World can be our farm: Singapore

Conrad Raj, Today Online 6 Jun 08;

WITH food prices shooting through the roof, Singapore should perhaps take a leaf from Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

The Financial Times (FT) reported on Wednesday that there has been a growing interest among Middle Eastern countries to use land overseas to ensure food security. The British financial daily also reported that the small but fabulously wealthy emirate state of Abu Dhabi was preparing to develop 70,000 acres of land in Sudan in an effort to secure its own food supplies.

Saudi Arabia and Eygpt are also said to have had talks with the Sudanese government about launching their own agricultural projects in the country which, according to FT, “has vast, but underdeveloped, agricultural resources and has been described as a potential breadbasket for the Middle East”.

With nearly 5 million people crowded on an island covering a land area of just over 600 sq km, Singapore should perhaps consider investing overseas in similar food ventures.

Yes, we grow some vegetables, and farm some fish, but the output is hardly enough to satisfy a fraction of its populace. For most part, we are at the mercy of overseas producers and exporters, even as authorities have repeatedly said they are constantly striving to diversify our food sources.

There have been previous attempts to have farm and agricultural ventures in Indonesia and Thailand but these, too, are too small to feed our hungry millions.

Companies like Sunmoon (fruits in China) and Fraser and Neave (dairy products) have also been making attempts to secure their food supplies, especially in China. But the big money is with our sovereign wealth funds — Temasek Holdings and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).

Only these two Singapore entities have the necessary funds to embark on projects on the scale of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

Abu Dhabi’s North Sudan project is being led by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, which has hitherto focused on providing soft loans to poorer countries for infrastructure projects. The fund is working in partnership with the Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development, a Khartoum-base pan-Arab agency set up in 1977 with a paid-up capital of some US$367 million ($502.5 million).

Instead of spending our reserves in just buying up overseas properties, and companies in telecommunications, power and shipping, perhaps some money should be ploughed into agricultural projects like rice, vegetable and fruit farms.

There are also areas where aquaculture can be carried out.

According to the FT, Sudan, in trying to attract funding into technology for agriculture, provides land for such ventures for free. The country is estimated to have about 100 million acres of agricultural land of which currently only 20 million acres is said to be used.

There is no harm in Singapore in working with the AAAID in trying to get some land in the sub-Saharan state to grow crops like rice.

Places like Australia, too, have lots of land where crops can be grown or livestock raised. For instance, Brunei has since 1982 been raising beef and dairy cattle on 1.5 million acres in Australia’s Northern Territories for its own consumption.

And if Singapore needs help to find countries with agricultural or farm land, it can _ like Saudi Arabia, which is planning to phase out its wheat fields by 2016 to preserve its water supplies - call on the World Bank.

The bank’s president, Robert Zoellick, told the FT: “They have asked us to connect (Saudi Arabia) with countries in Africa and Central Asia.”

Let the world be our farm land. We have got to hurry, for there are also others out there with the money to secure their own food chains.

X-REF world story on food prices

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Poultry prices to rise due to higher transportation costs

Channel NewsAsia 5 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Importers have said that poultry prices in Singapore are expected to go up, mainly due to higher transportation costs as a result of Malaysia increasing its petrol and diesel prices on Thursday by some 40 per cent.

They expect the cost of every kilogramme of duck to go up by five cents. The price of chicken products is also expected to increase.

Duck farm owners in Malaysia said transportation costs per lorry are set to go up by some 400 ringgit, from the current 1,650 to 2,050 ringgit.

Everyday, 50 to 60 lorries transport ducks to Singapore. - CNA/vm

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World’s next big threat: Water shortage

Crisis is bigger problemthan soaring food prices: Goldman Sachs report:
Today Online 6 Jun 08;

LONDON — A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs “Top Five Risks” conference.

Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the British government’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.

“The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We’re facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it,” he said.

“A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia — the Ganges, Yellow River, Yangtze — where three billion people live. That’s almost half the world’s population,” he added.

Lord Stern, the World Bank’s former chief economist, said governments had been slow to accept that usable water is running out. “Water is not a renewable resource. People have been mining it without restraint because it has not been priced properly,” he said.

Farming makes up 70 per cent of global water demand. Fresh water for irrigation is never returned to underground basins. Most is lost through leaks and evaporation.

A Goldman Sachs report said water was the “petroleum for the next century”, offering huge rewards for investors who know how to play the infrastructure boom. The United States alone needs up toUS$1,000 billion ($1,370 billion) in new piping and waste water plants by 2020.

“Demand for water continues to escalate at unsustainable rates. At the risk of being alarmist, we see parallels with Malthusian economics. Globally, water consumption is doubling every 20 years. By 2025, it is estimated that about one third of the global population will not have access to adequate drinking water,” it said.

China faces an acute challenge. It makes up 21 per cent of humanity but controls just 7 per cent of the water supply.

Disputes over cross-border water basins have already prompted Egypt to threaten military action against any country that draws water off the Nile without agreement.

The shift to an animal protein diet across Asia has added to the strain. It takes 15 cubic metres of water on average to produce 1kg of beef, compared to six for poultry, and 1.5 for corn.

Goldman Sachs advises investors to focus on the hi-tech end of the world’s US$425-billion water industry. But beware the consumer “backlash” against bottled water, now viewed as an eco-hostile waste of fuel.

It is eyeing companies that produce or service filtration equipment (which can now extract anything from caffeine to animal growth hormones by using nano technologies), ultraviolet disinfection, desalination technology using membranes, automated water meters and specialist niches in water reuse.

Stanford professor Donald Kennedy said global climate change was now setting off a self-feeding spiral. “We’ve got droughts combined with a psychotic excess of rainfall,” he said.

“There are 800m people in the world who are ‘food insecure’. They can’t grow enough food or can’t afford to buy it. This is a seismic shift in the global economy.” — The Daily Telegraph

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Possible to slash CO2 emissions by 85 percent by 2050: NGO

Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

From biomass plants to burying carbon dioxide, Norwegian environmental group Bellona on Thursday listed a slew of methods it said would enable an 85-percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

"Combating global warming is a tremendous challenge, but it is not insurmountable," Bellona chief Frederic Hauge said in a report published at a climate seminar in the southeastern town of Sarpsborg.

"The very same human ability and industrial capacity that created the problem can solve it," he added.

In its report "How to combat global warming: the Bellona scenario," the non-governmental organisation offers what its says is the recipe for a greatly reduced carbon dioxide diet, using a mix of technology and altered behavior.

In order to slash CO2 emissions by 85 percent in just 42 years, we will have to change our way of life as products are priced according to their contribution to climate change, as energy efficiency is improved, renewable energy sources developed and the forests preserved and expanded.

The group also came out in support of expanding the use of a new technology called carbon capture and storage, or CCS, which today is used by heavy industry and at some thermal power stations running on gas or coal.

The technology, which involves injecting millions of tonnes of CO2 into the seabed, could show even greater effect if used in power stations run on biomass, Bellona said, pointing .

Using CCS at a plant run on biomass like algae, which through photosynthesis absorbs large amounts of CO2, would for instance make it possible to not only reduce emissions but actually help drain existing carbon from the planet, providing "carbon negative energy," the group said.

"Whether you were watching TV, vacuuming the house, or driving your electric car to visit friends and family, you would be removing CO2 from the atmosphere," Hauge said.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world will need to slash CO2 emissions by between 50 and 85 percent by 2050 to avoid a global temperature increase of more than two degrees Celsius and, which would entail major natural disasters.

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The great carbon bazaar: serious flaws

Mark Gregory, BBC News 6 Jun 08;

Evidence of serious flaws in the multi-billion dollar global market for carbon credits has been uncovered by a BBC World Service investigation.

The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have been realised without external funding.

The BBC World Service investigation found examples of projects in India where this appeared to be the case.

Arguably, this defeats the whole point of the CDM scheme, set up under the Kyoto climate change protocol, as these projects are getting money for nothing.

The findings reinforce doubts that the CDM is leading to real emission cuts, which is not good news for the effort to combat climate change.

And in one case a company is earning truly staggering sums of money from the carbon credits it is receiving - perhaps as much as $500m (£250m) over a period of 10 years - for a project it says it would have carried out without the incentive of the CDM.

Not watertight

The man in ultimate charge of running the Clean Development Mechanism insists it is fundamentally sound.

"We've got a procedure that works," says Yvo De Boer, the top official at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

He is referring to the elaborate registration process projects must go through to qualify for carbon credits from the CDM.

But even Mr De Boer accepts the system is not perfect.

"At the end of the day it's always a matter of judgement," he says.

"And no, it's not watertight."

Flawed system

In order to receive carbon credits from the CDM, projects are supposed to demonstrate that they will lead to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that are "additional" to what would have happened without the availability of credits.

This concept of "additionality" is crucial to the credibility of the mechanism because of the way the system works.

The buyers of CDM credits are companies in developed nations, mostly in Europe, who use them to offset their own emissions.

They are allowed to count the carbon credits towards targets they would otherwise have to meet by cutting emissions at their own factories and offices, which is usually much more expensive.

The system is intended to give western firms a low cost way of achieving emission targets while at the same time getting businesses in developing nations involved in tackling climate change.

But it only works if the carbon credits generated by projects in developing nations really do represent genuine emission cuts.

Would have done it anyway

Three projects in India were investigated to see if the "additionality" test has been met.

One case involved the installation of a biomass generator to provide electricity at a rice milling plant in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India.

KRBL, India's largest exporter of Basmati rice, spent $5m on the generator, which replaced a less climate friendly diesel powered system.

The generator runs on rice husks, a renewable energy source. The husks are a waste material from the rice milling process.

The company has almost completed the registration procedure and is set to receive carbon credits from the CDM worth several hundred thousand dollars a year.

Yet, when asked whether the carbon credits were important for the company's decision to install the biomass generator, Manoj Saxena, a senior manager at the plant, responded "not really" and confirmed that it would have done the project anyway, even without the CDM funds.

"[The] numbers are more favourable for us because of the CDM," he acknowledged.

He was then asked whether the company would take the money if the authorities of the CDM were silly enough to give it a million dollars extra for it, to which he replied: "Yes, definitely. Why not?"

KRBL's rice husk driven generator is unquestionably a useful project from an environmental point of view, but the evidence gathered by the BBC World Service investigation suggests it would have been installed anyway without financial help from carbon credits.

Massive windfall

Indian chemical company SRF is also receiving substantial numbers of CDM carbon credits for eliminating an obscure industrial waste product known as HFC23, a highly potent greenhouse gas.

HFC23 is a by-product of manufacturing refrigerant gases used to cool fridges and air conditioners.

It is nearly 12,000 times as toxic as carbon dioxide in its climate impact if it enters the atmosphere.

But getting rid of HFC23 is quite easy and relatively cheap.

The solution is to burn it off in an incinerator.

SRF has installed an incinerator for burning off HFC23 at its plant in Rajasthan.

The project has been registered with the CDM and is receiving up to 3.8 million carbon credits a year.

These are currently worth $50m to $60m a year.

SRF is likely to receive the credits for a period of about 10 years, so it is in line for a total windfall in the region of more than $500m, a gigantic sum for a smallish chemical plant located in rural India.

The incentives work

The company will not say what it cost to install the incinerator, but the figure is far les than the value of the credits obtained.

The number of carbon credits awarded to SRF and other similar firms for dealing with HFC23 is linked to its theoretical climate potency.

The actual cost of eliminating the gas is not taken into account.

The UN's Mr De Boer, the man in charge of the Clean Development Mechanism, defends the huge payouts made to companies like SRF.

"I'm happy that a very potent greenhouse gas is being removed," he says.

"I'm very happy that the Kyoto protocol has created a market mechanism that makes it interesting for companies to do that, because evidence shows us that in the absence of the CDM that greenhouse gas was not being destroyed.

"There was no incentive to destroy that greenhouse gas apart from the CDM"

His argument is that while it may have been expensive, at least the CDM is responsible for getting rid of a particularly nasty greenhouse gas.

But is this true? Did companies really need the CDM to take action?

During a tour of the plant at SRF's factory in Rajasthan, the company's official spokesman, Mukund Trivedy, revealed that "we would have done it anyway". He was then asked to confirm whether the project would have been carried out even if the CDM scheme hadn't been set up.

"That's right," he responded.

Which begs the question; if they were going to eliminate HFC23 emissions themselves anyway, why give them carbon credits worth several hundred million dollars?

Not solving the problem

The third company investigated by BBC World Service was a large hydro scheme in the Northern Indian state of Himalchal Pradesh.

There were arguments on both sides as whether the project genuinely deserved to qualify for carbon credits.

The CDM operates on a massive scale. More than 1,000 projects have already qualified for carbon credits.

A further 3,000 projects have applied.

Trade in CDM carbon credits is running at some $10bn a year.

That is a welcome flow of resources from the developed to the developing world.

But it is far from clear that the trade in credits is contributing much to tackling global warming.

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Greens criticize World Bank climate funds

Reuters 5 Jun 08;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Some 121 environment and development groups on Thursday questioned the credibility of proposed World Bank funds to help the poor fight global warming, but the U.N.'s climate change agency broadly welcomed them.

Last month 40 developing and industrialized countries agreed on two separate multi-billion dollar funds, managed by the World Bank and regional development banks, one to help developing countries cut their contribution to climate change and the other to help them prepare better for more storms and floods.

The developing world blames industrialized nations for climate change after decades of emitting planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide from burning oil and coal.

The NGOs doubted the World Bank's qualifications to fund projects which curb carbon emissions given its history of loans to coal plants, including one this year to an Indian plant which will use the latest, cleanest boilers.

"Clean must mean 'clean', not 'slightly less dirty'," said a statement from the groups including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and ActionAid, on the fringes of a U.N. climate conference in Germany.

The Bank rejected that criticism, saying that such projects had "a largely beneficial impact on the environment by shifting production from small polluting installations to larger, cleaner, more efficient energy plants".

The U.N.-led Kyoto Protocol also supports such cleaner coal projects and U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer repeated that support.

"I think given the pace at which coal-fired power plants are being built every delay means more sub-optimal plants."

"I think it's great," he said of the funds.

The NGOs also complained that some of the new funds would be in loans instead of grants, risking indebting poorer nations.

"It is highly inappropriate to issue loans for adaptation, given that rich countries are overwhelmingly responsible for climate change," their statement said.

De Boer agreed that the funds must not re-direct general overseas aid. "It's important not to re-label ODA (overseas development assistance) and turn it into loans," he said.

The World Bank said last month that "donor contributions to the Climate Investment Funds will be new and additional to existing aid commitments".

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn, Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Main Points Of UN Food Summit Declaration

PlanetArk 6 Jun 08;

The United Nations food summit issued a declaration on Thursday at the end of the three-day conference.

Here are highlights from the four-page text agreed after tough negotiations between the 183 countries. Objections by Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela will be added in an annex:

COORDINATED ACTION

"We are convinced that the international community needs to take urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impacts of soaring food prices on the world's most vulnerable countries and populations."

"We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources sustainably for present and future generations.

"We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all today and tomorrow."

EXISTING GOALS

"We reaffirm the conclusions of the World Food Summit in 1996 ... of achieving food security for all through an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing by half the number of undernourished people by no later than 2015..."

FOOD ASSISTANCE

"The relevant United Nations agencies should be assured the resources to expand and enhance their food assistance and support safety net programmes to address hunger and malnutrition ..."

SUPPORTING AGRICULTURE

"All relevant organisations and cooperating countries should be prepared to assist countries, on their request, to put in place the revised policies and measures to help farmers, particularly small-scale producers, increase production and integrate with local, regional, and international markets. South-south cooperation must be encouraged."

"Development partners are invited to participate in and contribute to international and regional initiatives on soaring food prices and, in particular ... measures to give farmers in low-income food-deficit and the most affected countries access to appropriate locally adapted seeds, fertilizers, animal feed and other inputs, as well as technical assistance, in order to increase agricultural production."

STOCKS, EXPORT BANS

"Development partners are called upon to undertake initiatives to moderate unusual fluctuations in the food grain prices. In particular, we call on relevant institutions to assist countries in developing their food stock capacities and consider other measures to strengthen food security risk management for affected countries."

"Members of WTO reaffirm their commitment to the rapid and successful conclusion of the WTO Doha development agenda..."

"We will strive to ensure that food, agricultural trade and overall trade policies are conducive to fostering food security for all. For this purpose we reaffirm the need to minimise the use of restrictive measures that could increase volatility of international prices."

CLIMATE CHANGE

"It is essential to address the fundamental question of how to increase the resilience of present food production systems to challenges posed by climate change...

"We support the establishment of agriculture systems and the sustainable forest management practices that positively contribute to the mitigation of climate change and ecological balance."

RESEARCH

"We urge the international community, including the private sector, to decisively step up investment in science and technology for food and agriculture..."

TRADE

"We encourage the international community to continue its efforts in liberalising international trade in agriculture by reducing the trade barriers and market distorting policies.

"Addressing these measures will give farmers, particularly in developing countries, new opportunities to sell their products on world markets and support their efforts to increase productivity and production."

BIOFUELS

"It is essential to address the challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels, in view of the world's food security, energy and sustainable development needs.

"We are convinced that in-depth studies are necessary to ensure that production and use of biofuels is sustainable..."

(Reporting by Robin Pomeroy and Alister Doyle; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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UN plan to increase food supplies

BBC News 6 Jun 08;

Global food production must be doubled by 2030 and farmers in poor countries better supported, a UN summit on the current food crisis has concluded.

Leaders from 181 countries made the commitment in Rome at the close of a three-day summit on food shortages.

They also agreed to bolster humanitarian interventions to help deal with shortages and soaring prices.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned up to £20bn a year was needed to alleviate the crisis.

Government representatives and aid agencies welcomed the concluding statement as a signal that agriculture - particularly the support of small farmers in the developing world - was now firmly back on the agenda.

"For the first time agriculture has been put at the centre of the world stage. For years it has been on the periphery," South Africa's Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana told the BBC.

The summit participants stated that the reality of 862 million people worldwide continuing to be malnourished was wholly unacceptable given the resources available.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, said the adoption of a final declaration was "a sign that the international community is speaking with one voice".

But the summit, which was threatened to be overshadowed by the controversial presence of invited heads of state including Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, was not without its critics.

Representatives from non-governmental organisations complained they were excluded from discussions.

ActionAid's food and hunger policy adviser, Magda Kropiwnicka, said the concluding statement lacked concrete proposals.

"There are no quantifiable financial commitments. Apart from the existing UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funds, no money has been given to address the key problem of boosting capacity," she said.

But Oxfam's Alexander Woolcombe told the BBC that the very recognition of agriculture's role is a vital step.

"There needs to be more focus on agriculture, not less, and we finally seem to be getting recognition of that."

Biofuel debate

The FAO, which has underlined that the summit did not seek to secure financial pledges, has said it needs a tenfold increase in its budget - to some $30bn a year - to help farmers grow food for their communities and countries.



The issue of biofuels was divisive during the summit.

Some UN officials have said the rapid growth of the sector may have triggered as much as 30% of global price inflation, by diverting food crops to fuel use and tightening supply.

However, the US - the world's biggest producer of ethanol - insists it is responsible for just 3% of price rises.

Countries finally agreed, somewhat tepidly, that the industry provided both "challenges and opportunities" which needed to be investigated further.

During his address, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva passionately defended the potential of ethanol from sugarcane.

He highlighted the fact that a large portion of the country's transport is powered by sugarcane grown on just 1% of the country's arable land.

Analysts agree that sugarcane ethanol is a greener and more efficient way of producing fuel than the heavily subsidised US corn industry.

Mr De Schutter said the decision by both the US and EU to increase biofuels targets sent a "dangerous signal" to the market which would only fuel speculation on commodities.

Leaders at UN summit pledge to ease food crisis
Frances D'Emilio, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

World leaders at a U.N. summit pledged Thursday to reduce trade barriers and boost agricultural production to combat a food crisis that is spreading hunger and violent unrest across the world.

After three days of wrangling, delegates from about 180 countries approved a declaration resolving to ease the suffering caused by soaring food prices and step up investment in agriculture.

The summit also struck a balance on the contentious issue of biofuels, recognizing that there are both "challenges and opportunities" in using food for fuel.

A few Latin American countries raised strong objections to parts of the declaration.

Cuba was disappointed the document didn't criticize the long-standing U.S. embargo against the Communist-ruled island. Argentina was unhappy it didn't blame farm subsidies in the U.S., European Union and other Western food-producers for a major role in driving up prices.

The declaration called for swift help for farmers in poor countries who need seed and fertilizers in time for the approaching planting season.

"We took the measure of the problem of hunger in the world correctly," said Jacques Diouf, head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which hosted the summit.

"I think we have an essentially political declaration" of intent to ease hunger, Diouf said.

But it remains to be seen if the words adopted in Rome will translate into changed farm or trade policies at home.

Diouf said that although the gathering wasn't a conference for pledging donations, billions of dollars from countries, regional banks and the World Bank had been promised in recent days.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had told the summit such measures as import taxes and export restrictions must be minimized to alleviate hunger, and the document called for "reducing trade barriers and market-distorting policies."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer welcomed the declaration on biofuels, saying the United States remains "firmly committed to the sustainable production and use of biofuels, both domestically and globally."

The biofuel issue was a volatile one at the meeting.

The conference struck a balance on the fuels made from crops such as sugar cane and corn, saying that "in-depth studies" are necessary to ensure that the environmentally friendly energy source does not take food off the table.

Brazil, the United States and other big producers of biofuels disagree on which crops are better-suited to produce the energy source and how much they contribute to driving up food prices.

Cuba's delegation called the document "a step in the process to eradicate hunger," welcoming the declaration despite failing to include language criticizing embargoes. The United States, a huge aid donor, opposes efforts to condemn its embargo on doing business with Cuba.

Monica Robelo Raffone, head of Nicaragua's delegation, contended that the conference had failed to offer solutions or identify the reasons for the price increases.

"It doesn't mention the real causes behind the crisis: the high oil prices, the market speculation, the subsidies. ... It's a step back," she said.

Soaring fuel prices drive up costs of fertilizer and farm vehicle use and transport of food to market. Speculation and increased consumption of meat and dairy goods by populations of China, India and other developing nations is also considered a main factor in the food price hikes.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's presence and speech at the summit's opening day Tuesday triggered outrage from Western countries, who blame the leader for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket. Some delegations, including the United States, said they wouldn't have dealings with him at the gathering.

The United States on Thursday also condemned what it called Zimbabwe's unjust and outrageous detention of U.S. diplomats and said it would raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council.

Asked about incident at the summit's closing news conference, Diouf said only that all member nations were invited to the summit and "we deal with food and agriculture. We do not get involved in the policies of single countries."

Associated Press writer Ariel David contributed to this report.

Squabbles may mean messy end to food talks
Deadline for final declaration on ending hunger extended twice
Straits Times 6 Jun 08;

ROME - A SUMMIT aimed at finding solutions to the global food crisis last night risked embarrassing failure to reach any formal agreement on combating hunger threatening a billion people worldwide.

Delegates from 183 countries at the Rome talks were supposed to issue a resounding declaration 'eliminating hunger and securing food for all'.

But they missed their initial Wednesday deadline for agreeing on a final statement.

Yesterday saw the new deadline for a statement extended later into the evening, as squabbling about trade barriers and geopolitics raised the prospect that they would scrap it altogether.

Meanwhile, Ghana's President John Kufuor said: 'The food crisis which the world faces today is so serious that it would be disastrous for the survival of mankind if the conclusions reached suffer the same fate at this historic summit.'

But the problem was not, as widely anticipated, the heated debate on the degree to which biofuels divert food to petrol tanks.

Biofuels had been the focus of the most discord at the three-day meeting aimed at coming up with a plan to deal with the crisis caused by food shortages and soaring prices which have already triggered riots around the world.

But in the end, delegates appeared to have agreed to drop calls for more controls on biofuels, compromising on a call for further study of the issue.

Instead, it appeared to be disagreement over export tariffs and between opponents and supporters of communist Cuba about mention of United States sanctions which threatened to derail any agreement.

'They will look at a new draft which they can either approve, try to amend or, in the worst case, reject,' said a United Nations official as the last day of the meeting began.

The summit was called by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to seek ways to secure food supplies in the face of rising demand - especially from rapidly developing Asian countries - poor harvests and rising fuel costs.

Those factors have contributed to a doubling of food prices over the last couple of years, and prompted warnings from UN chief Ban Ki Moon that unless something was done, a billion people could end up going hungry.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development sees prices of rice, corn and wheat retreating from peaks but still up to 50per cent higher in the next decade, and the FAO says food production must rise by 50per cent by 2050 to meet demand.

But some questioned the worth of the summit, with President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal saying: 'There's been a brutal rise in prices and we were told there was a threat hanging over the world and all the heads of state were called to attend.

'I thought it was going to be to answer the question about what should be done, but it wasn't that at all. It was just a conference like any other and that's why I was disappointed.'

At the same time, others believed the summit had fulfilled its role already by focusing world attention on the hungry and on poor farmers.

'This is at the top of the global agenda and it's none too soon,' said Ms Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Programme.

Mr Matthew Wyatt, deputy head of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, said: 'Talking is very different to action, but it's a start.

'For the last 30 years, agriculture and food security have barely featured on the international agenda.'

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG

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Hunger crisis pact agreed as biofuels clash set aside

Richard Owen, The Times 5 Jun 08;

A United Nations food conference in Rome adopted a final declaration yesterday vowing to “eliminate hunger” caused by soaring food and fuel prices but shelved the contentious issue of biofuels because of unbridgeable differences.

Biofuels emerged as the single largest sticking point at the three-day High Level Conference on World Food Security, held by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). However, other issues such as food export restrictions also held up the final agreement, with Argentina passionately defending them with support from Venezuela and Cuba.

Food export taxes are a contentious issue in Argentina; farmers have gone on strike to protest against increased taxes on grain and beef exports which Buenos Aires says shield consumers from food inflation and fund schemes to help the poor.

Ed Schafer, the US Agriculture Secretary, said that export restrictions caused inflation. “We understand that countries want to protect their food supply and make sure that there’s enough food for their own citizens, but when there’s a lock-out from the marketplace prices go up,” he said.

Third World nations demanded that Western countries undertake to reduce or eliminate farm subsidies, leaving officials battling at the eleventh hour to rescue the meeting from failure. A concluding press conference by Jacques Diouf, head of the FAO, was postponed repeatedly as wrangling continued beyond the allotted deadline.

“I think we have achieved the results we were hoping for,” Mr Diouf said. It had “not been easy”, but the meeting had taken short-term action and analysed the longer-term problems involved in halving the number of the world’s hungry by 2015.

The final debate revolved around the single word “restrictive” in the phrase “We reaffirm the need to minimise the use of restrictive measures that could increase volatility of international prices”. Argentina demanded that the word “restrictive” be removed or placed in brackets.

The Cuban delegate began an anti-US tirade, attacking America for its “criminal embargo” on Cuba and demanding to know why the declaration failed to condemn either the “speculators and monopolies” who were the true cause of price increases or “the sinister strategy of using grain for fuel”.

The Latin American protesters eventually agreed to back the “consensus”, on condition that their objections were read into the record.

To resolve the biofuels row, the final draft declaration avoided a clear stance, calling instead for “in-depth studies” of biofuels to ensure that their production and use was sustainable. It also called for a “coherent, effective and results-oriented international dialogue on biofuels in the context of food security and sustainable development needs”.

The declaration by 180 countries called for “urgent and co-ordinated action” to combat the negative impacts of soaring food prices on the world’s most vulnerable countries. The current crisis has highlighted the fragility of the world’s food systems and their vulnerability to shocks. It said “the indications are that food prices will remain high in the years to come” and vowed to “secure food for all, today and tomorrow”.

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Biofuels Win At Summit But UN Food Envoy Fights On

Robin Pomeroy and Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 6 Jun 08;

ROME - The rapidly growing global bio-energy industry escaped unscathed from a food summit on Thursday, but its wings must be clipped to stop fuel-from-food stoking world hunger, the UN envoy on the right to food said.

The conversion of foodstuffs like maize, sugar, soy and palm oil into biofuel was one of the most controversial issues at the June 3-5 summit, pitting biofuel giants, the United States and Brazil, against countries who fear its harmful effects.

Under pressure from Washington, a draft summit declaration avoided negative language on biofuels, instead saying they present "challenges and opportunities" and calling for an "international dialogue" on the issue.

Olivier De Schutter, an independent UN expert on the right to food, said countries opposed to biofuels had given in, rather than hold out against the pro-biofuel countries and risk sinking the broad declaration vowing to fight hunger.

"The final declaration says only one thing: we need to have a continued international dialogue on this issue," De Schutter told Reuters on the sidelines of the Rome summit.

"That's important in one way. It shows that agrofuels are now becoming part of the international agenda and that states may not act unilaterally in this domain," he told Reuters.

The draft declaration was still being negotiated on Thursday evening, but there was no disagreement on the biofuel reference.

US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, who has defended a policy that will see about a quarter of US maize turned into ethanol production by 2022, said the summit declaration's neutral language was acceptable to the United States.

De Schutter had lobbied the summit to call on the United States and the European Union to abandon policies promoting biofuel consumption -- something he believes can still be achieved.


SOIL

"I think we should move towards a code of conduct that should, minimally, have the requirement that soil which is suitable to the cultivation of food should not be diverted to (grow) fuel beyond the current figures," he said.

De Schutter's predecessor, Jean Ziegler, caused a storm when he said using arable land to make fuel was a "crime against humanity". The current UN food envoy may use more tempered language but his message was broadly the same.

"I am calling ... for a freeze in any new investments in that kind of agrofuel which is directly competing with food."

On the last day of the three-day summit, corn futures set record highs at the Chicago Board of Trade after rain delayed seeding the US crop.

But the United States, which has managed to increase its maize output and exports while growing its bioethanol production, maintains that biofuels contribute only about 3 percent of total global food inflation which has seen commodities' prices double in the last couple of years.

"The reality is there is a basketfull of problems here that are causing food price increases and the majority of it is energy costs and increased consumption," Schafer said.

That is an argument the big biofuel countries will have to continue to make as the sceptics push for global controls.

De Schutter said pressure would continue for a strict code of conduct, which could be negotiated at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation which hosted the summit, to rein in biofuel, once considered a green alternative to oil.

"There is mounting scientific evidence that the use of energy to produce agrofuels, the use of water, the use of arable land is destructive to the environment, a threat to food security and feeding into speculation on the market," he said.

(Reporting by Robin Pomeroy)

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UK Chief scientist calls for 'green' food revolution

Roger Highfield, The Telegraph 5 Jun 08;

A call for a "new and greener" revolution to prevent half of the world's food from being lost before it even reaches the plate has been made by the Prime Minister's chief scientist.

The early Green Revolution refers to the transformation of agriculture that began in the 1940s in the developing world, and led to the spectacular increases in cereal crop yields in developing countries during the 1960s, through better seed quality, pesticides and irrigation.

"We have got to look for something new and different in what I call the new and greener revolution," says Prof John Beddington, Chief Scientific Adviser, speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival today, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph.

Food yields have not increased for around two decades, while there has been a significant rise in the world's population - expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. As a result, there have been "enormous increases in prices in the last year or so."

But the degree of food wastage is mind boggling. He points out that the world loses around 40 per cent of its key crops due to pest and disease: for maize, the figure is around 30 per cent; 37 per cent in the case of rice; and when it comes to potatoes, the figure is around 40 per cent.

After harvest, another 40 per cent of cereal crops is lost, he adds. In the case of wheat, for example, around 26 per cent never gets to be eaten.

If the world could stop the current crop loses that take place before food reaches the plate, it could double the global food supply in very rough terms. "You could make a major difference, though to be honest I have not calculated it," he says.

Because of greenhouse gas emissions and the climate change agenda, "we have to look for something different in the new revolution," he says. And that uses significantly less water.

By a second revolution he means the prudent use of pesticides, fertilisers and irrigation. The new revolution should also focus on making hardier crops. "There are cunning ways to get around that," he says, referring to how one crop can be planted to help protect another one nearby from pests and weeds.

Agriculture should also focus on new ways to store crops to stop spoilage. "These are the areas where the solutions are," says Prof Beddington.

Regarding genetically altered crops, he says that it is not "a silver bullet" when it comes to crop protection. "It can solve some problems", he says, such as helping plants to be more drought tolerant. But there are alternatives. "Crop improvement is possible using conventional breeding."

Global agriculture is under pressure from many factors - increasing energy prices, a shift to non food crops, climate change, water supply issues and alleviating poverty. By 2030, two thirds of the world will be living in cities, and these urban sprawls will compete with local agriculture for ever scarcer water supplies.

Another factor is the rise of the middle classes, since they leave a much bigger footprint on the planet's resources, as they demand high-value agricultural products and processed food compared with the desperately poor.

The strain is already showing in the food supply, which is at an all time low. Since 2005, world agricultural production has started to lag behind population growth and the resulting rise in demand for energy, and as the middle classes change their diet from pulses and grains to more meat, will put huge pressure on irrigation and agriculture.

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Climate change will add to food, utility bills

Gerard Wynn, Reuters 5 Jun 08;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate change presents a tough choice for governments determined both to fight global warming and tackle the rising cost of living.

Climate measures inflate energy costs by putting a price on burning fossil fuels and also stoke food bills by using farmland and crops to produce renewable fuels.

Now near-record oil and food prices coupled with a global economic slowdown have triggered unrest in several countries and demands to ease taxes on fuels and free up farmland for food.

"This important part of the global economy, food and energy, has been grossly distorted due to under-pricing of water and (carbon-free) air," Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz told Reuters.

The fight against climate change made higher food prices inevitable, he said. "People will have to adjust."

Officials from more than 170 countries this week tried to forge a new climate pact in U.N. talks in Germany that included steps such as emissions trading and taxes to brake emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, which will increase energy costs.

A summit in Rome tried on Thursday to unlock aid for the world's starving and many there blamed record food prices on climate policies which supported using vast quantities of the world's crops for biofuels.

Cutting U.S. and European farm and biofuel subsidies would reduce food bills, but there was no alternative to taxes on fossil fuels like oil to cut greenhouse gases, Stiglitz says.

A record oil price is already triggering street protests in Europe and unease in America and India. This threatens support for a climate fight that this week includes the first U.S. Senate debate of a climate change bill.

"The state of the U.S. economy, it's obviously slowed, makes discussion much more difficult," said chief U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson on Tuesday, a day after the White House said it would veto the bill.

The slowdown and the prospect of "earth-shaking" gasoline prices were making Americans nervous, especially given the uncertainty of future benefits from reducing warming, he said.

Climate policies aim to curb emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. But utilities pass on to consumers the extra costs of carbon taxes, emissions permits and supplying expensive solar power.

UBS analyst Per Lekander estimated the European Union's emissions trading scheme accounted for 15-20 percent of European power prices. Renewable energy policies contributed about 2 percent but were set to rise rapidly under ambitious EU goals.

"Clearly there's an inflationary aspect," he said.

U.N. scientists and renowned economists like Nick Stern say the climate fight will cost fractions of a percent in annual growth, but that is averaged over the long-term with much more impact in the near term than later.

FOOD AND WATER

The costs of major food commodities are climbing, with prices of rice, corn and wheat at or near record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

Climate change affects food in two ways, directly through events such as exceptional droughts, and via a policy response which has diverted food crops into making biofuels like ethanol, meant to be less carbon-emitting than gasoline.

The price link is debated -- Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer estimated that U.S. biofuels' consumption of corn was responsible for just 3 percent of global food price rises.

Aggressive U.S. biofuels targets will raise conventional ethanol production to more than double current levels, a U.S. state department official told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Say you double that to 6 percent (food price impact), it's still by no means the driving force, which is oil, the weather and emerging market demand," the official told Reuters.

Climate change can also add to household bills through water. Global "very dry areas" have more than doubled since the 1970s, according to a Citi report published in January.

The result is businesses spending more money to increase supply, through desalination plants, new pipes or lower demand via water meters -- costs which they may pass to consumers.

"In Las Vegas, where they have very little water, consumers are likely to pay," said Dan McCarthy, president of the water business of U.S.-based Black & Veatch, referring to a continuing drought in the Colorado River basin.

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