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Summit on food security: analysis of the final declaration

Coordination SUD

Organising the World Summit on Food Safety on 16th and 17th November 2009 was a means for Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO, to force the international community to react to the unprecedented increase in the number of people suffering from hunger. By their declaration at the end of the Summit, FAO member states are again engaging in empty talk: Coordination SUD welcomes and is satisfied with the text, though the risk of actions not following on from ideas still exists.

Among the satisfactory elements constituting the document, Coordination Sud can note:

  recognition of the central role held by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) as a participating platform, grouping together organisations involved in the implementation of food security measures under the authority of the United Nations. Governments, international organisations, farming associations, NGOs and the private sector will therefore become stakeholders in the CFS, a key component of the Global Partnership for Agriculture and Food Security. Moreover, the declaration invites each State to provide national organisations with a platform for debate on the question of food security ;

  reassertion of the right to adequate food (paragraph 16), the importance of purchasing foods locally and using local markets (paragraph 21) and the potential to alleviate climate change by sustainable agriculture (paragraph 17) ;

  recognition of the pertinence of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD), whose recommendations form a barrier against land monopolisation (paragraph 18).

Although the international community pledges its support to smallholder farmers, and notably women, by setting aside significant funds for agriculture and food security, the declaration does not list the specific means by which it proposes to reach these goals. As is often the case, the international community left the table without having taken a decision as to the exact instruments and financial provisions which would allow it to honour commitments, so leaving the billion people suffering from hunger in the world in expectation, waiting for a reaction equal to the challenge.

Moreover, the declaration paves the way towards notions Coordination SUD considers to be dangerous, especially on the subject of biotechnologies and agro fuels, since it does not state that the right to food must take priority over production of bio fuels as an energy-saving objective. Lastly, putting emphasis on the Doha Development Round issues of free trade and commercial negotiation is in total contradiction with the need to give priority to small-scale local farmers, local food production and food security.

While the Summit should have provided a basis for the fundamental modification of food production and distribution in order to cope with the growing number of hungry people, the member states stopped short of taking sustainable measures to provide food for the entire world population.

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