World Food Summit throws away chance to stop one billion going hungry
You would think that the 20 per cent jump in the number of hungry since 2005, would spur determined and decisive action, but the World Food Summit failed to make any major breakthroughs.
Apart for Berlusconi of Italy, the G8 leaders didn’t even bother turning up.
Missed opportunities
The reformed UN Committee on Food Security is still without sufficient funds, risking it becoming just a talking shop.
Smallholder farmers in developing countries are still vulnerable to the harmful effects of climate change as no signals were sent to Copenhagen to provide ADDITIONAL resources to help them adapt.
While the Summit did announce the need to increase production by 70 per cent in order to feed growing populations of up to 9 billion by 2050. It advocated that this would be achieved through increased use of "bio-technology", ignoring the growing evidence that this is not the answer to ending hunger, can in fact be distarous to small farmers (who make up most of the world’s hungry) and is devastating to the planet.
“We need to fundamentally re-think the way we grow food if we are to sustain people and the planet in future.” said Francisco Sarmento, ActionAid’s head of food rights.
“Evidence shows that supporting small family farms with ecologically sound farming practices is the way forward. Agriculture is currently contributing to around 30% of climate change emissions and is degrading the environment. Something needs to change – and fast.”
“Governments should have declared that any climate change agreement in Copenhagen should commit resources IN ADDITION to existing aid budgets to help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change."
Europe's empty pledge
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, announcing this week that one fifth of the G8 money would come from the EU but the failure to mention whether any of this was new money is significant.
According to Sarmento, “His pledge was a repacking of existing commitments, such as funds from the one billion euro food facility approved last December, the food security thematic programme and the European Development Fund.”
People's action
Meanwhile in the last seven days, nearly 180,000 citizens from around the world have signed a joint Avaaz-ActionAid petition calling on G8 governments to deliver, in full, the $20 billion developing country agriculture and food security package pledged last July.
On World Food Day, hundreds of thousands of people rallied across 25 countries, with ActionAid demanding that governments 'free the billion hungry people' and take action at the World Food Summit. L'Aquila was a welcome step in the right direction but there must now be a timetable for disbursement, ensuring the pledge is delivered in full, with genuinely new funds.
