Thoughts on the World Food Summit 2009

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) World Summit on Food Security (WSFS) ended today, after three days of meetings on the best way to tackle hunger. The summit comes at a time when more than 1 billion people around the world are going hungry, but it offers little hope for new solutions to the problem.

The summit was crippled from the beginning by the refusal of leaders from the G8 countries to attend. The only G8 leader in attendance was Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

The rhetoric of the summit also offers little cause for optimism. The Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security continues to emphasize increased production, commodity crop production, and technological fixes. Indeed, the endorsement of genetically modified food crops has been made even more explicit than in the past: “We will seek to mobilize the resources needed to increase productivity, including the review, approval and adoption of biotechnology and other new technologies and innovations that are safe, effective, and environmentally sustainable.” The wording of this statement not only confers FAO approval on GMOs but also implies they are “safe, effective, and environmentally sustainable.”

In addition, the Declaration clearly aligns the FAO with World Trade Organization (WTO) priorities: “We agree to refrain from taking measures that are inconsistent with the WTO rules, with adverse impacts on global, regional and national food security.” This means that, while developed countries will surely continue to subsidize and protect their own crop production, small producers in developing countries must compete without protections in an open market. Coupled with the emphasis on commodity crop exports, this approach to food security has proven disastrous in the past. As the Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Forum Parallel to the World Summit on Food Security emphasized, producing crops for export must not displace local food production.

The World Summit on Food Security also continues to use watered-down, almost meaningless language about the right to food: “We affirm the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food, consistent with the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.” It urges countries to adopt the “Voluntary guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.” This language is used specifically to absolve rich countries from an obligation to aid poorer countries in keeping people from starving.

Despite these continued disappointments, there are a few positive signs in the rhetoric of the WSFS: recognition of the need for continued review of the impacts of biofuels, a few mentions of implementing “sustainable practices,” and a nod to the importance of smallholders and women farmers. However, farmers and other stakeholders continue to be marginalized in the decision-making process. The parallel conference, People’s Food Sovereignty Now!, achieved little attention from or dialogue with the WSFS.

Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the FAO, ended the summit with his closing statements today. He said that in order to feed a projected 9 billion people in 2050, the developed world would need to increase production by 70% and developing countries by 100%. These projections ignore the massive waste in the current industrial agricultural system. For example, an increasing focus on commodity crops for export has allowed food to rot in warehouses while people nearby starve. We must start thinking of the problem of hunger as systematic and requiring comprehensive social and economic solutions, rather than continuing to focus only on increasing yields.

Image from http://peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org/