Food prices, land grabbing in focus at UN talks in Rome
ITALY: Global food price volatility will be the focus of World
Food Day celebrations in Rome on Monday which will also address the
issue of massive farmland purchases by rich countries in the developing
world.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) talks coincide with a
meeting of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), expected to adopt
a set of voluntary guidelines on these controversial investments for the
first time.
The issue is commonly referred to as “land grabbing” and
non-governmental organisations warn that the practice is threatening the
livelihoods of small farmers in poor countries and raising food prices
around the world.
“Land grabbing is one of the most blatant and scandalous examples of
how the dominant corporate food system is pushing a growing number of
farmers and consumers into poverty,” the campaign group Via Campesina
said.
International aid group Oxfam called for the CFS to fight price
volatility by agreeing on scrapping subsidies for turning food into
fuel, regulating commodity markets and increasing food reserves in poor
countries.
It also called for greater regulation of investments and land
governance, as well as a commitment to increased gender equality in
agriculture and a massive increase in public investment in small-scale
sustainable farming.
“The CFS holds our best hope of ushering in a new era of cooperation
that ensures that everybody has enough to eat today and in the future,”
Barbara Stocking, the chief executive of Oxfam, said in a statement. “We
know it is possible to reduce hunger dramatically - countries like
Brazil and Vietnam have shown how it can be done. What is lacking is
adequate political will by all governments to take bold decisions.”
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been in
power for 32 years and is the current chairman of the African Union, is
set to start the FAO conference at 0800 GMT and the CFS will then meet
at 1230 GMT.
FAO director general Jacques Diouf and the head of the World Food
Programme, Josette Sheeran, whose agency is heavily involved in relief
efforts in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa region, will also take
part in the talks.
British actor Jeremy Irons is expected at the event to be appointed
as a FAO goodwill ambassador, joining US actress Susan Sarandon,
Canadian singer Celine Dion and Senegalese music legend Youssou N’Dour.
AFP
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