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With an additional 40 million people becoming chronically hungry in the last year, G8 ministers admit for the first time that the world is far from reaching the Millennium Development Goal of halving world hunger by 2015
Leaders of the world’s richest nations admitted at the close of the G8 meeting on agriculture, in Italy, on April 20, 2009, that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving world hunger by 2015 was probably unattainable. The final communiqué from the G8 agriculture ministers’ meeting says the world is “very far from reaching” the United Nations goal of halving the number of people facing chronic hunger by 2015 -- one of the eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states agreed to achieve by the year 2015. Agriculture ministers from the G5 countries -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa -- joined the G8 agriculture ministers. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an extra 40 million people have become chronically hungry in the last year as a consequence of high food prices, taking the world total close to 1 billion people. Without urgent action, this number will increase rapidly due to the global economic crisis and the consequences of climate change. Global cereal prices are 71% higher than in 2005, and the FAO has warned that a new price hike is likely in 2009. The international aid agency Oxfam says that the poorest people, who spend 50-80% of their income on food, will face hunger and malnutrition. The G8 final declaration called for a study into setting up a global system to stockpile essential foodstuff. It called on the relevant international institutions to examine whether a system of stockholding would be effective in dealing with humanitarian emergencies, or as a means to limit food price volatility. According to Oxfam, a radically new approach is needed to reverse the trend of spiralling hunger. It says one of the reasons for hunger is that poor farmers are not benefiting from higher prices because they lack access to markets. The G8 must support agriculture policies in poor countries that will increase food production and protect people in chronic poverty against shocks like drought, floods, and market volatility. Some of the measures that should be taken, Oxfam says in a press release, are “stopping the dumping of subsidised food in developing countries, removing rich country trade barriers, boosting aid to smallholder food producers, and allowing poorer countries more policy space to ensure adequate food availability in times of crisis”. International efforts against hunger can be drastically improved if rich countries redirect a relatively small proportion of the direct subsidies they give to their farmers in order to boost food production in developing countries. In 2008, rich countries gave $125 billion directly to their farmers, compared to the $5.9 billion they gave to agriculture in poor countries, Oxfam says. “Currently, there is no way of holding governments to account for their failure to prevent people dying from hunger in a world in which we have the means to eradicate it,” says Oxfam’s food policy expert Chris Leather. “The G8 must seriously consider a legally binding international convention that aims to eradicate hunger by 2025 and raises the accountability of all governments, rich or poor.” Source: http://www.oxfam.org, April 2009
http://www.voanews.com, April 2009
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