"Policies enacted by the United States and the European Union, and aggressively pushed through global institutions over the last several decades laid the ground for the ongoing food crisis," argues a new report published by the International alliance of Catholic development agencies (CIDSE) and the Institute for Agriculture Policy (IATP).
Unfair subsidies
While both the EU and the US promote global markets as a source of stable food supply for all "they have used their controlling role in the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs) [The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund] to advance policies in their own interests", the authors write.
Both have maintained wide support schemes for their own agriculture and food industries while financial support of the BWIs to developing countries is conditioned on the limitations on their government support for agricultural sectors. Such conditioning is leading to "unfair advantages" to the EU and US on world markets, undermining other countries' long-term productive capacity and jeopardizing the resilience of their rural communities and food security, the report says.
Unfair trade policies
The CIDSE-IATP report also notes that as recent attempts to seal multilateral trade agreements have failed, the EU and the US "have been increasingly pursuing regional and bilateral trade agreements," which make it more difficult for the developing countries involved to obtain concessions on unfair EU and US agricultural programmes or for their own food security support schemes, the report adds.
Examples of such agreements include the EU Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with Africa and the Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
As for EU and US official development assistance to agriculture, the NGO report notes with concern that it has not only "steadily" decreased over the past 25 years, but that, particularly in the case of the US, is conditioned on the use of energy-intensive agricultural technologies "that bolster large-scale multinationals rather than supporting small-scale farmers' productivity", the NGOs point out.
But the European Commission denies those claims, saying it proposed a number of initiatives to address rising global food prices. These include efforts to conclude the Doha Round of global trade talks, which it says should help generate additional export income for farmers in developing countries, stimulate production and facilitate access to foodstuffs.
EU development cooperation programmes also help structural change in developing countries, promoting reformed agricultural policies, institutions and land management regimes as well as investment in rural development, it says.
The Commission "disagrees completely" with the report, a spokesperson told EurActiv, denouncing "tired and caricatured arguments". The EU, he said, has reformed its policy to make subsidies "minimally trade-distorting" and opened markets totally to the 50 poorest countries in the world.
The EU also recently launched an EU €1 billion 'Food Facility' to address food shortages in developing countries, increase food production capacity and improve the way agriculture is managed in the long term (EurActiv 05/12/08 , 25/11/08).
Biofuels
Finally, the NGO report highlights that both the EU and the US recent biofuels targets have created "an artificial demand, catching speculators' attention and encouraging competition for land and other natural resources in various developing countries."
The report calls on the EU and the US to bear "a significant responsibility to minimise the impacts" of their role in creating global food insecurity and support a "new approach to the global food and agricultural system".
"The EU and US need to contribute to, rather than block, the establishment of an entirely new global model for food and agriculture - one that is housed at the UN but includes non-state actors and mobilises all forces to eradicate hunger," said Alexandra Spieldoch, co-author of the report.
The report recommends EU and US policymakers to clean up their act via:
- a shift in trade policies away from the quest for market access for European and US agribusiness firms;
- regulating corporate activity both at home and abroad to promote fairer systems for how food is produced, consumed and distributed;
- measures to address price volatility, including food reserves and tight regulation and ban on excessive speculation;
- a substantial increase in aid for agriculture.
