Mr Robert Guei, a senior technical officer at FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) in Rome, and Sayed Azam-Ali, the CEO at the Crops for the Future Research Centre, and Professor of Global Food Security at the University of Nottingham discuss this issue.
In this program we discuss whether food security is a global problem, or something that affects only certain countries. Climate change, globalisation, distribution problems, and lack of political will appear to be the major issues. As long as affluent western countries do not directly suffer from food shortages it seems unlikely that sufficiently radical action will be taken to help alleviate hunger in developing countries. The tendency to view agriculture as an industrial process, rather than something linked to indigenous food production techniques, is also important, and it is possible that this attitude may need to be reversed. At the end of the program, a vote is taking as to whether food should be securitised.
Is food production just a problem in developing countries? I did read some US development agency data which showed me that 49 million people, including 16 million children, are food insecure in America.
Prof Ali: Yes, absolutely! And I think that is the other dimension. I mean, you’ve mentioned America, but, of course, we might take that to mean all the Western countries. So, the principle is that there is a distribution within countries between rich and poor, and particularly between urban and rural. And don’t forget, in the last couple of years we've moved to a position where more than half of the world lives in cities. And therefore, distribution is no longer a case of growing your own food and being able to provide it for your community of local population. It is actually moving food around within countries and people having the wealth and access to food, which is not near enough for them to actually produce themselves.
Is distribution the problem?
Mr. Guei: At the global level the figures show that the world is able to produce the food that we should be eating or that we need. But, as Professor said, the issue of distribution and access to that food is a major issue. That is one thing. There is also the issue of climate change, where the developing countries are still at risk and poor people are more exposed to that. And so, there are so many issues there, even the price volatility. And as you know, in some places you still have the issue of HIV\AIDS impact on the population and food. So, there are so many other issues there that don’t actually allow everybody to have access to food, although globally food is available.
When you start thinking of the private sector, I suppose I'm thinking of the GMO. Should private companies be involved in securitizing food?
Mr. Guei: I think it is wrong to limit the role of the private sector even in the agriculture to GMO issues, because GMO is just a small part of our technology. And today, in the agriculture development we are talking about innovation in general, even using biotechnology, and not all the biotechnologies are GM. So, for me, it is not an issue. For me, the most important thing is for a country to have the capacity in place to make or not to make judgments about the GMO.
Second, when you just take whole volution from production to a market, at each segment of the volution you’ll have private companies. So, it is not only at the research, at the genetic variety level, but you will also have the important role that private sector plays in the processing of food, transportation, conditioning of food, distribution of food and all this.
Prof Ali, do you agree that we should strive for enhancing the political will within the established international organizations, such as the UN?
Prof Ali: I think we should distinguish between the international agencies like the UN and FAO, and the private sector in terms of multinationals. The farmers are also the private sector. We have to define what we mean by the private sector. It is not just one big group. But what we have to be aware of is that the governments mustn’t abdicate the responsibility to feed their populations.
And, at the end of the day, if we can’t feed our populations, we are not entitled to leave it to the private sector. I mean, where the food goes, who gets it, who doesn’t get it, how it is distributed and who has access to it? Governments have to take their responsibilities. And one message, which I think is very important for the developing countries, is that, in a sense, we've rushed towards industrialization and we’ve left agriculture completely on its own. We've said – well, it is up to the private sector, to the multinationals to decide what happens to our agricultural systems. Most countries in the developing world are primarily agricultural.
Should we now be then looking at agriculture not as being an industrial process, but, perhaps, as a more ecological sustainable process? Perhaps, we should be looking again at indigenous food production systems, looking after the soil in a more natural and normal way, instead of harvesting vast crops that are sent off to some other country, processed and then sent back to the country at a vast price.
Prof Ali: You’re absolutely right!
