Food for Hungry Must Mean Security for Farmers

June 14, 2002

Leaders of the National Farmers Union who attended the World Food Summit in Rome say food security for the world's hungry depends on the security of the family farmers who produce the food. NFU President Dave Frederickson lamented the fact that 800 million people worldwide are malnourished while many nations have a surplus of commodities that depress farm prices.

"We have the production," Frederickson said, "yet people continue to starve. Governments around the world must get serious about the commitments they made at the World Food Summit in 1996." He was referring to a goal developed at the 1996 meetings to reduce the world's hungry by half by 2015.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which hosted the 1996 and 2002 summits, wants the number of hungry people reduced by 20 million per year to reach the 2015 target. In the five years since the summit, the annual decline in world hunger has been less than half the target.

"Low commodity prices are not contributing to food security," said Frederickson. "Policies by a number of governments around the world have pushed the idea that if we lower our prices enough, demand will increase. On the contrary, the low-price mentality has led to a concentration of wealth, power, land for the industries downstream from the farmer such as processing, retailing and transportation."

Disappointment surrounded the meetings since only two heads of states from industrialized nations attended, said Frederickson. The Farmers Union leader said it was also disappointing that farmers were not better represented. Frederickson said farmers should be at the table whenever food and hunger is discussed.

"One attendee from the African region suggested holding a farmers' summit that would allow the need for economic security for farmers to be discussed. We'd support such an initiative," Frederickson said.

Frederickson suggested the nations that have had assistance developing their economies, such as Japan and European countries following World War II, have not only solved their hunger problems but also have become valuable trading partners to other industrialized nations. "That development always begins with a stable agricultural production system," he said.