The reality that the world is not producing enough food to satisfy future growth has come home to roost, as Agricultural ministers from the G20 group of nations meet, to try and provide a solution.
As a major food exporter the decisions made in such a forum will be important for NZ producers, and concerns that the middlemen get all the profit from food, many farmers will relate to.
The discussions on whether the use of GM technology to improve our food supply will need to be considered, as one billion chronically malnourished people wait for volumes to increase.
Farm ministers from large economies are likely to establish an international food-stock database this week and agree to reduce some trade barriers in order to combat looming food shortages and yo-yoing prices reports The Australian. Agriculture ministers from the Group of 20 nations gather in Paris tomorrow and Thursday facing a growing problem: Demand for food is outpacing supply, which is increasingly hampered by weather shocks and government intervention. France, in particular, wants to tackle commodity-market volatility as a priority of its G20 leadership.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation predicts the world will need to produce 70 per cent more food by 2050 to feed its population. But growth in agricultural production is expected to slow to 1.7 per cent a year in the decade to 2020, compared with an annual 2.6 per cent in the previous decade, according to its latest estimates. That has helped drive up prices and eat into stocks. And with governments quick to intervene in markets, as Russia did when it banned grain exports last year, food markets have become increasingly susceptible to price spikes.
The FAO's food-price index hit a record in February, and the organisation forecast on Friday that average food prices would be 30 per cent higher this decade than in the previous decade. Food-price inflation was blamed for contributing to the unrest that has rocked the Arab world this year, and charities expect the number of chronically malnourished people will top one billion people this year.
Carmel Cahill, an agriculture expert at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said, "There's land in Latin America, Africa and around the Black Sea. …There are huge yield gaps, which can be narrowed by education, irrigation and inputs" such as fertilisers. But for farmers to feel the benefit of higher prices, France argues that speculation in commodity-derivative markets must be regulated. "Rising commodity prices are the main threat to growth," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a recent conference in Brussels.
Total managed-money investments in agricultural commodities grew to a record $US126 billion but "The people who are the beneficiaries of this situation are not the farmers, they are the middlemen," said Charles Ogang, president of the Ugandan National Farmers Federation.
Export bans are also expected to be on the agenda. They contributed to the 2008 food-price spike, and a Russian embargo on grain exports last summer was a factor in soaring wheat prices earlier this year.
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