Internationale conferentie over voedselvoorziening in Praag
A conference held by the Prague Global Policy Institute (Glopolis) and the Heinrich Böll Foundation is trying to answer the question of ensuring global food security.
UN representatives, MEPs, economists, representatives of NGOs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Agriculture and others discussed the issue on Wednesday in the Goethe Institute.
According to the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Ivo Hlavác, the development dimension must be made an integral part of the common trade and agricultural policies of the EU. He believes, however, that rather than speaking of a current global food crisis it is appropriate to talk about the economic crisis impacts. And, as Hlavác added, even those are felt differently in the various parts of the world.
“Even though the European Union, as other countries and regions, struggles to overcome the consequences of the financial crisis, the volume of EU aid for developing countries remains the largest in the world. This is shown by the amount of money spent, reaching more than 10 billion euros a year”, said Deputy Minister Ivo Hlavác. Other funds are provided by individual Member States in the framework of bilateral cooperation. “The Czech Republic contributes the largest sum for development cooperation out of the new Member States. Out of the more than 80 million crowns paid annually from the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 60% is intended for direct support of agricultural production. The rest goes to forestry and water management”, added Hlavác. According to him, developing countries should contribute to this effort themselves, mainly by trying to raise agricultural production, possibly by achieving self-sufficiency in food.
According to Hlavác, it is necessary to put emphasis on land cultivation and education of the work force that cultivates it. The First Deputy Minister of Agriculture supported the opinion of several participants in the conference that, unless we develop education and infrastructure, remove market barriers and emphasise healthy functioning of local markets, no non-market investments and development cooperation will bring the desired effect from a long-term perspective.
The turn of 2007/2008 brought tension to the food markets in some developing countries, which in effect gave rise to unrest. The cause was the concurrence of several elements, in particular system factors, namely long-term growth of the world population and increase of demand; short term factors, such as fluctuation in the volume of the world production of agricultural commodities, as well as speculative factors. This resulted in a steep rise in prices of basic agricultural commodities that, in some producing countries, caused inadequate reactions by way of export restrictions, which in turn aggravated the situation on the market. At that moment, we began to talk about a food crisis that naturally affected poor countries which are forced to import the abovementioned commodities the most.
On the contrary, according to the conference participants, we have been witnessing a steep decline in the world prices of agricultural commodities since spring 2008. In the meantime, most of the export restrictions for the producing countries have been revoked; however, we are still talking about a food crisis. In the course of the seminar Deputy Minister Hlavác elaborated on the opinions of the participants regarding the future prevention of such development by stating possible ways in which the common trade and agricultural policies may be of help. ‘The underlying principle of common trade and agricultural policies of the European Union should be openness and the development dimension should also be an integral part of these policies. Inadmissibility of protectionist measures was the topic of the extraordinary EU Summit that has just taken place,’ concluded Hlavác.
Contact:
-
-Tereza Dvorácková, Spokeswoman of the Ministry of Agriculture
-
-Tel.: +420 221 813 063, GSM: +420 737 213 030, E-mail: tereza.dvorackova@mze.cz