Not having a seat at the table is ‘mind boggling’
OTTAWA — Ron Bonnett was alarmed to learn last fall that United Nations policy discussions about food security were taking place without farmers at the table.
The president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture said the committee on food security included academics and experts in other fields but not those who actually cultivate.
“It’s mind boggling,” he said in an interview during the CFA’s annual meeting. “You’ve got everybody talking about what you should be doing, but the very people who have to go ahead and implement it aren’t around the table.”
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This illustrates the need to have strong, involved farm organizations, he said.
The World Farmers’ Organization, of which CFA is a founding member, complained and it appears a seat is now being created.
The 65-member WFO emerged in 2011 after the former International Federation of Agricultural Producers folded.
Bonnett said the organization will have a strong voice in the development of food security policy.
He said all farmers need storage and transportation infrastructure and extension services to stay in business and create world food security, whether they are in the developed or developing world.
Developing countries particularly need a strong legal system that can back up contracts and allow people, especially women, to hold and own land.
Climate change must also be considered.
Bonnett said it’s true these policies can take a long time to develop and implement, but priority items could be dealt with quickly and without a completely formulated policy.
“This is where I think the benefit of having farmers sitting around the table is,” he said.
“Rather than getting in a long discussion about what you should do 20 years down the road, I think farmers could make some recommendations of things that could be done immediately to address issues, especially around food security.”
He said a conference last October to consider findings from the UN’s Year of the Family Farm spent far too much time discussing the definition of family farm and ignoring what needs to be done.
“It gets to the point of it’s just people talking to themselves, and they haven’t really gone down to the farm to find out from farmers what is it you really need,” Bonnett said.
The WFO was in Bali in December 2013 to urge the World Trade Organization to sign a deal. Bonnett said it has been frustrating to watch developments, or the lack thereof, since then.
He said the WTO will likely have to change how it conducts its negotiations to make it work.
“The way it is now, everybody has to agree with every period and every comma, every dot in every paragraph, and getting 100 percent unanimity in something like that is impossible,” he said.
“Maybe they have to look at seeing if they can put together a new negotiating framework.”
Bonnett said an international agreement is still important because bilaterals don’t get into issues of domestic support and subsidies. They also leave out a lot of developing countries in Africa and South America, he said.
“I think if we really want to deal with some of the issues around food security, and the issues of poverty in the developing world, there has be a system that draws them into the discussion as well,” he said.
The WFO spent much of the last year developing a trade policy and has its next annual meeting in Milan, Italy, in June.
karen.briere@producer.com
