Food Summit Ends With Divisions Among Rich and Poor

05 July 2002

The World Food Summit held in Rome in mid June resulted in widening gaps between views on how to alleviate world hunger. Points of contention were biotechnology, U.S. agricultural subsidies and the effectiveness of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). At the summit the FAO declared that it did not see biotechnology as a priority in reducing world hunger.

UN Wire, 13th June, 2002

By Angela Stephens, UN Wire

ROME ˆ The World Food Summit: Five Years Later ended here this morning with nongovernmental organizations and civil society groups rejecting the summit declaration and a wide gap having emerged between developed and developing countries on what should be done to alleviate world hunger.

Developed countries also disagreed among themselves about whether and to what extent biotechnology should be used to increase world harvests, with the United States promoting biotechnology as a key strategy to combating hunger and European and some other countries wary of its use, due in large part to consumer fear of the unknown health effects of genetically modified organisms.

Agricultural subsidies also became a major point of contention of the summit, with both wealthy and poor countries blasting the $190 million, 10-year U.S. farm bill, which was signed by President George W. Bush last month and promises to expand agricultural subsidies to U.S. farmers. Poor countries complain that such subsidies hinder their ability to export products, thus limiting their development and food security. U.S. allies including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union declared at the summit that the U.S. farm bill represents a move away from trade liberalization, which is believed to be necessary to reduce inequities between the world's rich and poor. The United States argued that the types of crops that are exportable to the United States from Africa are not affected by the bill and not subsidized, that other wealthy countries' subsidies are much higher than U.S. subsidies and that Washington remains committed to a general reduction in trade barriers for agricultural products.

The Food and Agriculture Organization, which hosted the four-day event, also found itself on the defensive after British International Development Secretary Clare Short, who did not attend the summit, on Tuesday said she did not send a minister because she did not expect it to be an effective summit and called the FAO "an old-fashioned U.N. organization" that "needs improvement." Asked about the comment today at a press conference following the closing ceremony, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said, "if such comments as this are made, it is because the information has not gotten through to her" about the purpose and planning of the event.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said at the closing ceremony "we shouldn't be surprised" about criticism of the FAO, and that "every 10 years, an organization has got to lose weight. So, Mr. Diouf," he said to the FAO head, "you‚ve got to lose weight."

Diouf handed Berlusconi a note as he was speaking, Berlusconi announced, which said FAO has reduced its staff number by 30 percent since 1996. Diouf later said in comments to the press that the FAO staff has been reduced by 1,670 people, to a current staff level of 3,800.

The purpose of the event was to review progress since the 1996 World Food Summit, where 185 nations agreed to reduce the ranks of the world's hungry by half by 2015, from more than 800 million to 400 million. The reason this week's conference was held, speaker after speaker told the plenary, was because countries are far off track from meeting that goal.

Commenting on the contentious issue of biotechnology as means to reduce hunger, Diouf said, "The position of FAO is that in the short-term, biotechnology is not the priority to achieve the goals of the World Food Summit for 2015. FAO is saying water is the top priority." Only 1 percent of West African land has control of water resources, he said, and only 4 percent of land in sub-Saharan Africa does.

Classification

Subject  GMO Issues
Regional relation  Global
Audience  General Interest - Academic Researchers - Activists - Government and Policy Makers - NGOs