G8 set to admit failure over hunger target

In the rush to reduce atmospheric CO2 which helps plants grow faster and larger, has anyone considered the unintended consequences?

In the rush to make fossil fuels more expensive which will make farming more expensive, has anyone considered the unintended consequences?

In the rush to abandon fossil fuels which are used to make fertilizers to grow more food per acre, has anyone considered the unintended consequences?

G8 set to admit failure over hunger target

By Javier Blas in Cison di Valmarino, Italy

Published: April 19 2009 13:42 | Last updated: April 19 2009 13:42

The world is “very far from reaching” the United Nations’ goal of halving the proportion of people facing chronic hunger by 2015, the Group of Eight leading nations will admit on Monday after it reviewed what it called “alarming data” on malnourishment.

Although officials have in private suggested the target was unachievable the admission of this failure - which will come in a communiqué at the end of the G8’s first ever agricultural meeting - is the first by the leading countries. It comes after the United Nations told ministers that for the first time more than 1bn people go hungry every day.

A draft of Monday’s communiqué suggests that the leading countries now see that it will be extremely difficult to achieve one of the key targets of the so-called Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000. But the ministers hope that the target could still help to catalyse global efforts to tackle the problem.

The draft, obtained by the Financial Times, points to a consensus to return agriculture to the global political agenda, with countries agreeing on the need to increase food production. It does not contain, however, specific plans other than to: “underline the importance of increased public and private investment in sustainable agriculture”.

Officials said that the G8 was unlikely to make financial pledges.

The G8 has also provisionally agreed on supporting investment in “innovative science” and research, although disagreements remained over a French proposal, supported by Italy, about creating global stocks of cereals to fight future spikes in food prices. Officials said the US and other countries thought the plan was unworkable.

Officials, nonetheless, said on Sunday that ministers were still working on the communiqué, to be released on Monday. They added that the G8 could still announce some concrete measures when the final statement is released.

”We are encouraged by the progress made by the G8 Agricultural Ministerial and we are heartened to see the G8 moving toward a unified statement on the important issue of food security,” said Tom Vilsack, US secretary of agriculture. “This issue is clearly tied to economic development and international stability and deserves to be at the centre of the international agenda.”

Hillary Benn, UK secretary of state of environment, food and rural affairs, said the focus of the meeting was on a political consensus to increase agriculture production. “This is a unique challenge that we have to respond while we cope with the impact of climate change,” he said in an interview on Saturday.

The draft reflected that consensus, saying that “more should be done to increase the quantity and enhance the quality of agricultural production and enable all citizens to have economic and physical access to safe and nutritious food.”

The gathering of the agriculture ministers from G8 nations in northern Italy was prompted as a response to last year’s spike in the price of agricultural commodities, which triggered riots in more than 30 countries, from Bangladesh to Haiti.

Ishiba Shigeru, Japan’s agriculture minister, said in an interview on Sunday that G8 countries agreed that while the Millennium Development Goals were more difficult to accomplish after the recent surge in chronic hunger, they would keep trying.

“I think we need continued efforts to achieve the targets,” he said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation says that the number of chronically hungry people has surpassed the 1bn mark for the first time, in a sign that the food and economic crisis have reversed the past quarter-century’s slow but constant decline in the proportion of undernourished people as a percentage of the developing world’s population.

The percentage fell from 20 per cent in 1990-92 to a low of just below 16 per cent in the 2003-05 period. But with 1bn people chronically hungry now, the percentage has risen to almost 18 per cent.

Although food costs had fallen from last year’s record – in some cases as much as 50 per cent –, the draft communiqué warned that prices remain “well above previous lows”.

“The depth of the current economic recession means that the number of people who are poor and consequently hungry has increased since last year,” it added.

The G8 ministers, who have being joined by representatives of developing nations such as China, India, and key exporters of agricultural commodities, including Brazil and Argentina, warned that last year’s food price spike could become permanent. “Structural factors may underpin prices over the medium term, and increased volatility and demand raise important questions about food security for the future,” the draft said.

The United Nations was set later on Sunday to tell ministers that the threat of a renewed food crisis was looming over the world economy because of persistently high food prices and the economic crisis, UN officials said.

David Nabarro, the coordinator of the UN’s task force on global food security, said that the world community needed to be on the “look out for an increase in levels of hunger as result of people’s falling purchasing power”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009