MADRID (Spain) 26-27 January 2009 Secretary to the Conference Gen.ONU, Ban Ki-moon, - Summit Food Security (Photo Ansa)   In a strongly globalized economy, the cipher of the new paradigm of the development is the interdependency, the multiplier of the relapses of the economic, political and cultural processes. In this first glimpse of the 21st Century, we are witnessing an overturning of the traditional categories of the development, accompanied by an epoch-making upheaval in the geopolitical and geo-economic structures. Beside the more traditional threats, inheritance of the long transition following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the thawing of the opposing ideological blocks, today, one can add dangers of another nature, substantially characterized by the unpredictability, by the pervasiveness and by the difficulty of the deterrence. In essence, while the long fifty-year period of the Cold War was dominated by the paradigm of “reciprocal destruction” (MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction) and by a symmetry of the terror which guaranteed a relative stability of the geo-strategic scenario, today, phenomena such as terrorism of the fundamentalist matrix, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but also the climatic changes and the pandemics constitute threats that are difficult to decode and to contain in a traditional manner.

Among the crises that this opening of the 21st Century presents, that of food is, undoubtedly, the most difficult to fight, but also the most important to solve. A crisis which is different from the others, since it poses essentially, three types of threats:
- it represents a vulnus for the dignity of man and puts in question decades of campaigns and battles for the freeing of the primary needs, for the development, for the promotion of rights;
- it distorts the international macro-economic scenario, inasmuch as it renders the rules of the game superfluous, often excludes them, and favours the assertion of an international anarchic arena, founded on the simple reason of the strongest;
-finally, the food crisis represents a threat to international security, inasmuch as it pushes already fragile socio-political systems towards the edge of collapse, favouring the proliferation of “sham States” and conflicts of an ethnic stamp or for the control of territory. The food security can be considered the litmus test of the capacity of the international system to find a lasting and globally advantageous structure.
The numbers are visible to everyone and the proportions of the crisis are more than evident: the price of food commodities has shot sky high over an exceedingly short period of time. Between 2008 and 2009, in only 52 weeks, the price of cocoa on the markets has risen 513%, and sugar 103%. In one year, the price of wheat has increased 56%, oats 19% and soy 36%.
Generalized price increases that have direct consequences, such as the sale of bread, pasta and other cereals, with an impact on the buying power of families and indirect buyers. For example, the increased prices for the livestock breeding and chicken farming, with the consequent impact on the prices of meat, eggs, milk and derivatives.
Today, we are experiencing a significant turnround, at least, in the virtual value of food products and in the mineral wealth commodities; a contraction of market prices which do not resolve the structural limits of the market, its fragility and, above all, the impact that the food security risks would have on the sovereignty of the Nations and on the development of their peoples.
In the 21st Century, food has returned to be a factor of strategic superiority, just like energy and armaments. The price of the commodities, together with the relative dependence of certain markets cause that – around the question of food – the Governments strengthen their exclusive sovereignty. This is the case in Russia where, for the first time in the history of the USSR, it returns to nationalize the production, the storage and the exportation of the cereals through an ad hoc State company.
In the meantime, Countries which have been able, in the recent past, to accumulate monetary reserves in the so-called Sovereign Investment Funds (SWFs) are rapidly reorienting their activities from soft operations (purchase of corporate shares, financial by-products, stocks and bonds) to hard investments, above all, in plots of land for cultivation in the event of a global food crisis. It is, in fact, the case of China, which is purchasing, through their National Sovereign Fund, vast quantities of land in Africa (with particular regard to Madagascar and the Sudan). Also Russia and some of the Emirates of the Persian Gulf are operating likewise.
In a recent Report prepared by the two UNO Agencies concerned with food and agriculture (IFAD and FAO) (1) , the role of the private and State investors employed in the growing acquisition of agricultural land was underlined. The phenomenon, known as “land grab”, considered by some as a development opportunity, suffers from a serious lack of regulations and risks being transformed, where it is not subjected to an adequate political-administrative governance, into what the Director General of the FAO, Jacques Diouf calls “neo-colonialism” (2) .

The geo-politics of the food crisis

We live in an era of great geo-political upheaval. From the viewpoint of food security, (or in other words, the security of the production and supply of goods essential to sustaining life), we find a substantial convergence with respect to the more ample changes of scenario. The movement of the suburbs to the centre is translated, also in this case, in the demand by the emerging powers – India, China, Brazil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea – for a stronger and larger geo-strategic role. A difficult claim to counteract, since it is based on the force of numbers, the demography and the GDP. Such new poles of power are, first of all, consumer markets, in which one sees the assertion of a middle class with diets and habits in strong evolution. It is calculated that between now until 2020, the populations of these areas of the planet will grow by 40%. And a good part of the new mouths to feed will want to eat meat, milk and bread, rather than rice. On the other side, these Countries still have a scattered agricultural fabric characterized by small farming concerns oriented towards local production.
From an economic point of view, this socio-demographic evolution means the attempt of the Governments to reinforce the internal production, to sustain the economy and, wishfully, to reach the Utopian pipe-dream of food self-sufficiency. Such objective is pursued through the raising of customs duties and non-tariff barriers on the importation, as well as by extensive grants to the national agricultural sector. Today, 82% of the world agriculture benefits from direct or indirect forms of aid to the production, and not only in the emerging Countries: Japan, the United States, Canada, not to speak of the EU, financially support the production, acknowledging exceptions only for those cultivations that are impossible to sustain on the scene although scientific research and technology are making significant contributions also in this area.
The paradox of the centre-suburb upheaval lies in the fact that up to a few years ago the developing Countries called for a total liberalization of the international commerce, to orientate, still more, the production towards export, while the West refused such a prospect, so as not to threaten the means of support for their own agricultural section.
In Geneva, in July, 2008, the negotiations within the WTO (World Organization of Commerce) failed due to equally intransigent positions, but of opposing colour. The implementation of the Geneva agreements would have brought with it an increase of the world wealth equal to 50-70 billion dollars, up to 0.1% of the global GDP.
Too little to be able to speak of “commercial revolution”. In the face of 800 million small cultivators in China alone, the new powers preferred ostracism, in order to protect the national economies, already strong by a conspicuous series of agreements of regional integration or of bilateral exchange. In fact, China, India, Brazil, Russia are adopting the policies already pursued by the United States and the EU, which through only a regional integration, for decades they guaranteed commercial advantages characterized by self-sufficiency and exclusivity, at times, akin to protectionism. It is sufficient to think of China, which recently increased the customs duties, by 160%, on grain and agricultural fertilizers, with the aim of impeding the massive outflow of foodstuffs abroad and the subsequent necessary policy of grants to half a billion small farmers of the Country.
The third element of impact on the food security is tied to the climatic changes in course or, at least, to the growing meteorological unpredictability, which renders the harvest planning and the quotas of exportation very weak. We remember that only last year, Australia had to renounce 50% of the national agricultural production due to persistent drought. The climatic changes are not merely a threat to the food security, given that their validity does not yet have a scientific basis. But indisputably, they will produce a movement of the geo-economic balances in the map of the production and of food consumption. The melting of the ice around the polar ice caps; the recurrent drought in the MENA Countries (Middle East – North Africa) and, in general, in the Mediterranean basin; the progressive biological withdrawal of the rain and equatorial zones in South America, will alter, in the next twenty years, the geography of the production and world agricultural variety. The more prosperous Countries will benefit, those which can dispose of vaster cultivatable areas, like the petrol-economies of the Persian Gulf, able to invest capital in the most advanced technology for the agricultural production, making even “the desert come into flower”.
The fourth critical situation tied to the food crisis involves the price per barrel of petroleum and, more generally, the great global energy challenges. The fluctuations of crude oil prices create a double vulnus to the world agricultural market. The first concerns the exponential increase in transport costs and of the logistics for the exchange of the foodstuffs, just as the increase of the sale price of fertilizers, in good part derived from petroleum and other crude oils. In 1999, a ton of fertilizer was sold on the market for around $100; today, the price has risen to $320 per ton. In the same context, the increase of the costs of freight and shipping was equal to ten times as much.
The second vulnus is created by the ascertainment that the importer Countries of foodstuffs are also, for the best part, importers of petroleum. Those Governments will pay, therefore, the double cost of an energy bill, higher than ever before.
The last – but still controversial – point of impact on the food security is tied to the development of the market of the bio-fuels (bio-ethanol, bio-diesel, rapeseed oil, palm oil and other fuels). It concerns an emerging sector, which sees, as yet, only a few, but nevertheless, seasoned protagonists; to start with, Brazil, Malaysia and the United States. A sector strongly subsidized by the Governments, which intend, in this way, to structure an emerging market with great potentialities, starting, at the same, the conversion of traditional agricultural sectors in crisis. The prospect of a clean fuel which can substitute fossil carbon has, without doubt, great appeal. But together with the unproven use of bio-fuels, the factor of substitution of the cultivations for purposes different from food supply is still not very clear. Fragile Countries of weak economies are attempting the impractical and hazardous path of the cultivation of commodities for bio-fuels, an investment greatly stimulated by the action of the Investment Sovereign Funds, which acquire cultivatable lands to lower the threshold of the food vulnerability.


Food security and the
protection of public health

The complexity and the growing inter-connection of the global economic scenario also makes the subject of food security, tied to the protection of the consumers and public health, particularly urgent.
This important aspect is defined by the English as “food safety”. A subject which made headlines at the end of the 90’s, when the already globalized world has to face the scandals of the so-called “mad cow” and the “dioxin chicken” – last examples of a long line of threats to consumer health.
The productive processes of the zoo-technical and food processing chain have become extremely complex and the new regulations of global commerce, discussed in the WTO ambit (World Organization of Commerce) render the traceability of the products and the reconstruction of the chain particularly difficult and, consequently, the issuing of absolute quality certification. Furthermore, the crimes connected to food adulteration have considerably increased in the last decade, while the global commercial network makes the contagion of viral and bacteriological organisms of animal or vegetable parasitical infections immediately transmittable. Up to the present, the deadlock in the negotiations on the most important points of the so-called “Doha Round”, intended to standardize the regulations and establish transparency of commerce, provokes a heavy vulnus to the capacity of the Governments to handle the implications of the challenge represented by the food security.
The policies of the protection of public health – a principle guaranteed in all the international charters on rights, as well as by the principal constitutional laws – clash with a fragmentation of the jurisdictions and with slack coordination undertaken up to now. A food safety policy should provide for effective mechanisms of early warning with respect to the risk, rapid reaction and, finally, crystal clear communication to the citizen consumer.
In this sense, one can consider as a mechanism of excellence the policy set up by the EU in matters of food security, tied to health protection and food quality control. In the same way, the Food and Drug Administration in the United States has recently strengthened its powers of control and verification on food quality and has widened the perimeter of prevention action against the adulteration of foodstuffs and medicines.
With the publication of the White Book on food security (3) , the European Commission wished to define the guidelines of an effective policy of protection of food security and the health of the citizens, as well as full transparency in the communication. The White Book underlines certain reinforcement strategies of coordination of the governmental policies and, for the first, proposes the institution of a European Agency for the Food Security, a scientific advisory body with tasks of monitoring emergencies, analysis and technical research and, coordination of responses in the cases of crisis.
The document has made evident the priorities of the European Union in matters of food security, as follows:1 ) guarantee a high level of health protection;
2) favour the correct functioning of the market of food products;
3) stimulate clear definitions to facilitate the agreement about the definition of “food”;
4)reinforce the quality and the independent scientific control;
5)guarantee the traceability of the food products;
6) implement the policies of guarantee of the rights of the consumers;
7) full compliance with the international agreements on commerce;
8) guarantee free access to food information and legislation, above on the part of the citizen
The White Book has marked a turning point in the coordination of the policies tied to food security, opening the way to innovative forms of cooperation between government, also from the viewpoint of fraud and adulteration, through intelligence actions and coordination of the investigative strategies.
But, above all the White Book of the Commission has definitively opened the way to the creation of a European Agency in matters of food security (EFSA – European Food Safety Agency), constituted in 2002, the operative headquarters of which has subsequently been established at Parma.The Authority represents an independent and above-national advisory and communication body on the risks associated with the food chain; it produces scientific opinions and specialized advice to furnish a solid foundation for the legislative process and definition of the food and health policies in Europe.
The objective declared by the EFSA (4) is that of being recognized, at international level, as the European Body of reference in matters of risk evaluation for the food security and animal feed, well being and health of the animals, nutrition, protection and health of plants. A particularly sensitive item on the work agenda of the EFSA is represented by the research on biologically and genetically modified organisms.
The implications at the bottom of such an opportune choice of reinforcing the intra-European cooperation in such a delicate area are not lost: the food and drink industry is one of the principal productive sectors of the EU, with an annual turnover equal to almost 600 billion Euro (15% of the overall manufactured output). The sector employs 2.6 million people and the exportation of agricultural products amounts to 50billion Euro each year. Besides the effects in employment and productive terms, there are at least two other strategic implications: the first, completely consistent, involves the protection of the public health and the right of the consumer to clear nutritional and commercial information; the second is strictly tied to the plan of action for the future of the EU, for the most concentrated in the document known as ”The Lisbon Agenda”. It has as its objective that of rendering to the EU the most dynamic and important space in terms of scientific research and innovative technology. In this sense, the research on the OGM and the laboratory activity on the zoo prophylactics; on the new agricultural techniques; and on the biological experimentation, represents an indubitable and prolific frontier exploration.


The challenges and possible responses:
some recommendations

If the international Community does not intervene with new instruments with respect to the past, we run the risk of having to face one of the most serious Malthusian crises in history. The present demographic trends and the rate of climatic changes are leading us towards an epochal caesura for our economies.
As is known, the United Nations Organization has fixed the MDG (Millennium Development Goals), one of which stands out for its importance and is the reduction by 50% of the number of persons forced to live below the poverty line and, however, are in a condition of serious starvation.
This goal seemed to be just around the corner until a short time ago, but the present financial and economic crisis is strongly re-dimensioning the optimism. The contraction of the help to the development, the raising of tariff barriers and the decrease in consumption is newly impeding the global commercial flows. But, above all, these factors are leasing governments to deny the previous declarations of political and financial commitment, with the direct consequence of a progressive separation between geographic areas of the planet.
The main challenge for the politics lies in finding the point of balance in the trade-off between economic development, protection of the environment ad food security. The recent summit of the Minister of Agriculture of the G8 (5) have re-asserting the centrality of an economy based on agricultural production for the developing Countries, fixing new goals for the fight against the areas of world starvation, which go from the prevention of fraud to the control on the financial speculations on the commodities. The final document re-affirms, similarly, the centrality of the small farms as protagonists of the development and confirms the principle of full respect of agriculture to the principle of food health and safety.
It is possible to formulate certain recommendations on certain points for the strengthening of a global governance tied to food security:
favour a solid commitment that is realistic and practical to combat the climatic changes. A model that makes the feasible incorporation, in the chain of values, of technologies for the production of alternative energy and allows the reaching of a happy medium between legitimate ambitions of development and protection of the environment;
promote – promote a food educational policy able to favour, in the emerging economies, gradual changes in diets and consumption habits, like the West, to contain food habits with a strong impact on the environment;
favour investments in technology to maximize the prospects of
agricultural production, guarantee the saving of water, combat wastes and prevent pollution of water bearing strata. If possible, incentivize the FAO mission towards this strategic objective;
review the system of grants and commercial barriers, so as to overcome the short-term myopic view which sees, in the support of an economic sector, a danger for the livelihood of millions of people;
extend the capacity of cultivation to the land that remains uncultivated due to lack of short-term economic objectives. For example, in Cameroon, 40% of the land is uncultivated, notwithstanding good basic conditions and an extremely high rate of unemployment;
promote the use of new technologies in agriculture, to save water and to rationalize the coefficient “drop per product”;
favour the trans-frontier technical cooperation to avoid that further wars break out for the control of water courses.
The bio-fuels and the genetically modified organisms (GMO), merit a separate reference in this strategy for the future.As far as the bio-fuels are concerned, the vision and the consequent strategy are still too fragmented. Certain government seem to finance the sector for scopes of strategic supremacy or geopolitical convergence: this is the case of the special relations between the USA and Brazil; others see, in bio-fuels, only a channel of conversion of an agricultural economy in structural crisis, even without possessing sure evaluations on markets prospects. Others, instead, put an investment in bio-energy as a measure of destroying the CO2 emissions and counteract the global pollution.
But only if the path of the bio-fuels is undertaken with conviction by the Governments, and only if, with common agreement, the cultivations for the production of energy become a structural element of a larger food and energy strategy, will it be possible to evaluate and govern the implications. In this way, many economies in the developing Countries could be oriented towards or converted to the cultivation of crops for bio-fuels, leaving to the more advanced economies the tasks of refining, distributing and technological innovation. Otherwise, this huge mess of initiatives will serve to create false expectations and further distortion of the rules of the market, prudence, in these cases, does not pay. This same prudence, instead, Europe wanted to adopt, by fixing the production objective at 10% of the energy needs from bio-fuels by 2015. A useless threshold because it does not decide a massive investment in this resource, neither does it exclude it completely, pushing some operators to neglect the traditional cultivations, still amply subsidized.
With reference to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), the polemics, in the first place, concern the ethical aspects of the inclusion of such organisms in the food chain. As of today, there are 200 GMO cultivations in the world – experimental, to a large extent. The FAO has not excluded the use of the technologies to face the present food crisis, with the warning of a stringent international code of conduct and scientific research which does not go beyond the limits of shared ethics. An open debate which would be hypocritical not to face, or to marginalize in the name of a useless prejudicial ideology, which does not serve to feed more mouths or save more lives.