Skyrocketing prices continue to threaten the right to food, UN expert says by Olivier De Schutter UN Special Rapporteur on the right to Food 2:02am 10th Sep, 2008   17 September 2008    UN agency calls for rise in farm production to combat global food crisis.    Agricultural production must be raised to end the global food crisis, which has driven more than 75 million additional people into hunger and poverty, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told the Italian Parliament today.    Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Rome-based UN agency, warned a joint parliamentary committee hearing that prices are likely to remain high for several years, even though bumper cereal harvests are expected this year.    “We are facing a challenge of enormous proportions,” Mr. Diouf said. “We must mobilize $30 billion a year in order to double food production so as to feed a world population of nine billion in 2050.”    The Director-General noted that the proposed spending figure is modest when compared with the amount already given in agricultural subsidies by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – estimated at $376 billion in 2006.    He urged the international community to unite and ensure that the ranks of the malnourished – over 1 billion people even before the current crisis began – receive immediate support.    10 September 2008    The global food crisis caused by soaring prices is jeopardizing the right to food, and any potential solution to the problem must be viewed through the lens of human rights, an independent United Nations expert said today.    Presenting his latest report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Olivier De Schutter, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, said that international assistance and cooperation are key to achieving that right under international human rights law.    Speculation in the futures market of primary agricultural commodities is one of the factors responsible for driving up the cost of food, he said.    The expert pointed out the role of agrofuel production in food price volatility. But discussions of whether production of the fuels should be halted or promoted in the best interests of farmers should be guided by the consideration of human rights, he added.    Mr. De Schutter stressed that the Council must ensure that acting in the interests of tackling climate change does not impede food protection and protecting human rights.    To date, with the exception of Brazil, production of biofuels has not proven to be a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, given the use of fertile land, water and energy necessary. Mr. De Schutter called on the 47-member Council to quickly adopt global agreements and guidelines to scrutinize agrofuel production.    Although the surge in food prices caught people around the world off guard, the poor are hungry because they cannot afford to eat, not because of a lack of food, he said.    In a related development, three UN agencies are scheduled to brief a special meeting of the Development Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels today on the current food crisis.    Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Kanayo F. Nwanze, Vice-President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), told participants how they are jointly responding to surging food prices.    The WFP has already announced a small package of more than $200 million to help ease hunger in 16 hotspots.    “With poor farmers unable to feed their own families, we are in the danger zone,” Ms. Sheeran said, calling for “extraordinary action” to address the threat of unrest due to lower food stocks.    FAO is helping boost food production in 78 countries, providing seeds, fertilizer, animal feed and other farming tools, in addition to the nearly $1 billion it spends on field activities.    IFAD, meanwhile, has provided some $200 million in loans and grants to help farmers in the developing world, and continues to call for longer-term investment to allow the almost half a billion planters in these nations to increase their incomes and resilience against price fluctuations.    * The Universal Rights Network remains very concerned over the ongoing impact of rising food and fuel prices for the 3 Billion people who currently live on less than $2 a day. Their silent suffering is not garnering significant international attention and the funding and policy responses from relevant actors has been inadequate to date.    Rome, June 2008 (FAO)    Noting that the time for talk was over and that action was urgently needed, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf appealed to world leaders for US$30 billion a year to re-launch agriculture and avert future threats of conflicts over food.    In an impassioned speech at the opening of the Rome Food Summit called to defuse the current world food crisis, Dr Diouf noted that in 2006 the world spent US$1,200 billion on arms while food wasted in a single country could cost US$100 billion and excess consumption by the world’s obese amounted to US$20 billion.    “Against that backdrop, how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find US$30 billion a year to enable hundreds of millions of hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the right to life?” Dr Diouf asked.    “It is resources of this order of magnitude that would make it possible definitely to lay to rest the specter of conflicts over food that are looming on the horizon,” he added.    Increased production in poor countries    “The structural solution to the problem of food security in the world lies in increasing production and productivity in the low-income, food-deficit countries,” he declared.    This called for “innovative and imaginative solutions”, including “partnership agreements ... between countries that have financial resources, management capabilities and technologies and countries that have land, water and human resources”.    The current world food crisis had already had "tragic political and social consequences in different countries” and could further “endanger world peace and security”, Dr Diouf said. 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