Rich Countries Must Increase Food Aid Tenfold: UN Agriculture Chief.
Rich countries must dramatically ramp up their aid for agricultural development to curb rising food prices, the UNs top agricultural official said in an interview Monday.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General] Jacques Diouf said that aid would have to increase tenfold to 30 billion US dollar a year to help developing countries raise production levels.
Diouf said that for the first time in 25 years record prices were providing the fundamental economic and political incentives to stimulate investments in the agricultural sector.
In advance of this weeks FAO food summit, Diouf noted that the share of official development aid spending in agriculture needed to increase from the current low of 3 percent of total development aid to the early 1980s peak of 17 percent to boost productivity and food output.
Investments, he added, were not only crucial to resolve the current crisis but also to double global food production by 2050 in order to meet the expected increase in the worlds population from 6 billion to 9 billion.
Along with some 60 heads of state, the UN FAO has invited a dozen corporations to the three-day meeting, which starts Tuesday, to talk about how to counter the effects of global food inflation, especially in poor countries.
The debate is likely to shift toward the impact that government policies are having on the cost and availability of arable land. Governments in Europe and the US encourage farmers to plant crops such as rapeseed (raps) and corn by offering subsidies and tax breaks for biofuels.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will issue an urgent plea to world leaders at a food summit in Rome on Tuesday to immediately suspend trade restrictions, agricultural taxes and other price controls that have helped fuel the highest food prices in 30 years, according to UN officials.
Ban has established a UN task force to prepare a global plan of action. A 31-page draft will be presented at the Rome meeting.
The task force paper outlines a “two-track” strategy, beginning with short-term measures aimed at “urgently increasing access to food”, expanding safety nets for the most vulnerable, and taking steps to help reduce prices of rice, wheat, corn and other primary staples, according to UN officials. The said the strategy could cost as much as 15 billion dollar.
Meanwhile, dozens of farmers groups kicked off a forum in Rome on Sunday to coincide with the UN food agencys summit on food security with an impassioned plea for an overhaul of world agricultural policies.
– We have empty plates and we have empty policies, said Paul Nicholson of La Via Campesina, an international farmers’ movement.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
