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U.S. WORKING GROUP ON THE FOOD CRISIS STATEMENT ON THE G8 MEETING IN L’AQUILA, ITALY

The U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis calls upon the Group of Eight Countries meeting from July 8-10 in L’Aquila, Italy to reject the broken status quo of reliance on biotechnology and the WTO Doha free trade agenda as solutions to the global food crisis. Instead, the Working Group, representing religious, anti-hunger, international development, family farm, food justice, labor, consumer and environmental groups, urges the nations of the G8 to base investment in agriculture research and productivity on the authoritative findings of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a landmark study sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank and conducted by 400 scientists and development experts.

The IAASTD represents the best intergovernmental, multi-stakeholder expert assessment of how to address global hunger and price volatility. The report recommends the use of agroecological methods to boost productivity as the most promising way to improve food security rather than “business as usual” reliance on chemical-intensive production and biotechnology.
The U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis issued a Call to Action on the World Food Crisis in October 2008 and sent a letter to President Obama detailing lasting policy solutions to fix the global food crisis. We urge the G8 to review these solutions, including:

  • Stabilize and guarantee fair prices for farmers and consumers globally through regulation of commodity markets and the establishment of publicly-owned food reserves;
     
  • Rebalance power in the food system through antitrust enforcement and other measures to reduce the influence of agribusiness corporations on public policy;
     
  • Make agriculture environmentally sustainable through farm policy and investment reform, including purchasing and procurement incentives;
     
  • Respect, protect and fulfill workers’ rights for farmworkers and other food system workers; and
     
  • Guarantee the right to food and build healthy local and regional food systems that foster social, ecological and economic justice at home and abroad.

Previous G8 Declarations addressing the food crisis, including the one issued by the Ministers of Agriculture of the G8 countries at the April 18-20 meeting in Cison di Valmarino, Italy, have endorsed some of these principles. The Working Group particularly endorses the Final Declaration’s call for exploring a “coordinated approach to stock management” that can “examine whether a system of stockholding could be effective in dealing with humanitarian emergencies or as a means to limit price volatility.” The Working Group urges the United States to encourage rather than oppose efforts to examine the vital issue of commodity price stabilization. The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has said, “There is a clear need for improving
the management of grain stocks at global level, including coordination of global grain stocks to limit the attractiveness of speculation.” The U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis also supports the G8 Declaration in advocating for biofuels policies encouraging “that biofuels are produced and used in an environmentally sustainable manner” and energy policies which do not “compromise food security.”

However, the G8 Statement on Global Food Security still continues to promote the “benefits of globalization and open markets,” calling for a conclusion of the WTO Doha Round and further liberalization of agricultural markets. Unfortunately, it is precisely because of decades of relentless pressure for ever more liberalized agriculture trade that many countries are at the mercy of volatile and speculative global markets for their food security. This was the underlying structural cause of last year’s food riots in nations ranging from Haiti to Egypt to Mexico. International financial institutions and others encouraged developing countries to rely on food imports, driving millions of farmers out of business. Remaining farmers have been told to produce cash crops for export markets rather than food for local markets. Instead of continuing with these misguided policies and deepening the hunger crisis, the G8 should reorient international trading systems to allow countries the flexibility to protect their populations’ food security in whatever ways are most effective for them.

The U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis is heartened by the domestic and international attention currently focused on increasing food security for the world’s most vulnerable populations. We believe the principles of our Call to Action will go a long way towards addressing the 30 years of failed agriculture policy that have led to the current crisis.