TODAY’S higher grain prices offer at least one rare season of optimism for prairie farmers.
However, those higher prices have given rise to a problem: the world’s poorest people are paying a high price.
Rising food prices and resulting lack of affordability have sparked violent riots in many developing nations.
The United Nations has issued an emergency call for an additional $500 million for food aid by May 1.
Closer to home, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank has said its food aid could decline by 25 percent from last year unless it receives more funding.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
Calls for action grew following a report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, a group sponsored by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank.
That report called for an end to subsidies in rich countries that make imported food less expensive than food grown in developing countries, thus inhibiting agricultural growth there.
The report also takes a run at seed and biotech companies for disproportionate corporate control over supplies and prices, and it highlights small, sustainable farming as a model to bring food security to the Third World.
The reasons behind the meteoric rise in food prices are many: years of unprofitable food production; bad weather in key growing areas; a growing middle class seeking more and better quality food; food crops diverted to biofuel production; and high input costs.
Governments cannot afford to wait it out. Most analysts predict no relief for a year or more.
Canadians see themselves as a just and caring society. As such, we must ask our government to act decisively to ensure foreign aid commitments are adequate and to ensure aid reaches the hardest hit regions.
Ottawa must also consider allowing more food aid to be bought closer to regions where food is most needed. This reduces transportation costs and can encourage more local agriculture.
In the longer-term, the IAASTD report can provide food for thought in developing a blueprint for future development. However, it fails to recognize the important role biotechnology can play.
The report’s emphasis on small sustainable farms, if allowed to go too far, returns us to a time when yields were one-half or less than those of today. Land now set aside as natural habitat would have to be converted to agricultural use.
The situation is reminiscent of the 1960s, when the world’s population
began to outpace the food supply. Back then, science showed the way forward, with technologically advanced farming methods and plant breeding that improved yields and made more food available to the poor. Research has a key role to play this time around as well.
Strong government policies, combined with significant financial backing for new technologies and all types of crop research, must be an integral part of any plan if we are to improve food security around the world.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
