WITHOUT FIGHTING FOR FOOD

The international community must take fundamental measures to avert famine and food wars. The harsh realities of the global food crisis, which has quite clearly demonstrated the imperfection of the present world order, make this necessary. It is clear that without revising the existing system, it will be practically impossible to overcome the serious crisis which stands to condemn hundreds of millions of people to malnutrition.

Price fever

The world has seen hunger-induced clashes several times in recent years. In Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia, Senegal, Cameroon, Haiti and a number of other countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas, hunger riots are increasingly frequent. Even in the United States, the prosperous superpower, the number of citizens in need of food assistance is growing rapidly.

The root cause is the growing price of agricultural produce. According to the World Bank's April report, grain prices have increased three times in the last three years. But because grains are the main product of the agricultural sector, the prices of all other types of food have also gone up. The leading suppliers and consumers of rice, China, India, Vietnam and Egypt, have banned the export of rice to check the hike in domestic prices. All this has hit, first and foremost, the residents of poor countries in which food accounts for the largest share of household expenditure. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that a number of African countries, in particular, Congo, Sudan and Kenya, imported 2% less grain last year, although they paid 35% more than they used to.

The growth in food prices is linked to the problem of rising fuel prices. Attempts by the United States and Brazil to find an alternative to oil resulted in huge investment in the manufacturing of biofuels, which are produced from corn. This, for its part, led to a reduced supply of corn to food industries and soon there were problems arising from the increase in area under grain crops. In Brazil, they began cutting down forests. And we can see the results: the process of global warming is accelerating and the pressure on the world's freshwater resources is increasing.

But what is the driving force behind the current food crisis? Western experts say that the main reason is economic growth in China and India, the world's most populous countries. This led to a growing demand for food and biofuels, resulting in more expensive international oil prices. But obviously these factors are not the only problem. The root of the global price fever lies much deeper.

"This is not a Greek tragedy, in which fate is decided 

by the gods and in which humans are powerless."

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the UN FAO, thinks that "this is not Greek tragedy, in which fate is decided by the gods and in which humans are powerless... The crisis has been gathering pace for decades. The situation in which we are now is a result of the inappropriate policies of industrialized nations over the past 20 years. Aid to agriculture in developing countries was halved between 1990 and 2000, while the industrialized world maintained generous farm subsidies." He also said that the leading industrial powers set up trade barriers and "use, but do not replenish, strategic food reserves."

So, the leading Western countries take the blame, and the countries which have found themselves at the epicentre of the food crisis make increasingly straightforward statements to this effect. The leaders of various countries point to this factor in their speeches at international forums to find solutions to the global food crisis.

At a recent conference in Rome, which was held under the aegis of the UN and in which leaders of almost 40 countries took part, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirschner said that the developed countries practice protectionism in the trade of agricultural products, cutting imports from developing countries by resorting to government subsidies and economic barriers. It has been precisely these measures, in her opinion, which have caused such great damage to the economies of developing countries and which have become one of the main causes of the global food crisis.

The opinions of India and China are noteworthy in this respect: they disagree that the pace of their economic growth is to blame for the rising international demand for food and food prices. Indian Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said that, on the contrary, "high fuel prices, the extraordinary demand for corn and rapeseed, which are used in the manufacturing of methylcarbinol and biological diesel fuel, are the main factors influencing food prices."

In the mean time, one of the pillars of the international economic system, the WTO, in which the same leading industrialized powers play leading roles, also came under fire from a considerable section of the international community. Developing countries voice their displeasure with the WTO's objections to greater investment in the development of the agricultural sector in the developing world. By hindering state support for the agrarian sector, the WTO effectively protects US and EU farmers against their competitors in poorer countries. So it seems that the policy of the "golden billion" nations hinders the achievement of the goal of increased total food output and helps perpetuate the problems of international food shortages and high food prices. At a time when the FAO and all developing nations are issuing a call to arms against the food crisis, the WTO is guided only by considerations of commercial benefit.

In the situation that has evolved, it is as important not to be washed over by a stream of mutual accusation as to clearly understand the causes of the crisis. One way or another, the countries of the world, and centres of influence in global politics, will have to combine their efforts to avoid making malnutrition a norm for the vast majority of humanity.

The first and most serious step in that direction was taken at the Rome conference. Its final declaration stresses the need to "strive to ensure that food, agricultural trade and overall trade policies are conducive to fostering food security for all," to remove trade barriers and increase agricultural production in order to overcome the food crisis whose consequences affect both rich and poor nations. The document also stresses the inadmissibility of using food problems as a lever of political influence.

The FAO decision to undertake to halve the current number of people starving in the world, 860 million, also seems important.

China proposed an action plan to overcome the crisis. That country's leadership urged the governments of other states to focus on grain production, to strengthen international cooperation in the field of agriculture, elaborate a scientific policy for the development of biofuels, and make food security a priority by stepping up their efforts against climate change by reducing air pollution.

Political circles in different countries discuss the proposal by Thailand, world's largest rice manufacturer, to create a cartel of rice exporters, which would control international rice prices. Of course creating a cartel may be against the interests of the West, which is already concerned with the fast economic development of a number of Asian countries and their growing potential to rival the economic domination of the United States and Europe in the future. But if the Thai initiative is acted upon, western countries will certainly derive weighty political and economic dividends, because regulation of prices in the world market will help end the global crisis which adversely affects their vital interests.

The influential countries are also faced with the need to take urgent measures to provide assistance to developing countries in their struggle against hunger. It is good that UN organizations work with the African Union to overcome the crisis, transferring expert knowledge and technology which open up new possibilities for resolving the problem of hunger. But the need to find long-term solutions which could "pull" the poorest countries away from the abyss of potential famine still remains pressing.

The issue of global food security will certainly be high on the agenda at the G8 summit on Hokkaido in early July. Incidentally, this problem has never been previously discussed - the first forum of the G7 countries was held in 1975. Only at the Ottawa summit in 1981, was the "importance of the acceleration of agricultural production in developing countries and the strengthening of international food security" noted. But, after a few productive years when the markets were flooded with grain, no one thought about food security. The promise to provide more agricultural assistance to needy African and Asian countries was also forgotten.

And now the time has come to pull together. There should be food to feed all the peoples and all the residents of the planet at the global dining table. Achieving this goal is not as impossible as it sometimes seems. After all, to feed almost 1 billion starving people, we need only spend about 2.5% of the funds allocated globally to the purchase of weapons - a fact which should force us to reach the right conclusions and, more importantly, to take the correct action.