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Global Food Prices a Warning Beacon |
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By Tierramérica Editor's Desk*
Rising
food prices may be the first economic indicator of the global environmental
crisis, said experts gathered for a U.N.-sponsored seminar in the
Mexican city of Monterrey. The final declaration of the meeting,
the Monterrey Initiative, urges governments around the globe to
promote sustainable farming practices.
MONTERREY, Mexico - Global demand for food
will grow an estimated 60 percent by 2030 and, unless urgent action
is taken, the crisis in the farming sector will push the world economy
to the edge, warned experts from 60 countries gathered in the northern
Mexican city of Monterrey.
According to United Nations projections, there will be some 78 million
people added to the global population each year. ''It is not a trivial
issue. We are talking about adding an equivalent of 2.5 Canadas
each year. How will we possibly feed them?'' asks Lester Brown,
a U.S. activist and one of the standout voices in the global environmental
debate.
''The current world grain stocks are the lowest in 30 years. Continued
expansion of food production faces two big threats: falling water
tables and rising temperatures,'' said Brown, founder of the Earth
Policy Institute and the Worldwatch Institute, two major environmental
think-tanks in the United States.
Within the next few years, said the expert, rising food prices may
be the first global economic indicator to signal serious trouble
in the relationship between the world's 6.3 billion people and the
Earth's natural systems and resources on which we depend.
The author of ''Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization
in Trouble'', participated Nov. 15-16 in Monterrey in the eighth
High-Level Seminar on Sustainable Consumption and Production, organized
by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
In the final declaration, the ''Monterrey Initiative'', the group
of experts call for implementing clean consumption and production
strategies in the agricultural sector to promote the sustainable
use of resources, like water, land and energy.
According to a report by Garrete Clark and Charles Arden-Clarke,
of UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, 26 percent
of the planet's land surface has been converted into farmland and
pasture since the 1970s, causing contamination, loss of biodiversity,
depletion of aquifers and the deterioration of quality of life for
millions of small farmers.
Small-scale farming employs at least a billion people in Latin America,
the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and Africa.
Farming, say the UNEP specialists, is the world's leading consumer
of freshwater, and the groundwater tables are on the decline in
the three leading grain-producing nations: India, China and the
United States.
''Water resources depletion is a more important issue than oil scarcity.
We lived millions of years without oil, we can only live days without
water,'' warns Brown.
Meanwhile, increasing average temperatures, which according to scientific
consensus rose 0.7 degrees centigrade in the last quarter century
because of the greenhouse effect, also exerts negative pressure
on crops and food security.
The demand of China alone -- where food production fell 70 million
tons in 2003 -- would drive up global food prices, he said.
International prices for wheat flour this year increased 38 percent,
maize 36 percent and rice 39 percent.
''Some 840 million people worldwide suffer hunger, and their subsistence
is critical for the sustainable management of natural resource,''
said UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer.
The countries of the developing South ''have a comparative trade
advantage in the agricultural sector that, if exploited in a sustainable
way, could provide a clear route to development,'' he said.
The Monterrey Initiative also urges government to take concrete
steps towards clean production and sustainable consumption in the
areas of water, energy and natural resources, technology and manufacturing.
''We believe sustainable consumption and production are basic tools
for achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those
related to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to ensure environmental
sustainability,'' said the document drafted by the experts at the
Monterrey seminar.
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