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By Angela Balakrishnan
A UN body today called on world leaders to urgently reform farming rules to boost the state of global agriculture and prevent a food crisis that could threaten international security and the fight against poverty.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) said in a report that failing to take action would put future generations in jeopardy.
Calls for immediate action have gathered momentum after riots in Haiti, Pakistan, Egypt and the Philippines as families struggle to feed themselves. Food prices have rocketed in recent months as climate change, China's increasing consumption and the growth in biofuels intensify demand for limited supplies.
Wheat prices have risen by 130% since March last year, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), while soy prices have jumped 87%. The World Bank said last week that global food prices had climbed by 83% over the last three years.
The study, which was backed by the World Bank and World Health Organisation, examined measures that could reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods and work towards achieving the UN's millennium development goals.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, which contributed to he report, said food represented 60% to 80% of consumer spending in developing countries, compared with about 10-20% in industrialised nations. It said investment in agricultural science had decreased and more sustainable, environmentally sound and equitable ways to produce food were needed.
The report calls for a more holistic view of agriculture and urges governments, NGOs and the private sector to work together to ensure the needs of the future are better served.
Professor Robert Watson, the director of the IAASTD secretariat and the chief scientist at Defra, said: "Business as usual would mean more environmental degradation and the earth's haves and have-nots splitting further apart. It would leave us facing a world nobody would want to inhabit.
"Although considered by many to be a success story, the benefits of productivity increases in world agriculture are unevenly spread. Often the poorest of the poor have gained little or nothing, and 850 million people are still hungry or malnourished, with an additional 4 million more joining their ranks annually."
Professor Judi Wakhungu, a co-chair of the IAASTD, said "We must cooperate now, because no single institution, no single nation, no single region, can tackle this issue alone. The time is now."
More than 60 governments, including those of Brazil, China, France and India, approved the report. The US, Australia and Canada are due to submit some of their reservations later this week, while Britain has not yet officially responded.
The IAASTD said many members of the 30-strong Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development were deeply opposed to changes in trade regimes and subsidy systems. But it said the US and Europe needed to make adjustments and learn to do more with less.
Campaign groups such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Consumers International, who have participated in the IAASTD process, called the IAASTD study a "sobering account" of the failure of industrial farming.
Michel Barnier, the French agricultural minister, told French radio that Europe should put a brake on agriculture reforms in the face of rises in world food prices. Instead, he said, Brussels should go back to propping up EU farmers with financial aid to help them compete on world markets - a system that in the past has resulted in costly surpluses for years as food supply soared regardless of demand.
The Conservative MEP Neil Parish, the chairman of the European parliament's agriculture committee, said food security was vital for Europe but within a "market-orientated" way.
"Europe needs to produce her fair share of food. There is a morality in food production now. Europe won't starve if high prices remain but other parts of the world may do. Europe can only address this through a market-led agricultural policy."
While today's report addresses long-term goals such as lowering trade barriers, increasing investment in the farming sector and trying to boost yields, policymakers are also calling for emergency food aid to help calm the unrest seen recently in parts of the world.
At the weekend, Jacques Edouard Alexis was sacked as prime minister of Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, over allegations that he failed to rein in soaring costs.
Last week, the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, called on rich countries to give $500m to the UN world food programme by May 1.
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