Food for all - the 2020 vision

In the war on poverty and hunger, it is looking increasingly likely that the world is not going to meet its self-imposed target. Progress has been made as the number of people who are classified as 'food insecure' has come down. But an international commitment made five years ago to cut hunger in half by 2015 is not going to be achieved, unless changes in policy occur in both the developed and developing world.

That at least was the message that came out of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conference that took place in Bonn in the first week of September. Delegates came from all over the world, and met in the former German parliament building. The conference title was 'Sustainable Food Security for All by 2020', and IFPRI's aim in calling it was primarily to start discussion of poverty and hunger issues in preparation for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's 'World Food Summit', scheduled to take place in Rome, 5-9 November, 2001, but now postponed to mid 2002. However, the issues raised remain urgent as ever.

Ending agricultural subsidies in developed countries was a constant theme. The World Bank and IMF have long been using structural adjustment programmes to restrict farming subsidies in developing countries. Yet in the developed world, governments spend $360 billion per year in agricultural subsidies - six times more than they spend in overseas aid - allowing farmers to produce cheap foodstuffs that can compete all too easily with unsubsidised, locally-grown crops in developing countries. Numerous delegates called on western governments to phase out agricultural subsidies; such a step they regard as fundamental if farmers in developing countries are going to have any chance of increasing their production and climbing out of poverty.

Trade rules and dumping of surplus foodstuffs by developed countries were also heavily criticised. Dumping has a hugely damaging impact on agricultural development in developing countries, undermining local markets and production. Western governments were also accused of hypocrisy in their use of import tariffs. On the one hand, it was argued, they encourage developing countries to expand their agro-processing industry, but their prohibitively high import duties on processed agricultural products work to both protect their own industries and keep out anything but low-value, unprocessed commodities.

Giving agriculture due emphasis

Yet many of the speakers from developing countries were not shy of admitting that their own governments were also responsible for the poverty and hunger of their people. Professor Apolo Nsibambi, the Prime Minister of Uganda, pointed out that many governments have never had a food or agriculture policy, and that financial allocations to the sector were, on average, a mere 2% of the national budget when they should be at least 5%. This is despite the fact that agriculture often employs most of the population and contributes a substantial part of the GDP. Dr Harris Mule, a former Permanent Secretary of the Kenyan Ministry of Finance, pointed out that agriculture has long been neglected by many governments in preference to developing manufacturing capacity. A further point repeatedly made was that government funding for agricultural research in the developing world has been steadily declining over the last decade.

Not surprisingly, one of the big questions in many delegate's minds was whether there exists the political will to change the status quo. Lawrence Haddad of IFPRI made a strong case for farmers to form local associations for lobbying: farmers in developing countries, he said, will continue to have little influence on their governments until they can organise themselves into groups. Dr Haddad cited examples from South Africa where farmers organisations had managed to get a voice in poverty reduction strategy processes, and gained extra funding for extension work. David Beckmann, president of an American charity, Bread for the World, was also upbeat about the possibility of ending hunger. He called on delegates from developed countries to put pressure on their governments. Even relatively small changes in policy could, he said, cut hunger in half by 2020.

The messages coming from this conference may seem to have been eclipsed by recent events. Yet, as the Director General of IFPRI, Dr Per Pinstrup-Andersen, pointed out at the opening of the Conference, exactly one week before the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington, the developed world cannot afford to tolerate current levels of poverty and hunger. "With so many people malnourished, sick, unemployed and discontented, the instability it creates is tremendous. Nobody should believe we can have a world with a small number of very rich people and a large number of very poor people. Such a world will not be stable. And that is what we are heading for as we speak," he said. The challenge to reduce, if not eliminate, hunger and poverty remains.

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