Alimentação e liberalização do comércio

Na actual crise alimentar uma das questões mais debatidas tem sido o do papel da liberalização do comércio mundial de alimentos quer na agudização quer na solução do problema do aumento dos preços da alimentação para os mais pobres (ver aqui, por exemplo - mais sob a etiqueta de primário).

O problema da liberalização não pode ser dissociado do problema da subsidiação - a subsidiação da produção agrícola nos países desenvolvidos articulada com a liberalização desse tipo de comércio leva a que a agricultura dos países em vias de desenvolvimento seja penalizada em termos concorrenciais, com todas as consequências negativas para o desenvolvimento esperadas (existem exemplos de casos onde soçobrou de todo - e.g., Haiti - ou, ainda, lhe foram retirados subsídios que o tempo veio a demonstrar serem absolutamente essenciais - Malawi). Por outro lado, a auto-suficiência alimentar não é uma solução realista e é mesmo perigosa.

As duas referências que se apresentam aqui abordam a questão de perspectivas diferentes. A segunda irá ser referida ainda noutra nota.

• Economics focus The Doha dilemma Economist.com. A conclusão do artigo:

  
  

  "First, the bank [Banco Mundial], and others, should beware sweeping generalisations about the impact of food prices on the poor. Second, the nature of trade reform matters. Removing rich-country subsidies on staple goods, the focus of much debate in the Doha round, may be less useful in the fight against poverty than cutting tariffs would be. The food-price crisis has not hurt the case for freer farm trade. But it has shown how important it is to get it right."

  
  


• The salvation of high prices Comment is free

  
  

  "The third headline that has not made an appearance in recent weeks is "High food prices help world's poorest farmers". High global food prices have been attacked as hurting the poor most, signalling a crisis in food supplies. Rising demand in China and India are mentioned as causes, but as many have pointed out, this is no recent, or sudden, phenomenon. Some bad harvests and the idiotic US subsidies for biofuels have played a part, but recent price hikes may have as much to do with speculators moving into commodities from property. As farmers bring in what looks almost certain to be the world's record largest wheat harvest this summer, the food commodity bubble may burst as spectacularly as the house price bubble already has.

  Sudden increases in price do hit the poorest most. However, in the medium term, we do need to pay more for food.

  Global food prices have been artificially depressed for decades, by staggeringly large taxpayers' subsidies paid to US and EU farmers. In the US, public subsidies to farmers have cost $1.7 trillion over the last 20 years, according to the OECD. The latest farm bill, just approved by Congress, will provide subsidies of nearly £30bn a year, adding an extra £2bn a year to existing subsidies. These figures only tell part of the story, as regular "disaster relief" for US farmers provides a further £10bn a year. In the EU, subsidies currently cost European taxpayers £43bn a year. A few other developed countries, Japan for example, also subsidise their farmers.

  Not all the £80bn a year plus payments in the US and EU affect food prices, but over decades their overall impact has been to depress global food prices, and to make it harder for farmers in countries with no subsidies, especially the poorest farmers in developing countries, to grow food. So farmers in developing countries are forced to grow commodity crops not readily available in the EU or US for export, or are forced to stop farming altogether.

  Reliance on cheap imports of food dumped by western countries, and on uncertain commodity export markets, crucially diminishes a country's self-sufficiency and resilience in the face of real or perceived global food shortages and global price rises. Yet this is the agricultural policy enthusiastically peddled by our own government for developing countries, and indeed for the UK itself.

  The UK government's current idea of self-sufficiency and food security is an ability to buy food as cheaply as possible on the world market. This Thatcherite vision of global free trade at any cost has remained undimmed by 10 years of New Labour. The Conservative's quality of life commission took a different view, and it seems that another positive consequence of the oil price rises may be, at last, a change in government thinking too. As the Guardian reported last week, the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit may be winning an internal battle within Whitehall to force a change in policy.

  The strategy unit have already noted, "That existing patterns of food production are not fit for a low-carbon, more resource-constrained future". We need more seasonal, local, low-carbon food production; with all countries growing what food they can for their own citizens, and only then turning to exports or imports.

  The speed with which environmental realities disappear from the political and media debate in response to rising oil prices displays a staggering lack of understanding of environmental science, or a degree of short-sightedness extraordinary even for politicians. But I think it also misreads the public mood - as the Cabinet Office report also noted "Supporting citizens' aspirations for better food could help deliver much-needed, long-term changes". What we need are politicians and commentators who have the courage to say what changes we need to make to live well in a "resource-constrained" and "low-carbon" future, and who have the courage to lead that process. The alternative is to leave us flailing around as the environmental realities deliver one blow after another, forcing change on us, and inevitably damaging the poor most in the process."