The global food crisis has been making international headlines in recent weeks. Since the start of this year there has been a huge increase in the price of food, hitting the pockets of millions of the world’s poorest. This is particularly true in Africa where many incomes are already low. Here, sharp hikes for essential food and fuel have triggered riots and protests in countries from Kenya and Somalia to Cameroon and Senegal.
At the start of June, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged nations to seize an “historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture” as a way of tackling this food crisis. Ban told a conference in Rome that food production would have to rise by 50% by 2030 to meet demand and that export restrictions and import tariffs should be reduced to alleviate the situation.
As higher food prices may be here to stay, world leaders are trying to help countries devise solutions by identifying the policies, strategies and programmes that will secure food for the future. As such, the TNI team thought it was important to dedicate some page space this month to looking at the question of agriculture and how this links to the EPAs, Aid for Trade and the negotiations which are taking place at the multilateral level.
Corinna Braun-Munzinger and Paul Engel reflect broadly on Aid for Trade in the agricultural sector, highlighting the need for agriculture and rural development to be given a more prominent position on the international policy agenda. This article is complemented by an in-depth look at the key issues at stake for ACP-EU agricultural trade by Vincent Fautrel and Paul Goodison – two of the leading experts in this field.
What seems to emerge is that there are deep and profound concerns in some African regions over the impact that any process of tariff elimination on imports of European food and food products could have on African efforts to move up the value chain. Similarly, the fisheries sector links directly into the question of food and food security, so to address this, Liam Campling has taken a close look at the rules of origin for fish as they currently stand in the interim EPAs.
Differences of opinion over agriculture are also to blame for the slow pace at which the Doha Round has moved forward. Following the release of the latest long-awaited texts in May, there were hopes that a ministerial could take place in Geneva in June. However, as TNI was going to press it appeared that Don Stephenson, the chair of the non-agricultural market access talks, had suspended any further meetings after a week of consultations with no progress.
It remains to be seen where the progress - or lack of it - at both the bilateral and at the multilateral level will lead. As we approach the traditional summer holiday period, we will publish a double July-August issue of TNI. As such, we would like to encourage contributions and feedback to help us produce the most relevant and useful publication we can. All comments can be sent to vhan...@ictsd.ch
Enjoy the June issue of TNI.