Keep supplies local, and fair

Column published in the newspaper Helsinki Times

Last month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held a summit in Rome on food security. The meeting produced little result. The delegates decided that hunger should be eliminated and investment in agriculture stepped up, but they were unable to agree on specific targets.

As they talked, the ranks of the hungry and starving kept growing, added to by recent steep rises in food prices. This year their numbers crossed the billion mark. It is shocking that as much as 80 per cent of the developing world’s hungry are farmers themselves. They cultivate their food for export, rather than for themselves and their families.

It’s no surprise that the meeting in Rome was a flop. The actions of industrialised countries on agricultural and food policy has long been two-faced, to say the least. The EU weakens conditions for food security in developing countries by dumping its own excess production there. This is supported by substantial export subsidies.

Developing countries, instead, are bound by Western countries and international organisations to accept any exported food, whether they need it or not. The freighting of food from one part of the globe to another is managed by multinational giants, who also rake in the profits. Farmers are hard-pressed in both developing countries and here in the EU – but European farmers are supported with public funds. Without that support, cultivation would have already ceased.

Talk of removing those subsidies is stifled, even though they distort competition and impoverish developing world farmers. There is no desire to see agriculture cease in the EU. There is more to this than powerful lobby groups representing farmers’ interests, and the policies of parties close to them.

Agriculture is a part of our cultural history. People are loathe to entertain the idea that everything we eat might be imported from somewhere far away. Local farming is one guarantee of purity and safety.

But what if European farmers were to produce food for Europe, and African farmers for Africa? Wouldn't that save a few tonnes of carbon dioxide, with no need to freight food over long distances and for an extensive network of subsidies?

Trade in agricultural products should not be quite as free as it now is. Domestic production should be protected by tariffs. Developing countries are in particular need of tariffs, but there would also be use for them in the EU if we are to take profitability as the starting point in agriculture.

So far, the best initiatives have originated far from the official negotiating tables. The international small farmers’ movement La Via Campesina has long suggested that policy be based on the concept of food sovereignty. This means that communities produce food primarily for themselves and their immediate environment. It doesn’t mean a total end to international markets, only a shift in emphasis from multinational, large-scale agriculture to local, smaller-scale farming.

The playing rules for the international markets should be rewritten, and soon. According to the principles of fair trade, farmers should be fairly compensated for their work. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we made all trade fair?

Outi Alanko-Kahiluoto is a first-term Green MP and chairperson of the parliamentary ATTAC caucus.

Translated by Matthew Parry