D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 4, July/August 2002, p. 3)

However, the final declaration of the review conference avoided any concrete commitment to raising international financing for agriculture and rural development. Although the text, which was unanimously approved by 182 countries, generally calls "for an adequate share for those sectors of bilateral and multilateral ODA" and also urges developed countries that have not done so "to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP as official development assistance to developing countries", the "International Alliance against Hunger" proclaimed in the declaration remains a toothless instrument. The real power to end hunger in the world does not lie with the FAO but with institutions like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or the European Union which determine the conditions under which global trade in agricultural goods is conducted. Food insecurity is almost always a result of poverty, and poverty can only be reduced if people in developing countries get a fair chance to earn adequate incomes. As South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki said at the Rome conference, all issues blocking the access of developing countries to the markets of the North have to be addressed if hunger and poverty are to reduced. The President of the European Commission, Romani Prodi, responded by saying that the EU is in favour of greater open markets for agricultural products and that measures distorting agricultural imports should be reduced. In reality, however, the EU, the United States, Japan and other developed states are subsidising their farmers to the tune of $350 billion a year, and tariff escalations on agricultural products which erect additional barriers to processed goods are a serious obstacle to open world trade. The developing countries, on the other hand, are required under WTO rules to open their domestic markets to competition from cheap agricultural imports mass-produced under heavily subsidised and industrialised conditions: a situation which will create more poverty and hunger among their resource-poor farmers.

A look at conditions in many parts of Africa confirms that the causes for hunger are indeed often home-made. In Malawi, for instance, where millions of people are on the point of starvation because of an excessive drought, last year’s large maize surpluses were apparently sold off to foreign countries for the benefit of a few profiteers instead of being stored for emergencies. Now, Malawi is appealing to the world community for food relief to ward off the impending disaster. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the agricultural base was wantonly eroded by the government-inspired farms occupations. The consequence are food shortages in a country which in the past used to produce surplus food for the whole region. In Central Africa, the civil wars in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo have led to the flight of millions of farmers and the devastation of the whole region, with the resultant poverty and misery of huge populations.

But India, too, can serve as an example of starvation amidst plenty: while the number of hungry and malnourished people in South Asia is estimated to be as high as 300 million, the state-run stores are overflowing with surplus grain. Instead of distributing the food or selling it at subsidised prices affordable for the hungry, the government prices are higher than those of cheap imports from the US or Australia in the big cities. The Indian experience shows that scarcity of food is not the primary cause of hunger but lack of income among the needy. Ironically, poverty and malnutrition are now more widespread in rural rather than urban areas.

To get out of the hunger and poverty trap, the rural areas must become a focus of development efforts. Essential is to give farmers access to land, security of tenure, and resources to produce food and earn incomes. Agricultural research must also be strengthened to develop more productive varieties which are more resistant to pests and environmental stress such as water scarcity and salination.
Instead of artificially boosting production in industrial countries and swamping world markets with surpluses, the emphasis should be on giving farmers in the developing countries opportunities to produce at competitive prices. Food aid alone is no solution even if it sometimes remains inevitable in times of disaster. But the aim must be to empower Third World farmers to cope with emergencies and ensure food security. Only then will the goal be reached to halve the number of poor and hungry and guarantee everyone the right to food.