Like gladiators to the coliseum, governments, non-governmental organizations

(NGOs) and multilateral institutions are converging on Rome this November to

do battle with a dangerous and elusive foe: world hunger. Girded with statistics

and armed with proposals, ministers, academics, and activists, farmers,

consumers and traders, will attempt to agree on a plan of action for world food

security. In the process they will wrestle with a question that's been nagging the

world since the 1940's: is food security a human right, or is it a market

privilege?

The question implies two very different approaches to policy, and there are

equally different proponents lined up behind them. Multilateral institutions

including international financial institutions and governments from many

industrialized nations, such as the U.S., press for greater trade liberalization.

They argue that increased trade will result in greater food security. On the

other side of the question are hundreds of NGOs, farmers' organizations and

consumer groups around the world that have responded with nearly a single

voice to such reasoning: food is a basic human right which national

governments, not the global market, have the primary responsibility to provide.

Caught in the middle is the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the

United Nations and its Director General, Jacques Diouf. Having courageously

called for the Summit to forward the FAO's mission of aiding national

governments to provide food security to their citizens, Diouf's agency takes the

field with one hand tied behind its back. For the first time this century,

governments will wrestle with the issue of food security under binding legal

constraints that limit the parameters for national food security policy: no

strategy can emerge from this Summit that is incompatible with the provisions

of the Uruguay Round.

The proposals emerging from the working groups of the FAO's Committee on

Food Security are tortured by brackets, indicating lack of consensus on

passages, even words. And for good reason: the FAO is calling on national

governments to provide food security for their citizens at a time when many are

repealing food security legislation to conform to free trade ideology and rules

of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture.

Three Generations of Food Summits

The core problem of the 1996 World Food Summit is rooted in the divergent

strategies proposed to reorder the global economic system following the

Second World War. One approach placed national governments at the center

of an internationally coordinated economic system. The other advocated

cutting the global market free from government intervention to manage itself.

Then, as now, both ideological camps claimed that agriculture and food

security would be primary beneficiaries of their economic strategies.

Two meetings within the space of as many years crystallized these approaches

and gave birth to the institutions that would attempt to implement them. In

1943, the forty-four Allied governments met in Hot Springs, Virginia, and put

the concept of food security as a human right squarely at the center of the

debate on food security. Two years later 44 representatives of governments

meeting at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, articulated the framework for a

new world order based on free trade. Hot Springs gave rise to the FAO,

Bretton Woods to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The

trade regime eventually codified as the General Agreement on Tariffs and

Trade also emerged from the meeting at Bretton Woods.

The food conference at Hot Springs was visionary, almost euphoric, in its

proposals. Many of them are echoed in contemporary NGO proposals for the

World Food Summit. They dealt with the food system as a whole, not just with

agriculture. They affirmed the role of national governments in guaranteeing the

basic human right to food to their citizens with the support of an international

organization (the FAO). In the Hot Springs proposals, farmers were to be paid

fair prices for their products. The capacity to buy food was to be improved

with a livable minimum wage. Nursing mothers were to be guaranteed enough

to eat. Governments were to be directly involved in marketing, storing,

processing and transporting food. And trade was to be managed--through a

system of international commodity agreements to mitigate "fluctuations of

prices of food and agricultural products."

"In short," asserts Dr. Orin Kirshner, analyst at the U.S.-based Institute for

Agriculture and Trade Policy, "Hot Springs participants believed that

government intervention to guarantee a basic minimum standard of living to all

citizens as well as to build diversified, farmer-oriented, domestic agricultural

systems around the world was crucial to the realization of the human right to

food."

Parts of this vision would remain central to domestic agriculture policy for

decades in countries all over the world. But the goal of international consensus

for and coordination of food security would be swept aside by the ascendant

ideology of trade liberalization. Without enforcement mechanisms and

financing, the FAO never achieved the stature envisioned by its founders to

implement food security.

Twenty years after the meeting at Hot Springs, governments met in the first

World Food Summit in Rome. They faced a different kind of crisis in the

global food system. The year before, in 1973, President Nixon had

embargoed soybean exports to deflate soaring domestic prices in the U.S.,

throwing importing nations into panic. A blight also destroyed much of the U.S.

corn crop, and energy prices were on the rise. The tone from the 1974 Summit

was one of fear and resolve. Vowing to eradicate world hunger within a

decade, participants in the Summit reaffirmed the need for international

coordination through the formation of a World Food Council in the U.N., and

proposed the creation of a grain reserves to supply the world in times of

shortage.

These proposals, like those of Hot Springs, were never implemented. Instead,

governments responded with unprecedented efforts to boost agricultural

production. Europeans, having learned the value of self-sufficiency from the

soybean embargo, set out to produce cereals. Farmers in the U.S. borrowed

money to plant fence row to fence row.

What ensued was a decade-long trade war in agricultural surpluses that

resulted in the loss of millions of family farms around the world and provoked

unprecedented export dumping into Third World countries. It is within this

context that the Uruguay Round negotiations were initiated. The final

Agreement on Agriculture, set in motion with the Blair House Accords

between the U.S. and European Union, was a de facto agreement between the

U.S. and Europe to share export markets as a way to manage surpluses.

Now the World Food Summit of 1996 is taking place precisely during the

greatest shortage in world grain supplies since the 1974 Summit. Its goals, in

relation to previous meetings, seem convoluted, limited, and distinctly lacking in

program. Out of the 61 pages of the Draft Plan of Action that emerged from

the Committee on Food Security meeting on August 2, 1996, very few

concrete plans of action can be found after sifting through the "ensures,"

"promotes" and "supports" that litter the text. For example an interesting

proposal to produce a "Vulnerability Map," "Food Insecurity Map," "Risk

Map," "Hunger Map" (no agreement on the name) is useful, but hardly

ambitious.

The content is so thin because the document assumes that the Uruguay Round

provides the means to enhanced food security. Proponents of trade

liberalization argue that trade delivers food security in two primary ways: by

increasing incomes through increased economic activity generated by exports,

and by focusing agricultural resources on those agro-exports with the greatest

comparative advantage. Food security? Fait accompli. All Summit participants

have to do is carve out some tasks for the FAO that are compatible with

Uruguay Round provisions. Primary among these is something the World

Trade Organization is supposed to do, but has yet to undertake: aiding low

income food deficit countries having problems with the "transition" to trade

liberalization.

Trade-Led Food Security: An Oxymoron?

Trade is not an all-purpose solution, and its limitations are increasingly

apparent in relation to food security. The FAO admitted in its first draft Plan of

Action that "research to date has had difficulty in rigorously proving that trade

liberalization causes faster economic growth." Despite this lack of proof, food

security-oriented legislation and policy is being abrogated in the belief that freer

trade will bring food security through food imports. In May, 1996, for

example, the Philippine Congress repealed core elements of the Magna Carta

of Small Farmers. This included provisions to prevent imports of basic

commodities, if farmers were producing them in sufficient quantities to satisfy

local demand.

When the Uruguay Round was concluded in December, 1994, it signaled the

end, not only of a decade of negotiations, but of the Hot Springs/Bretton

Woods power struggle that had shaped agriculture and trade policies for the

past 50 years. With one mighty heave, the United States and Europe yanked

agriculture firmly out of control of national governments and settled it under the

overarching authority of the World Trade Organization.

What are the likely outcomes of such an approach to food security? One place

to look is at countries that have undergone trade liberalization in ways

compatible with GATT provisions, even before the Uruguay Round was

formally concluded. One such case is Mexico, following the negotiation of the

North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.

"Poor Mexico--So Far from God, So Close to the United States." So goes a

popular Mexican expression. Whereas the North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) stopped short of claiming to bring Mexico closer to

God, it did offer to make Mexico's proximity to the U.S. more beneficial

through liberalized trade. Two of those benefits were access to cheap grain,

and to lucrative markets for their vegetables and fruits.

At the time NAFTA was negotiated, Mexico was subsidizing both production

of basic grains such as corn and beans (through price supports to farmers,

federally subsidized access to fertilizer and water, and federal marketing

assistance) and consumption (through a federal distribution system for staple

foods and through subsidized prices of tortillas and beans.) Then-President

Carlos Salinas de Gortari, trained at Harvard and seasoned in Miguel de la

Madrid's administration, was a true believer in the structural adjustment

policies whose adoption is required by the World Bank and the IMF in

exchange for loans and access to other international capital markets. Upon

entering office, Salinas unilaterally dropped import licensing requirements and

tariffs on wheat, sorghum, and rice, maintaining protection only on the most

sensitive of Mexican foods, corn and beans. At the same time, he signaled

increased support for crops such as fresh vegetables, thus beginning the shift in

Mexico's agricultural priorities towar d export crops.

In 1992, Salinas persuaded the Mexican Congress to amend the Mexican

constitution to end the government agricultural land trust known as the ejido

system that had provided land to millions of peasants beginning in 1917. Even

before the GATT had been approved, Salinas instituted a decoupled payment

subsidy program--that is, payments to farmers are made with no relationship to

volume or type of production. This breaks the historic link of federal support

to farmers from production, as free trade proponents had been pushing

policymakers to do since the mid-1980's.

All of this was done with one major goal in mind: to shift Mexico's agriculture

system from one based on food sovereignty to one centered on comparative

advantage. Why spend money to support corn and other basic grain

production, the Salinas administration reasoned, when the world's largest

producer of "cheap" corn was just across the border? Why not focus

resources on tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and peppers for U.S. dinner

tables instead of corn and beans for poor Mexican families?

Poor Mexico. So far from God, and now much farther from food security.

One year after NAFTA went into effect, the peso fell off a cliff, making

imported food twice as expensive. And to make matters worse, global grain

shortages became apparent in 1996, driving prices of basic grains like corn

and wheat to double what they had been just one year before. Meanwhile, the

Mexican government persisted in its belief that comparative advantage in

exports, not production for domestic consumption, was the priority. As a result

of government refusal to provide incentives such as credit, access to water,

and fertilizers, basic grain production has fallen 20%, and hundreds of

thousands of farmers have left their farms for cities in Mexico and for the U.S.

The irony is that Mexico produced all of the white corn it needed in 1993 to

feed its population of 80 million--a good start toward domestic food security.

In 1996, Mexico is projected to require imports of 6 million tons of yellow

corn by year-end (40 percent of its domestic demand), much of which will be

designated for human consumption, especially in rural areas. To make matters

worse for Mexican consumers, yellow corn in Mexico is normally an animal

feed. And the imports have gotten much more expensive. Prices are averaging

$180 per ton this year, compared with $90 per ton in 1995. By the end of

June, 1996, corn imports had totaled $615 million, compared with $365

million spent on imported corn during the entire year of 1994.

The food crisis is hitting home. In late May, in a gritty outer ring settlement of

Monterrey, Mexico, over 400 men, women and children stopped a grain train

and carried its cargo off to their homes. Shouting "We're hungry!," women

hauled off the contraband in buckets and two-year-old children carried it

gingerly across the tracks in plastic bags. At the end of the day, 40 tons of

corn had disappeared into the community of San Nicolas de la Garza.

This was no isolated event. Within three weeks, hundreds of Mexican citizens

robbed two grain trains in Torreon, another northern Mexican city, and further

attempts were made on trains in Monterrey. For hungry people in Mexico,

trade-led food security policy isn't working.

More than 200 non-governmental organizations organized a national Forum on

Food Sovereignty in Mexico in late August. Among their demands are calls to

renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and the GATT

agriculture provisions, as well as to begin negotiations for a Global Food

Security Convention.

Toward an Effective Plan of Action for Global Food Security

The increasingly apparent limitations of a global food system subject to the

volatility of the marketplace call for the creation of a new international

framework with food security as its highest priority. Governments need to have

more latitude and more policy instruments available to them to support

domestic agriculture and food systems without fear of trade sanctions. They

also require international support mechanisms that will help them do what

neither they nor the market can do alone.

Many of these policies are simply inconsistent with the skewed logic of trade

liberalization. If governments want to take steps to end world hunger, they will

have to jump over the limited options presented by the Uruguay Round. They

must either change the GATT or create a new global framework based on the

logic of food security. Where the market thrives on volatility, food security

depends on stability and predictability. Where the market demands, in theory,

the elimination of barriers to trade, food security strategies use them judiciously

as tools to protect basic food supplies.

Let us imagine, for the moment, that something unheard of has occurred. The

FAO, recognizing that its draft plan of action is unworkable, full of

contradictions, and ultimately counterproductive, chucks it out. For the first

day of the Summit, NGOs and governments review the proposals from the

Hot Springs conference, the 1974 World Food Summit, and the dozens of

concrete proposals NGOs and producers' organizations have drafted. They

develop a new plan of action for world food security. It might look something

like this:

Plan of Action to Achieve Universal Food Security

Begin negotiations for a Global Food Security Convention to assist

governments in their pursuit of food security and to establish a global network

of local, national and regional reserves.

Basis for Action :

1.Global trade rules have created "food supply distortions," particularly of

staple foods. In some cases, domestic production has decreased at the

very time that shortages in world supplies have resulted in price

increases, making nations dependent on expensive imports of basic

staple foods. While trade is important to the provision of foods nations

cannot produce for themselves, it should not displace domestic

production as the first line of defense against hunger.

2.Food security policy must help reduce the volatility of agricultural

production cycles and markets. Farmers and consumers suffer at both

ends of boom and bust cycles when surpluses drive down agricultural

prices and bankrupt farmers, and when shortages raise prices beyond

the ability of consumers to buy basic staples.

3.Global food stocks are poorly distributed between a few large exporting

countries that produce too much to be consumed regionally, and regions

of the world that have become dependent upon imports from exporting

countries. True food security depends on the capacity to produce and

store food locally for times of shortage and to decrease volatility in

supplies and reduce transport costs. Cereals, pulses and vegetables

traditionally grown in a given region are generally better adapted to local

climate and soil conditions, and require less purchased chemical inputs.

Actions :

1.Work with the General Assembly of the United Nations to begin

negotiations for a Global Food Security Convention. The intent of the

Global Food Security Convention is to elevate food security to the

highest priority within international policy. Such a Convention would

have four primary purposes:

a.To assist national governments to develop and implement national

food security plans which would include the identification of

staple foods (primarily grains and legumes) essential to domestic

food security. These staple foods would be exempted from

GATT rules and disciplines that would interfere with domestic

food security.

b.To coordinate the creation and management of an international

network of local, national and regional food reserves. The

Convention would also provide for an independent grain auditing

system.

c.To facilitate the development of international commodity

agreements among importing and exporting countries to ensure

access to staples that nations are unable to provide for

themselves.

d.To create mechanisms to aid governments in disputes with other

entities such as the WTO that might arise over food and

agriculture policy.

2.Create a Global Food Security Organization to implement the

Convention. Such an organization could include representatives from

producing and consuming countries including farmers, NGOs, the

private sector, and other members of civil society, as well as

representatives from major food-related agencies such as the FAO.

3.Finance the Global Food Security Organization with a .01 percent tax

on agricultural commodity trade.

National Food Security Plans:

With the aid of the Global Food Security Organization, local and national

governments will develop national food security plans. These could include:

Definition and identification of domestic staple foods essential to food

security.

Annual domestic staple food consumption projections with

accompanying national production goals and commitments. These

projections should also include volumes to be set aside in local and

national reserves.

Implementation of domestic agriculture policies to support staple

production for domestic consumption. These could include price

supports for staple crops and request for exemption from mandatory

import requirements. Countries might also implement import restrictions

to ensure that staple food production not be threatened by export

dumping.

Provisions to allocate a certain percentage of prime agricultural land for

food production to reduce pressure to convert land use to non-edible

export crops such as flowers.

Land tenure systems that would ensure adequate land and water

resources for low-income farmers.

Watershed management planning for long-term sustainability.

Intellectual property laws that would exclude from patenting the plant

varieties, seeds and other genetic materials of domestic staple foods,

thus ensuring farmers' access to essential production inputs and their

continuing capacity to improve plant varieties according to local climate

and soil conditions.

International Network of Local, National and Regional Reserves:

1.The Global Food Security Organization would work with governments,

NGOs, farmers, the private sector, and other members of civil society

to develop plans to have a global network of local, national and regional

reserves in place by the end of the next decade.

2.Food reserves will be built from the local level up. National food

security plans could include plans for farmer- or community-managed

reserves and should set targets for their development out of local

production.

3.Costs for reserves will be shared. The first priority is to convert food aid

funds from exporting countries for use by food deficit countries in the

creation of local and national reserves. These funds would be replaced

by funds earned from the tax on agricultural exports as these become

available.

4.The Global Food Security Organization will develop mechanisms to

ensure that reserves are isolated from the market.

International Commodity Agreements:

Drawing on the experience from international commodity agreements on such

luxury products as sugar and coffee, the Global Food Security Organization

would work with staple food importing and exporting countries to develop

reliable, stable supplies of staple foods for countries that are unable to fill

domestic demand, including for the supply of local and national reserves.

Dispute Settlement:

Disputes involving any of the functions defined by the Convention, including

conflicts with other international conventions and agreements, must be resolved

in the internationally recognized fora of the International Court of Justice. The

Global Food Security Organization would assist governments in challenges

related to local, regional, or national food security planning and policy.

A Future with Food Security

The participants in the World Food Summit who will drift away from Rome at

the end of the month carry with them the possibility to improve global food

security. If they can discover, hidden in the piles of paper in their briefcases, a

sliver of political will and the willingness to risk, the next decade could be one

of extraordinary opportunity and welcome debate. There is no one solution to

universal food security. May we support the diversity of good ideas, wherever

they are found, and continue the search.

Copyright © IATP 1996

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