Warning of food riots : time to change - publié le 24/06/2008

Résumé du document

"A little conversation, a little more action please": Both people and the environment need action more than ever. Yet, what should our priorities be? Should we aim to protect the environment or feed more people? This dilemma is increasingly facing developing and emerging countries. In Asia, more than 600 million people live with on than 1 $ per day, and the situation is even worse in Africa. Besides, all the countries concerned by this issue have to face high inflation rates and great risks of social unrest. Does the protection of the environment (especially through investments in bio-fuels) justify growing prices when most people are not even able to pay for basic groceries?

Extraits

[...] Warning of food riots : time to change little conversation, a little more action please.” Indeed, both people and the environment need action more than ever. Yet, what should our priority be: protecting the environment or feeding more people? This dilemma appears more and more sharply to developing and emerging countries. In Asia, more than 600 million people live with less than 1 $ per day. This situation is even worse in Africa. Besides, all the countries concerned by this issue have to face high inflation rates and great risks of social unrest. [...]

[...] Finally, there is a need for political will to initiate the change. The French presidency of the European Union is a great opportunity to place Europe in the front line. Still, all this doesn't mean that reforming agriculture will solve the whole problem. We will still have to consume less energy. We can't afford to harbor any illusion on how new technologies can enable us to pursue our Western way of life. Bibliographie Meadows The Limits to growth, Universe Books Lester R. [...]

[...] This surplus places the South under the supervision of the North, which is a problem. With the surplus, prices decrease rapidly, putting strain on local producers. Instead of cargo boats full of wheat, we should send a financial aid that would help them develop their own agricultural model. Autonomy of the South means that this surplus could be replaced by biofuels. Biofuels could stabilize the price of cereals and seeds, which is necessary for farmers from the South. The European agriculture model therefore has to participate in a global effort to put in place a global agriculture”, as the UN says. [...]

[...] World Bank, WTO, OECD, IMF) have delivered many insightful speeches on agricultural development. Still, from the 1980s through the 1990s, they have made it impossible for poor countries to develop by exposing them to a highly competitive and inaccessible market. For years, experts had been saying that agriculture in developing countries needed to be supported. Still, both the World Bank and the IMF have underestimated the necessity to invest in agriculture. Some programs of the IMF have even encouraged debt-ridden countries to develop export cultures and to import the food they consume. [...]

[...] How can the development of local agricultures be fostered? By buying machines, fertilizers and seeds thanks to help programs: Agricultural prices would increase, then stabilize and at the same time would generate higher revenues throughout a period long enough so as to enable agricultural stability and development. Therefore, the solution lies in an efficient policy that would support local production and local markets. We can here draw a parallel with Europe after World War II: production was encouraged to feed an increasingly urban population. [...]