Commission on Sustainable Development

Sixteenth Session

4^th & 5^th Meetings (AM & PM)

PANELS IN COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT DISCUSS REGIONAL CHALLENGES

TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT, MEASURES TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY, FOOD SECURITY

Holding parallel meetings on region-specific barriers and constraints to sustained socio-economic growth, as well as the interlinked issues of agriculture and rural development, the Commission on Sustainable Development today discussed a wide range of measures aimed at increasing agricultural production and enhancing food security in an environmentally sound way that helped to sustain rural life, land and natural resources.

The Commission’s sixteenth session, which runs through 16 May, is taking place in the shadow of dramatic price spikes in food staples that have sparked fears of political instability and even riots in some countries.  Opening the session yesterday, Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, underscored that, while it was crucially important to cover immediate food needs, boosting agricultural productivity could provide long-term relief.  A prosperous agriculture sector could support a dynamic rural economy, with growing opportunities for off-farm employment, he said.

In four separate panel discussions today, Government delegates joined development experts and civil society representatives to highlight the links between agriculture and reducing rural poverty.  They also spotlighted regional specificities and challenges, respectively in Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe.  Though the regions were vastly different in socio-economic circumstances, maintaining food security in each required global and domestic policies that supported farmers and were conducive to the cost–effective and sustainable development of agriculture.

Many speakers throughout the day noted that, when agricultural development was complemented by non-farm growth in the rural sector, the impact on reducing rural poverty was more pronounced.  Several speakers also stressed that ensuring equality of opportunity for men and women was a practical necessity for the viability and sustainability of rural and agricultural development.  At the same time, lax investment in both rural development and agricultural productivity in recent decades was cited as a major concern.  Such neglect had had an impact on rural and poor communities where food insecurity was strongest.  While the main thrust of rural development efforts still targeted the agriculture sector, evidence suggested that reducing rural poverty through agricultural development alone would be difficult.  Other concerns, such as the impact of climate change and the struggle of poor countries to maximize the productivity and sustainability of their natural resources, must also be taken into consideration.

During an interactive discussion that followed a panel on rural development, participants stressed that the fight against poverty, particularly the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, would be won or lost in rural areas.  Despite the shift in global populations from rural to urban areas, poverty remained concentrated in rural communities.  Even so, efforts to reduce rural poverty must go beyond improving agricultural productivity to accelerating and diversifying rural economic growth, including through tourism and small-scale mining.  Other speakers called for investment in rural infrastructure and training for women farmers.

One expert said rural development had always been the motor of developing economies, but it did not run as well as it could.  Farming was still a male-dominated sector, because women were seen as poor -- despite figures showing that women-headed households were typically richer than those headed by men.  Rural women also faced the constraints of insufficient energy and resources to grow their crops.  Yet, women were able to develop capacities to adapt to those challenges -– meaning their strategies and voices should be included in all poverty elimination programmes.

Another speaker said a lesson that should be learned and applied was the ineffectiveness of top-down policies.  Indeed, the much vaunted Millennium Goals were the standard for all major donors and countries around the world, yet even they had been created in a top-down manner, ignoring civil society or those who were supposed to benefit most from their attainment, including women, indigenous peoples, rural youth and others.  As things stood, civil society was “present”, but not allowed to participate in policymaking.  Available money was, therefore, being funnelled to support wars, while the poor were offered only microcredit, which was good for “keeping small people small”.

In a related interactive discussion on agriculture and rural development, one expert spotlighted an issue that was on the minds of many in the audience -- trade had always been an important factor in agricultural production, and since most of the world’s poor lived off agriculture, their prosperity was hampered by producers who benefited from trade-distorting subsidies and restriction.

With that in mind, he underlined that, while agricultural support and protection levels varied across countries and commodities, the aim of the long-stalled Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations was to prioritize the needs of developing countries.  Because agriculture was at the heart of developing economies, it was necessarily at the heart of the Doha Round.  The goal was to increase rural development and food security in developing countries while preserving a level of sustainability.  Tariffs should be cut while protections for special developing-world products were maintained.

Picking up that thread, another speaker said the current food price crisis was an outgrowth of long-standing fissures that reflected the differences between developed and developing countries, as well as inequities introduced by the 1994 Uruguay Trade Round Agreement on Agriculture.  To rectify current trade imbalances and thwart a developing global food cartel, there was an urgent need to accelerate the elimination of export subsidies and reduction of domestic subsidies in rich countries, cut agricultural tariffs and decrease tariff escalation.

“We farmers are the poorest, and in the developing world, we really need assistance,” said a representative of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers as the Commission wrapped up its work by holding an interactive dialogue with the major civil society groups.  Farmers were certainly part of the solution to the food and commodity price crises the world was now facing.  “We need a long-term plan based on a new farmer-centred agricultural model,” she said.

The Commission on Sustainable development will reconvene at 10 a.m., Wednesday, 7 May, to continue its panel discussion on agriculture and rural development, and in a parallel session hold a thematic discussion on drought.

Panel Discussion on Regional Experiences

In one of two parallel panel discussions this morning, the Commission on Sustainable Development considered the regional dimensions of the work of its sixteenth session, focusing on the Asia-Pacific and the Latin America and Caribbean regions.  The discussion featured presentations of the outcomes of relevant regional implementation meetings and interactive dialogue focusing, in particular, on region-specific barriers and constraints, as well as lessons learned and best practices, based on regional experiences, and next steps.

Commission Vice-Chairperson TRI THARYAT ( Indonesia) led the Asia-Pacific discussion, presenting the outcome of the regional implementation meeting.  Other participants included Sanjay Kumar, Deputy Inspector General in the Ministry of Environment and Forests of India; Meena Bigli, Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management; and Elenita C. Dano, Associate, Third World Network.

Opening the discussion, which focused chiefly on the outcomes of the regional implementation meeting, Mr. KUMAR said that, despite recent economic improvements across the wider region, many countries in Asia and the Pacific faced significant sustainable development challenges.  Agriculture, one of the main drivers of the region’s growth, was suffering from underinvestment and lack of crop diversity.  There was also a need to develop early-warning systems, with particular regard to drought and other weather anomalies.  Countries in the region also struggled to replenish and redevelop crop lands.

Ms. BIGLI said initiatives that empowered communities had proven successful and would be increasingly important in addressing the needs of small farmers, who were seen as increasingly vulnerable to national disasters and volatile market price swings.  Other key intervention points included education, especially for women and girls, supporting land tenure and identifying ways to reduce farmers’ dependence on fossil fuels by diversifying energy sources.  The regional implementation meeting had also noted a need to boost investment in technology, research and development, and skills training in order to bridge the gap between current knowledge and that required to face future challenges.

Sharing her experiences, Ms. DANO highlighted a few cross-cutting issues, including the crucial need to invest in and improve infrastructure, adding that some investments should also be targeted towards support services for small farmers.  Land and water were becoming more valuable by the day, so national policymakers must begin to look at their agricultural development strategies and plans from the “ecosystem” perspective.

When the floor was opened for discussion, representatives of Governments and civil society groups highlighted several signs of trouble looming over the Asia-Pacific region.  First, food reserves were at their lowest ever, causing serious food security concerns even as the prices of rice and other basic necessities continued to skyrocket.  Second, as home to some of the world’s richest and poorest countries, the region would also be the launching pad for explosive industrialized growth and consumption in at least two huge countries in the coming decade.

One speaker added that all that was exacerbated by the fact that the region, which ironically was home to both the biggest exporters and importers of rice, invested poorly in its agricultural sector.  The challenges were manifold, therefore, as Governments were forced into a rush to find ways for the region to produce enough food to keep its poorest populations from sliding further into starvation and hunger, while meeting the food and resource needs of its emerging economies in an environmentally sustainable way.  Some speakers suggested that food security could be maintained only if international and domestic policies, institutional frameworks and public expenditure patterns were conducive to the cost–effective and sustainable development of agriculture.

Commission Vice-Chairperson Melanie Santizo-Sandoval (Guatemala) led the discussion on sustainable development in the Latin America and Caribbean region, in which the other participants were Ana Bianchi, Counsellor, Department of the Environment and Multilateral Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Argentina; Marianne Schaper, Principal Officer, Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); and Sergio Zelaya, Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Focal Point for Latin America and Caribbean.  Ms. Schaper read out a statement from Teresita Borges Hernandez of Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, who was unable to attend today’s events.

Ms. BIANCHI said the Latin America and Caribbean regional implementation meeting had called for an integrated approach to sustainable development that would include measures to boost and diversify agricultural production and animal resources, while protecting fragile natural resources.  Such a comprehensive approach was particularly necessary in light of the remaining disparities between the situation of indigenous peoples and that of other populations throughout the region.  There was also a gap between rural and urban dwellers and between rural and urban food producers.  The regional implementation meeting had called for, among other things, equitable distribution of natural resources and national policies targeting agricultural sectors.

Ms. SCHAPER cautioned that the region’s growth and productivity was being offset by a few serious challenges, including deepening poverty in some areas, loss of biodiversity and dependence on a few crops and livestock.  In addition, rural poverty remained very high, climate change was having an impact on food security and rural-to-urban migration was continuing apace.  Addressing those and other concerns required concerted efforts to support small and medium farmers and pastoralists, which would go a long way towards not only improving food security, but also lifting rural people out of poverty.

Mr. ZELAYA said that, while the region was noted for its rainforests, some 25 per cent of its territory was considered drylands or was under threat from deforestation and desertification.  Soil degradation, loss of forest cover and erosion due to unsustainable agricultural practices, illegal logging or other practices were responsible for yearly crop and productivity losses running into the hundreds of millions of dollars.  In response, UNCCD had launched a host of regional and subregional action plans aimed at, among other things, protecting biodiversity, assessing land degradation, building partnerships and raising awareness about the sustainability of such ecosystems.

During the ensuing interactive discussion, audience members raised a variety of concerns, including the vulnerability of small island developing States to climate change, and the need to build country-level capacities in sustainable land management.  Integrated agricultural policies were also required, as was equitable and subsidy-free market access for goods from the region.

Some speakers said there was also an urgent need for broader sustainability indicators that would bring economic, social and environmental concerns into the policymaking process.  Others called for a focus on migration and its impact on regional growth and development.  One speaker said that a key condition for measuring progress towards sustainability was to ensure that all populations had access to relevant data.  That required devising indicators for analysing information and disseminating it to various groups.

Panel Discussion on Rural Development

Commission Vice-Chairperson Sasa Ojdanic (Serbia) led the panel on rural development, which featured panellists Olivier Belle of Belgium; M. Taghi Farvar of the International Union for the Conversation of Nature/Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy; Yacine Diagne, ENDA Tiers Monde (Environmental Development Action in the Third World); Naresh Singh, Executive Director, Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor; and Jeannette Gurung, Director, Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (WOCAN) and President of the Adelbon Group.

ASLAM CHAUDHRY, Chief of the Water, Natural Resources and SIDS (Small Island Developing States) Branch of the Division for Sustainable Development, introduced the report of the Secretary-General on rural development (document E/CN.17/2008/4), noting that agriculture remained the main pillar of poverty reduction in rural areas.  When agricultural development was complemented by non-farm growth in the rural sector, the impact on reducing rural poverty was more pronounced.  Yet, the report also stressed that a large number of rural people in many developing countries still lacked access to basic social services like health, education, water, sanitation and modern energy sources.  Limited access to infrastructure also severely restricted the goods and services available to the rural poor, such as electricity, telephones, transport, towns and markets.

The report further stated that investment in rural development had not been a priority in recent decades, he said.  That neglect had had an impact on rural and poor communities where food insecurity was strongest.  While the main thrust of rural development efforts remained focused on the agricultural sector, evidence suggested that reducing rural poverty through agricultural development alone would be difficult.  Other challenges included addressing the effects of climate change on the lives of the rural poor, particularly heightened food insecurity; creating investment schemes that would invest in both agriculture and social services; and securing a balance between maximizing the productivity of natural resources and their sustainability.

Leading the interactive discussion, Mr. BELLE noted the existence of a strong intergovernmental mandate to address the situation of rural women, which was due to outcome documents from such events as the Beijing Conference and the Millennium Declaration.  Those documents demanded equal access to resources, equal participation in decision-making and good access to education and health services.  The contribution of women in rural areas and the need to incorporate their voices into the development of all poverty eradication strategies had also been highlighted in meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women and the General Assembly.

But, despite the recognition of their important role around the world generally and in rural situations specifically, women still faced many challenges, he said.  Rural women still bore a disproportionate burden of poverty, often having only limited access to potable water, microcredit and sufficient property rights, in addition to being subjected to inadequate food supplies and health and education services.  If women were often at the core of the inequalities, they were often forgotten as agents of change.  In fact, the ability of women to use their experiences to make more effective policy decisions should not be overlooked.  Their views should be considered in all development policymaking decisions, including those concerning climate change.

In an address aimed at identifying the many obstacles facing rural development, Mr. FARVAR said he had been struck by one part of the theme for the discussion, which was focused on “reducing” rural poverty.  Just a few decades ago, discussions had focused on its “eradication”, but today’s talk was about mere “reduction”.  Such timidity echoed the pattern of past efforts to eliminate hunger, in which Heads of State who had tried and failed to wipe out malnourishment had simply revised their goal downwards; seeking to do half the work they had previously hoped to do in twice the time.  While Heads of State had the ability to mobilize a great deal of resources, it seemed current efforts did not reflect much sense of hope.

One lesson that should be learned and applied was the ineffectiveness of top-down policies, he stressed.  Indeed, the Millennium Development Goals were the standard for all major donors and countries around the world, yet even they had been created in a top-down manner without consulting civil society or those who the Goals targeted, including women, indigenous peoples, rural youth and others.  Most of the countries represented in the room faced a food crisis, but most intellectuals, academics and Government officials were giving the wrong advice.  Science, too, was very often wrong.  Civil society was not allowed to participate in policymaking, available money was going into war and the poor were being offered only microcredit, which was good for “keeping small people small”.

Why, even when money was available, were problems not addressed at their roots? he asked, suggesting that the “project mentality” so often used in the United Nations system and other intergovernmental programmes simply did not work, even when projects were intended to help the poor.  Perhaps those participating in the discussion could study the book The Bridge at the End of the World by James Gustave (Gus) Speth.

Ms. DIAGNE said rural development had always been the motor of developing economies, but it did not run as well as it could.  Farming was still a male-dominated sector, because women were seen as poor -- despite figures showing that women-headed households were typically richer than those headed by men.  Access to land remained a problem for women, due to customary inheritance systems that were too often enshrined in national constitutions.  Rural women also faced the constraints of insufficient energy and resources to grow their crops.  They also remained vulnerable to the problems of erosion, desertification and climate change.  Yet, women were able to develop capacities to adapt to those challenges -– meaning their strategies and voices should be part of all poverty elimination programmes.

The modernization of agriculture was the main challenge for producers, she said, noting that many farmers lacked access to credit and financing mechanisms.  Women farmers needed access to energy in order to carry out the entire chain of their activities.  They also needed simple instruments to enable them to monitor the climate and rainfall patterns.  In terms of policymaking, women’s organizations should be seen as catalysts.  In communities where women were becoming opinion leaders and had access to the reins of financial institutions, their situation was improving.

Mr. SINGH said that, for the most part, the rural poor had few legal rights, including property rights, and the issue would not be resolved simply by titling property to individual farmers.  Real resolution would require extending the rights of non-farmers, including social security and labour rights, and small business registration.  The rights of women, who currently lacked basic rights, should be a priority.

Turning to solutions, he said those would not be workable if they focused only on rural areas.  An overall system of justice in which the poor had confidence was necessary if poverty eradication were to become an achievable aim.  Laws must be reviewed by questioning whether or not they worked for the poor.  The poor tended to view the legal system as punitive rather than protective or empowering.  For any legal reform to benefit the rural poor, property, business and labour rights should be a key focus.  Those with power rarely gave it to those without.  Instead, power usually had to be seized.

Ms. GURUNG said there was no question that the international system had guided countries to greater gender equality, but something was still lacking.  For the last 25 years, the question of why women farmers did not receive the same rights as their male counterparts had been asked without any real change.  One reason for that was the pervasive view that farmers were men.  That view could be seen everywhere, from formal and informal discussions to the way in which photo captions described women farmers as “assisting” in the work at hand.  In that light, a profound change in thinking was necessary throughout all organizations, institution and in public awareness.  It must be recognized that “a farmer’s face was a female face”.  Female farmers’ needs differed from those of male farmers; women farmers were harder to reach because of their schedules, and efforts to improve their situation must acknowledge the facts of their daily lives.

The conversation would change if women farmers were placed at the centre of rural poverty discussions, she said.  To do that would mean investing in leadership training for women and treating them as environmental managers.  It would require devoting energy to changing institutions, because targeting only grass-roots groups mattered little if those aiming to change the lives of rural women farmers did not look up the chain of policymaking Government bodies and demand they change too.  WOCAN was launching a network of women agriculture ministers, which hopefully would help bring about the sea change needed in addressing the situation of women farmers.

In the interactive discussion that followed, representatives of intergovernmental organizations, Government delegations, civil society and other major groups stressed that the fight against poverty, particularly the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, would be won or lost in rural areas.  Despite the shift in global population from being concentrated in rural areas to urban ones, poverty remained concentrated in rural communities.  Yet, it was stressed that efforts to reduce rural poverty must go beyond improving agricultural productivity to accelerating and diversifying rural economic growth, including through tourism and small-scale mining.

A number of speakers further identified the provision of basic health, education and social services to rural communities as a primary challenge in rural development.  Others called for investment in rural infrastructure and training opportunities for women farmers.  In fact, speakers generally highlighted gender as one of the cross-cutting themes in rural development and suggested that the situation of women’s farmers be recognized as a primary target through which to change the realities of rural communities.

While the important role of technology and modernization was largely recognized, a number of speakers suggested that the time for blanket interventions had passed as “one size does not fit all”.  A widespread inquiry into the facts on the ground in rural communities was required to ensure that future programmes and policies to curb poverty were no longer mismatched with their target communities.

Panel Discussion on Regional Experiences

In one of two parallel panel discussions this afternoon, the Commission considered the regional dimensions of the work of its sixteenth session, focusing on Europe.  That discussion was followed by an interactive dialogue with representatives of the major civil society groups.

Chaired by Commission Vice-Chairperson Daniel Carmon ( Israel), the panel on Europe was opened by VIOLETA IVANOV, Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Moldova, who presented the outcome of the European regional implementation meeting.  Other participants were Colien Hefferan, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), United States Department of Agriculture; Elisabeth Gauffin, Vice-President, International Federation of Agricultural Producers Development Cooperation Committee and Chairperson of the Swedish Farmers’ Federation; Peter Creuzer, Head of the Agency for Geo-information, Land Development and Real Estate of Hannover, Germany; Jiri Hlavacek, Ministry for Environment of the Czech Republic; and Nadine Gouzee, Task Force on Sustainable Development, Federal Planning Bureau of Belgium.

Ms. HEFFERAN said most sustainability questions were not bounded by one region or culture, since all lands, waters and ecosystems were shared.  Sustainability required the sharing of science and education techniques and technologies, especially in the area of agriculture.  The goals of sustainable agriculture were to provide a more profitable farm income, promote environmental stewardship and enhance the quality of life for farm families and communities.  The Earth’s natural resources must be put to good use without depleting them.  All those actions would require stakeholders to seek out and support partnerships across continents and cultures in an effort to ensure sustainable development for all.

Ms. GAUFFIN said it was important to develop and support strong farmers’ organizations both in the North and the South.  There was also a need to promote significant exchanges between region-specific groups, avoid unchecked urban growth and establish policies that would support dynamic rural growth while ensuring that urban developments did not encroach on often fragile rural habitats and ecosystems.

On land management issues, Mr. CREUZER called for equal access to land for women, clear and unambiguous land tenure and registration systems, and support for the conversion of agricultural land.  The Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Working Party on Land Administration aimed to promote land administration through security of tenure, establish real estate markets in countries with economies in transition and modernize land registration systems in the advanced economies.

Mr. HLAVACEK focused on ECE’s efforts to build partnerships with African countries to combat desertification and land degradation.  Establishing and strengthening such partnerships was the right way to pursue a regional framework for action and secure the requisite funding to address challenges.  As the European Union stepped up similar efforts, it was important that other donors provide more reliable official development assistance.  At the same time, African countries must make themselves more attractive by ensuring good governance, political stability and an end to conflicts and tensions.

Discussing the links between consumption patterns and economic growth in Europe, Ms. GOUZEE said sustainable development depended on the quality and quantity of human, environmental and economic capital assets.  Therefore, to ensure a higher quality of life for all, States should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and promote appropriate demographic polices.  Indeed, balanced consumption and production, coupled with demography, were the key drivers of growth.

Among the key themes raised during the discussion were the importance of addressing land degradation and desertification to ensure growth in the European region.  Some speakers also stressed the need to enforce the interaction between sustainable farming and other aspects of sustainable consumption and production.  Civil society participants called on European agro-businesses and producers to recognize their role in the current food price crisis by doing more to ensure that global markets were more fair and equitable, and that profits for small-scale farmers were not swallowed up by subsidies.

The Commission’s dialogue with major groups, chaired by Vice-Chairman Sasa Ojdanic (Serbia), provided an opportunity for a focused discussion on the role of civil society -- including women, children and youth, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations, business, academia, local authorities, scientists, workers and trade unions -- in promoting action on implementation in relation to the thematic cluster for the Commission’s sixteenth session, including in the area of education, raising public awareness, disseminating information and knowledge, and fostering partnership initiatives.

The representative of Gambia’s National Youth Parliament, stressing that young people were not useless, said they were just “used less”.  The fact that youth from all over the world were addressing the crucial themes under consideration by Commission was proof that young people had something vital to offer.  Indeed, perhaps 20 years from now, some of the youth delegates to the sixteenth session would be sitting in the very same seats in which Government representatives sat today, making critical decisions aimed at fostering sustainable development for all.

A member of the Indigenous People’s Caucus, stressing the right of all people to be secure in their means of subsistence, noted that those who practised traditional livelihood systems, such as pastoralists, farmers, fisher folk and hunter-gatherers, faced discrimination from modern agriculture and rural development, which undermined the continued viability of their own livelihoods and deepened the marginalization and poverty of indigenous peoples.

“We farmers are the poorest and in the developing world we really need assistance,” said a farmers’ representative, calling on youth delegates to use their influence to help change the mindsets of young generations who were leaving the farmlands -- traditional lands often held by families for decades -- by the thousands to seek livelihoods in the cities.  Farmers needed access to modern technologies so they could respond to the impact of global warming and to changes in consumption patterns.  Farmers called on donors and development partners to earmark more official development assistance for agricultural development, which currently received only 4 per cent of such aid.

Panel Discussion on Agriculture and Rural Development

Commission Vice-Chairperson Melanie Santizo-Sandoval (Guatemala) led the afternoon panel on rural development and agriculture, which featured panellists Piragibe dos Santos Tarrago, Deputy Permanent Representative of Brazil; He Maochun, Professor and Director of the Research Centre of Economy and Diplomacy, Tsinghua University of China; Christopher J. Leaver, Emeritus Professor of Plant Science, Fellow of St. John’s College, University of Oxford; Edgardo Javier Angara, Senator of the Philippines; and John Pender, Senior Research Fellow, Environment and Production Technology Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Opening the discussion, Mr. TARRAGO said trade had always been an important factor in agricultural production, and in today’s markets it had a particularly heightened impact.  Globalization had intensified every country’s search to produce goods, including foodstuff, which could be sold on the international market.  Most of the world’s poor lived off agriculture, but their prosperity was hampered by producers who benefited from trade-distorting subsidies and restrictions.

While agricultural support and protection levels varied across countries and commodities, the aim of the current Doha Round of trade negotiations was to prioritize the needs of developing countries, he said.  Because agriculture was at the heart of developing countries’ economies, it was necessarily at the heart of the Doha Round.  The goal was to increase rural development and the food security of developing countries while preserving a level of sustainability.  To do that, tariff cuts should be made and protections maintained for special products.  There had already been a substantial improvement in market access, and if the Doha Round concluded with positive results, it would provide a great boost for developing countries, especially in their agriculture sectors.  In fact, Doha was a necessary condition for applying long-term benefits to the sustainable and rural development of developing countries and to ensuring more secure food production.

Acknowledging that his country was, like so many others, confronting a number of challenges in its agricultural sector, Mr. HE, nevertheless, asked whether those challenges and difficulties were larger, more complicated or more severe than previous ones.  While it was true that there had been a rise in food prices over the last year owing to human activities, climate disasters and economic disasters that had created difficulties for many of the world’s poorer communities, there were several reasons to be optimistic.  Aid to Africa was bringing about real agricultural change, as were desertification controls in some countries.  Anti-desertification technologies in the United States also provided good examples for countries struggling with drought and the expansion of arid lands.

Quoting the proverb, “He who has bread may have troubles; he who lacks it has only one”, Mr. LEAVER said agriculture was the most important activity in human history, as no one would be alive without it.  Feeding the world’s peoples had certainly been a human success story, even as the population grew.  Innovations such as fertilizers, agro-chemicals and genetics had led to great agricultural advances so that more food was produced from less land.  But while leading to increased outputs, high-input agriculture had nevertheless had environmental costs.  In fact, past practices were unsustainable and, given the estimates of future population growth, the amount of food currently produced on the same amount of land would have to be doubled in the future, even as the current levels of environmental degradation were reduced.

Highlighting several innovations that could be used, he stressed the need to preserve genetic diversity, use science and technology effectively and adopt conservation efforts.  While new tools developed from advances in knowledge were now available, future challenges included improving plant performance through modern genomic technologies.  Global sustainability was a precondition for human progress and all safe, socially responsible and appropriately regulated technologies and tools should be employed to improve agricultural productivity.  Doing nothing, including keeping scientific and technological innovations off the table in places like Africa, was not an option.

Noting that the current food crisis was unlike anything seen before, Mr. ANGARA cited estimates that today’s food price increases could push 100 million people below the poverty line, wiping out seven years of progress.   Moreover, some experts thought the situation was actually even worse than currently believed.  If the price of rice continued to rise, 10 million people in Asia would die prematurely.  As for the causes of the crisis, the price hikes were the result of long-standing fissures reflecting the differences between developed and developing countries, as well as inequities introduced by the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture.

For example, the Philippines had been transformed from a net exporter to a net importer of food following its accession to the World Trade Organization in 1995.  To rectify current trade imbalances and thwart the development of a global food cartel, there was an urgent need to accelerate the elimination of export subsidies and reduction of domestic subsidies in rich countries; cut agricultural tariffs and reduce tariff escalation; ensure that legitimate measures were not used as technical barriers to trade; exempt special products from developing countries from tariff cuts; and establish special safeguard mechanisms in developing countries.

Mr. PENDER identified land degradation, low agricultural productivity and poverty as major problems facing sub-Saharan Africa, saying those challenges affected nearly a fifth of the continent’s agricultural land, reducing productivity levels by up to 9 per cent.  Agricultural productivity was stagnant in much of that region, creating a downward spiral.  Yet, much could still be done to dismantle that trap, including the use of “green revolution” technology.  The continent’s Sahel subregion had already benefited from improved rainfall as a result of such technology.

Elaborating on other strategies, he said overcoming the poverty-degradation spiral required a tapping of farmers’ motivation to improve their livelihoods, securing property rights and improving access to markets, infrastructure and services.  Research and technical assistance could also provide benefits if they could assure farmers of profitability in the near term.  The bottom line was that, while there were many pathways out of the spiral, they required policies and initiatives that would target the poor and harness local-level action.

When the floor was opened, speakers from Government delegations, non-governmental organizations and major groups shared widespread agreement that agricultural policies should be considered as part of climate change solutions, with many emphasizing the need for agricultural development to include strategies responsive to climate change initiatives, particularly in environmentally sensitive regions like Africa.  Without such a focus, food insecurity would continue as land, water and air were increasingly degraded.

Although many speakers maintained that the impact of biofuels on today’s food markets provided a cautionary example, a number of others, nevertheless, stressed how agricultural productivity could be improved through techniques that harnessed biotechnology gains.  In light of the uncertainty surrounding biofuels, calls were made for stronger collaboration to develop international norms for their production and use.  Some speakers also called for the use of biofuels derived from non-food stocks, such as cellulose plants, which would reduce pressure on food crops.

A number of speakers said that increasing the number of rural-based research and education programmes would benefit agricultural sectors, and further calls were made for increased farmer education, including information on climate change.  A few speakers called for a revolution to transform current agricultural practices, while others stressed the need for farmers to become creators of value-added products.

Pointing to the rise in extreme natural disasters that may be one of the most immediate effects of climate change, a number of speakers said risk and crisis management should become a central part of any integrated approach to agricultural and rural development.  A few speakers emphasized the hardships faced by those living in occupied territories, where access to land was restricted and farming inputs like water, energy and seed stocks was controlled.

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For information media • not an official record