As the United Nations’ food price index hits record highs, agriculture ministers have been summoned to Paris in June to discuss what can be done to help mitigate the impact.
Canadian minister Gerry Ritz says he will attend if he can, in part to challenge a growing political view that food speculators are behind the food inflation and price volatility.
“France wants to concentrate, with some other countries, on speculation,” he said in Ottawa Feb. 3. “I don’t see that.”
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Instead, Ritz sees it as a result of bad weather impacts on production in some major food-producing countries and the inability to get available food to countries where it is needed.
He has been promoting the argument that trade liberalization is a better solution to world hunger than political intervention.
The meeting of ministers from the G20 group of developed and developing countries was called after the UN Food and Agriculture Organization announced that in January, the food price index rose 3.4 percent to a record 231 points, the highest level since the index was started two decades ago.
France, as the current chair of the G20, has made the food situation a key priority.
The index now has surpassed 2008 levels that led to food riots and a meeting of world leaders in Rome.
“The new figures clearly show that the upward pressure on world food prices is not abating,” FAO economist Abdolreza Abbassian said in a statement. “These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come. High food prices are of major concern, especially for low-income food-deficit countries that may face problems in financing food imports and for poor households which spend a large share of their income on food.”
Last year, the FAO estimated at least 925 million people are chronically undernourished.
Ritz noted that domestic politics could affect his ability to represent Canada at the Paris meeting.
“Any of these dates coming up in June are subject to the election fever hanging over us,” he said. “I have to be reelected and then be back in this chair.”
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5. Japan
