Investing in agriculture for food security:whole world will profit, FAO
Despite the progress achieved in agriculture and rural development, more than 850 million people still remain hungry and poor. Our greatest challenge is to reach the World Food Summit and first UN Millennium Development Goal to halve by 2015 hunger and poverty worldwide. The theme chosen for World Food Day and TeleFood this year is “Investing in agriculture for food security” so that “the whole world will profit.” The aim is to highlight the role of investment in agriculture - both public and private. Action should be supported to improve rural livelihoods by reversing the decline of public investment in agriculture over the last two decades. Seventy percent of the world’s hungry live in rural areas. That is where it is most critical to provide food and employment. The seed planted by a farmer leads to a flourishing agribusinesses that pay taxes, and help build rural schools and roads. Agricultural development is the first step of a long-term sustainable economic growth. Everyone gains from investment in agriculture. Since 1964, FAO has been a key player in the UN system in the mobilization of international and domestic financing for agriculture in favour of developing countries and countries in transition. Through its cooperation with financing agencies, FAO has helped 165 member countries to obtain funding for almost 1 600 agricultural and rural investment programmes and projects. That represents funding commitments of over US$80 billion! The challenge of increasing investment in agriculture is especially great in Africa. Governments in that region have recognized the urgency of committing their own resources to agriculture. In the “Maputo Declaration” in 2003, African Heads of State committed their governments to allocating 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture and rural development within five years, thus doubling the present level of resources. Recently there has been a significant revival in lending for agriculture. Debt forgiveness programmes, strengthened by the G-8 decision in 2005, have begun to release national resources for investment in the sector. But much still remains to be done and innovative actions are welcome. Increasing the volume of public investment in agriculture is of absolute necessity and it is crucial to make such assistance more effective. One major mechanism is the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development, a consortium of 26 donor development agencies, which FAO co-chairs with Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The platform seeks to improve donor aid effectiveness and focus action on achieving the Millennium Development Goals. While increased development assistance, public investment and debt relief are key elements, equal importance should be given to private sector investment. Commercial farmers, traders, input suppliers, agro-processors and transnational agribusinesses all contribute to a global system of investment that can help rural people reap profits from agricultural production, marketing and trade. But, importantly, let us not forget that small farmers themselves are the biggest investors in agriculture. “Promoting profitable partnerships” is the new model for cooperation between the public and private sectors. This means finding new ways of bringing together producers – small farmers and cooperatives – with agribusiness and governments to create profitable ventures. It places primary responsibility on governments to create stable socio-political conditions, establish legal frameworks for access to land and water, enforce grades and standards, foster a better climate for private investment and provide essential rural infrastructure. On this World Food Day, let us resolve together to increase the investment in agriculture so that the whole world may profit. Source: FAO WFD |
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"World Leaders are Insincere about Poverty"Author:
David Chester
Time: 20.10.2007 21:52
Comment: Why no comments? The situation is serious enough and for all those "STANDING UP" not one seems to be writing about.
The following comment and analsis will crave your close and careful scrutany and it is not intended for the light-hearted. It offers an explanation and long-term solution of this terrible scurge, taking an example from India. "The Landless and their Poverty" Comment: As long as the land is held by a small proportion of the community and its rent or non-use (with speculation in its value) are used a) to cause the production costs to be greater and b) to force the hired labour to accept starvation wages, by exploiting the opportunity the land provides for earning a living, then there will be povety and suffering by many of those, who have no possibility to survive in a human way and are without the sense to recognise how to permanently escape from their current predicament. Only an external observer can see this and is capable of giving impersonal and objective advise. Cure: The solution that the peasants seek is to be allocated plots of land, but as long as these plots can be bought and sold and as long as the land-owners can grow rich by witholding the use of the site until its potential use (and consequently its value) grows more than the original cost of acquiring it, then the problem of land and poverty will not be solved, merely postponed. This situation has been tried before (about 1946)and is well documented by a famous traveller, see below. The nature of the poorer members of the community is not simply to hold on to their land and farm it sensibly, but to sell it back to the wealthier parts of the community, so that the poverty due to exploitation can easily return after a few years. The only way to solve this problem and to reduce the terrible suffering that goes with the resulting poverty is for all of the land (whether in use or not) to be taxed according to its value, so as to return some or all of its true rent to the local government, and for this sum to replace that otherwise taken in all other forms of taxation, particularly those which are the direct result of the process of production and distribution. This happier situation will come when dedicated geographical and legal teams are empowered to map and to introduce (or modify) suitable land-laws, so that the opportunity to share the bounty of the land (which is surely a gift of nature to all of mankind), is allowed and regulated for use by the whole population regardless of their social status or position within the community. This can then be achieved by tax reform which should be gradually introduced so as to cause the land-lords to slowly relinquish their strangle-hold over the poorer parts of the population. A sudden change will cause a popular revolution and even more suffering due to the inevitable military supression. Thus one should Tax Takings Not Makings. Learn from History: The much-travelled author Karl Eskelund describes the effort made by a band of young American and English Quakers in trying to assist some of the Indian population, millions of whom live at starvation level. The young idealists took up their task in 1946 at the village district of Pifa, which lies in the Ganges Delta. They were fully aware that their work would test their patience, for in India you can get no results 'at five minutes past twelve.' But after having outlined their plans to the peasants, the fishermen and the landowners - which met with general approval - they organised a co-operative enterprise for cultivating the land and marketing the produce. They set up day schools for the children, evening schools for adults, clinics, et cetera. After overcoming the initial difficulties, they saw signs of progress. Inspiration grew. Health conditions improved. Everyone took a greater interest in their work and their earnings increased. New ideas took shape - there was advance along the whole line - an advance, slow but sure. Only the Landowners Grew Fatter Five years after the experiment began, Karl Eskelund visited Pifa and, with one of the Quakers as his guide, went through the village to see how it was faring. The Quaker had lost more than two stone (28 lbs) and was as thin and spare as the natives. But what was worse, he had lost heart because the experiment had proved a failure. The day school still existed, but only one-quarter of the children attended it. The evening school had closed. The clinic was hardly used. Agriculture, fishing and trade were back to the old methods. Eskelund asked for an explanation of this fiasco. The young Quaker offered quite a number of reasons, none of which Eskelund could accept. Finally, he got to the root of the matter. This is what he says: "In the first year after beginning the experiment, both peasants and fishermen earned more than ever before. What was the result? The large landowners at once raised their rents and the smaller landowners followed suit. The peasants had to pay more for permission to cultivate the land. The fishermen had to pay more for permission to cast their nets on the flooded fields. In that way, practically the whole of the increased earnings passed into the landowners' pockets." "The people of Pifa were unhappy at this. Nevertheless, next year they worked hard. Crops were plentiful, there was a rich catch of fish; good prices were paid for produce. At once, the landowners raised their rents still higher." "The people then began to lose heart. What was the use if, for all their efforts, they got no benefit? Only the landowners waxed fatter. The peasants and fishermen did not become any thinner: they could not, otherwise they would die." "Indians are ignorant, but they are not stupid. They can put two and two together. They had found themselves momentarily enriched by the new methods but, in the end, all the extra money went to the landowners. If one of the new ideas would not work, what faith could they put in any other novelties? Perhaps, after all, the old methods were the best." This is the story as far as it goes. It would be difficult to find an example that more simply and clearly demonstrates the truth of what Henry George taught. It is that, as long as the private right to the rent of land obtains, so long will every advance, crystallizing in land rent, be gathered by the owner of land; while he who works, he who produces, must toil the day long without gaining more for his labour than is enough to avoid death from hunger. This story reveals the problem in all its simplicity; cleared of all that in civilized society makes it more difficult to see the importance of land. The Need to Remould the Whole System The young Quaker would not lay any blame on the landowners. There could be no objection against the landowners trying to gain as much as possible, and after all, there was nothing unlawful in owning land. The young Quaker admitted the immorality of the circumstances, but argued that it could be mended only by "remaking the law and remoulding the whole system." Eskelund himself sees clearly the part the land question plays, and proposed the subdivision of land (by creating small-holdings). Yet he is not sure that subdivision will solve the problem. For he writes: "Meanwhile, there is evidence that you don't get rid of landownership in that manner. Landownership is like the weed that always re-sprouts." "The Indian peasant has a habit of using every penny he possesses to spend on festive occasions; when a son is born or when a daughter is married. If he has no cash he goes to the moneylender, who is often the landowner, the only person in the village who has ready money. Of course that is stupid of the peasant, but he has so little in hand. Already there have been occasions where a man who had become owner of his plot got into debt and had to forfeit his land. Thus he became a day labourer again, to toil for the same landlord as before." |
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