G-14 Farmer leaders meet in Treviso - Summary Report :
On 17th April 2009, IFAP held, with CIA, a meeting of G-14 farmer leaders in the mountain village of Pieve di Soligo in the Province of Treviso, Italy. It’s purpose was to bring the farmers’ voice to the first G-8 Agriculture Ministers meeting which would take place in the same region the next day. |
| Opening the meeting, IFAP Vice-President Elisabeth Gauffin, said that governments must recognize the role agriculture and farmers can play in bringing solutions to many critical problems facing society throughout the world. These include: achieving food security, mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity, and sustainable management of natural resources. |
The President of the Italian host organisation CIA, Giuseppe Politi, said that the G-8 needed to make a clear commitment to promote policies to develop agriculture worldwide, and make the necessary resources available. These policies need to place farmers at the heart of economic and social development. |
| The Vice-President of IFAP’s other Italian member organisation Coldiretti, Giorgio Piazza, stressed that the world can be free from hunger if farmers are able derive a decent income from their work, otherwise there is a risk that more farmers will decide that there is no future for them in agriculture. He presented to the Chair a copy of the declaration drawn up by G-8 farmers in Rome in March. The Vice-President of Confagricultura, Antonio Borsetto, supported these messages, saying that farmers in both the developing countries and the G-8 need to increase agricultural productivity to meet world food needs. It was also important to build an open global society with freedom of choice under different rules that those of today, but avoiding protectionism. |
FAO representative, Richard China, said that before 2007 there were already 750 million undernourished people in the world. The global food crisis had lifted this to almost 1 billion in 2008. In 2009, the impact of the global financial crisis and recession is expected to raise this further, as capital inflows and remittances into developing countries are reduced. Many pledges are made to tackle hunger, he said, but these are rarely fulfilled. Even in a time of economic crisis in makes sense to invest in agriculture. Mr. China said that the cost of cutting hunger by half by 2015 would be $30 billion per year; the return in economic growth for this investment would be around $1 trillion. Thus there is a strong economic as well as moral argument, for increasing investments in agriculture, he concluded. |
| Farmers call for a global action plan for agriculture : |
There was a rich discussion in which the G-14 farmer leaders called for governments to accept their responsibilities and follow their many declarations with a long-term global plan for agriculture, with clear time-bound objectives and strong stakeholder participation. They noted that there is a lot of development aid in the system to deal with world hunger, but farmers are concerned that this will be ‘money out of the window’ if it is not invested in sound development plans. Measures are needed to raise agricultural output sustainably, but also to increase the purchasing power of the 1 billion poor people who are suffering from hunger and cannot express their needs in economic terms. To be successful, a global action plan needs a strong political framework and active participation of the farmers’ organisations. Farmers are willing to contribute to the development and implementation of plans in each country. |
| Farmers also called for more investment in research “to produce more but under better conditions”. Most of the farm work throughout the world is done by women farmers, so it is especially important to improve conditions for them. Knowledge, education, research and technology were necessary to “get production systems right”. |
| “Put food and farming first” says Minister Zaia : |
The Chair of the G-8 Agricultural Ministers meeting, Luca Zaia of Italy, participated in the IFAP meeting. He told delegates that G-8 ministers would produce “more than fine words”. He wanted to develop a new philosophy that placed food security first, above mercantile interests. It is intolerable that 3 million children die from hunger every year, while traders get rich speculating on food crops, he stressed. Agricultural production must be increased and this means supporting farmers, he continued. Speculation on wheat and other food crops should be banned. Food waste should be reduced. In answer to questions, Minister Zaia agreed that there should be a system for consultation of farmers’ organisations; this was not a problem in Italy, he said, but he would raise it with the other countries. |
Under-Secretary of State for Agriculture, Antonio Buonfiglio, addressed the conference before the minister arrived. He said that the ‘global food crisis’ was a destructive force, but it could also be a force for regeneration of agriculture and for bringing greater democracy to global decision-making. Changes to the international legal and management frameworks concerning agriculture were needed, including support for the ‘right to food’, support for local agricultural production tied to local territories, and a food stocking policy. |
| Open letter given to Minister Zaia : |
| The G-14 farmers’ conference adopted an ‘Open Letter’ that was given to Minister Zaia at a press conference for him to convey to the G-8 Agricultural Ministers meeting. The Open Letter stresses that farmers, men and women, are at the heart of the solution to the world food security problem. It calls for a radical shift in thinking that places the farmer at the centre of sound and sustainable agricultural systems. Policies are needed that create employment, protect eco-systems and deliver fair prices for consumers and producers. |
| The issues facing the G-8 are not new; the solutions are known. The key is now to translate good intentions to real impacts to farmers on the ground, working with farmers’ organisations to meet time-bound objectives. |
The Open Letter also called for more resources to build the capacity of farmers to be better organised. It drew attention to the farmer-to-farmer cooperation under AgriCord’s ‘Farmers Fighting Poverty Program’ and called for more resources to be targeted to such initiatives. |
| Abruzzo earthquake : |
The conference also issued a communiqué expressing solidarity and support for the people of the region of Abruzzo in Italy who were severely hit by the recent earthquake, losing their loved ones, their farms and their houses. |
| Rendez-vous in Canada in 2010 : |
A strong Canadian farmer delegation took part in the conference. CFA President Laurent Pellerin said that this conference had launched a process that farmers would continue in Canada in 2010 at the next meeting of the G-8. Over the year ahead we must work to keep agriculture on the global agenda, press world leaders to implement agreed commitments, and continue to play our part as farmers in the sustainable development of agriculture. |
Some 40 delegates from IFAP member organisations participated in the meeting from Canada, France, Italy, India, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden (IFAP Vice-President) along with observers from CEJA, COPA-COGECA, FAO, and the Canadian Embassy. |
