QUEBEC CITY – The United States warned that it is increasingly the responsibility of food-deficit countries to feed themselves.
Sweden argued that solving world hunger problems is a moral obligation for the world.
India and China bragged about being once-hungry nations which now can produce food surpluses.
Nicaragua argued for continued state involvement in attempts to ensure food security.
And Canada argued that “without wanting to go back to the era of managed economies,” countries have an obligation to promote policies which help their farmers feed the population.
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These were some of the voices heard last weekend as ministers and delegations from close to 145 countries met here, on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, to debate world food issues.
Assistance won’t increase
U.S. agriculture secretary Dan Glickman said Oct. 14 the Americans are willing to help, but food aid and financial assistance to poor nations will be falling rather than increasing.
“It has never been more necessary than now for food-deficit countries to make hard decisions and to take actions to reduce their dependence on food aid and development assistance, to increase their self-reliance,” he told the meeting. “At the core of the issue is finding the political will to restructure policies in favor of agriculture.”
The next day, Swedish agriculture minister Margareta Winberg said feeding the hungry must be an international priority. “Food security is about social justice … food security is about democracy … food security is about prevention of conflicts and wars.”
While there were some divisions among the speakers about how best to deal with the fact that 800 million people still do not have enough food, China said its contribution comes from increasing its own food production.
Through an interpreter, Chinese agriculture minister Liu Jiang said China would be able to feed its 20 percent of the world’s population by increasing the productivity of its agriculture and by increasing its farmland base.
Despite some predictions at the FAO conference that China will be a market for huge amounts of traded grain during the next quarter century, Jiang vowed China would feed itself through the next century.
Nicaraguan agriculture minister Dionisio Cuadra Kautz, speaking for Latin American and Caribbean countries, said both domestic and international effort are needed to ensure the hungry are fed.
“Nutrition is a basic right of all those who have a right to life,” he said.
