http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5442

The Food Crisis and Global Institutions

Alexandra Spieldoch

The food crisis reflects a breakdown in our global food system that threatens to worsen poverty, hunger, climate change, and insecurity. Global institutions and governments are responding, yet their answers are vastly inadequate. For decades, trade and investment liberalization have undermined human rights and the environment. The food crisis should help us to understand that now it is time for a new vision of global cooperation, one that is democratic and accountable to people and the planet.

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... a more promising set of recommendations comes out of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which 58 governments approved in Johannesburg, South Africa in April. This report is the result of a six-year process that involved over 400 authors.

The report is groundbreaking, both in its process and its content. The major donors for the report were the European Union member states, the Commission and the United States. The process gave governments, major research institutions, industry, and civil society equal responsibility in the drafting. The IAASTD drafting was led by the World Bank and included the UN agencies such as UNDP, FAO, UNESCO, and the WHO. It also included scientific experts, researchers and development specialists. The United States, Australia, and Canada were the three countries that expressed reservations with the final executive summary of the report, indicating concerns with some of the specific data as well as the substance. However, they commented on the report and formally recognized its contribution to the global debate. It should be noted that Brazil, China, and India, three countries that are leading much of the growth from the Global South, approved this collective critique that includes recommendations for a radical shift in agricultural policies.

The introduction of the executive summary states that the IAASTD is an “initiative that all governments need to take forward to ensure that agricultural knowledge, science and technology fulfils its potential to meet the development and sustainability goals of the reduction of hunger and poverty, the improvement of rural livelihoods and human health, and facilitating equitable, socially, environmentally and economically sustainable development.” The report highlights four issues:

1. The need to redirect agricultural science and technology to support small scale farmers in developing countries and to counter global warming;
   
2. The need to promote innovation, including local knowledge, within farm communities;
   
3. The need for massive investment in agriculture, both in physical infrastructure such as irrigation and roads) and non-physical, so-called “soft” infrastructure, such as access to markets and credit provision; and
   
4. The need for immediate attention to the growing involvement of women in agriculture in many developing countries.

Many civil society groups, while recognizing that this multi-stakeholder report isn’t perfect, have supported its call for a radical change.

Restructuring the Global Food System

If we are thinking big, we should be envisioning a new structure for the global institutions via the creation of a Global Food Convention, which would be housed at the UN and implemented by an International Commission, working with different stakeholders including civil society and small-scale farmers. The Global Food Convention would serve as a legal framework to address food sovereignty and the agricultural dimension of climate change, including binding commitments to be implemented at all levels. Governments would have sovereignty to define their own food and agricultural policies, but would also be held accountable to international human rights, including the Right to Food, and the environment.

A Global Food Convention would prioritize stabilizing international supply and mandate strategic grain reserves for food security at the local, regional and international levels. An agreed-upon mechanism would also need to be put into place to ban commodity speculation and to guarantee a fair price for farmers. A Global Food Convention would mandate that trade and investment rules allow for national policy space (flexibility) for countries to protect their local food systems and to invest in small-scale agriculture. It would also establish multi-stakeholder participation, including that of farmers, to develop multilateral and national investment programs that promote rather than undermine small-scale farming. Lastly, a Global Food Convention would bind international economic policies to international human rights and environmental norms, including the right to eat.

Realizing this kind of vision is no small task, but in the midst of the global food crisis, there is every reason to try. The burning question now is whether there is political will to do so. It’s time to find out.

Alexandra Spieldoch, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is also the director of the Trade and Global Governance program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), an organization which works locally and globally to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.