support and resources to enhance food assistance
- Developed countries should be prepared to assist other countries, on their request, to put in place policies to help farmers increase production and integrate into the international market
- To provide technical assistance to low-income countries to increase agricultural production
Long-term plans:
- To urge national governments to increase investment in agriculture and sustainable forest management practices
- To urge high-income countries to reduce trade barriers to give farmers in developing countries a chance to sell their products on world markets
- To increase international dialogue on biofuels in the context of food security and sustainable development needs
It seems that for the future, one of the major concerns for universal food supply is the use of biofuels and the effect that this will have on prices and availability of food. The USA has taken heavy criticism on this issue and could also be criticised in several other areas. For example, each year the USA feeds its farm animals with enough corn to feed every starving person in order to take advantage of the growing demand for meat and dairy products. Perhaps encouragement should be slanting towards reducing the consumption of these products in order for corn to be used to feed people directly rather than indirectly through animal products.
The problem is not necessarily the amount of food being produced, which is certainly enough to feed the world’s population, but the distribution and cost of food which disadvantages low-income countries to the extent that millions of people are malnourished. With the cooperation of all countries it is possible for this to be changed but currently, with the USA remaining resilient on the issue of biofuel, it seems that this is unlikely.
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