World Grain - August 2011 - 82

FEATURE: PLAN FOR ENHANCING FOOD SECURITY REVEALED

respond to food market crisis more efﬁciently. • Improve and develop risk management tools for governments, ﬁrms and farmers in order to build capacity to manage and mitigate the risks associated with food price volatility, in particular in the poorest countries.

ability, price increases and volatility and agricultural sustainability. More substantive were proposals regarding market information and transparency. “We recognize the importance of timely, accurate and transparent information in helping to address food price volatil-

While food price volatility attracted considerable attention at the meeting and within the ministerial declaration, the need for enhanced food security was emphasized as the group’s principal focus.

• Improve the functioning of agricultural commodities’ derivatives markets. The ministers skirted around a number of agricultural issues that remain highly contentious internationally. While advocating improvements in agricultural technology, there is no mention of the role of agricultural biotechnology. Similarly, the group called for “further cooperation in strengthening international governance of agricultural trade in favor of open global markets.” While calling for a successful conclusion to the Doha Development Round, no path toward resolving the thorny issues that have held up an agreement was offered. Also, somewhat vague were references to climate change in the context of the food security objectives. “We recall the triple challenge for agriculture: meeting food security objectives while adapting to climate change and reducing its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions,” the declaration said. “This requires (growers) to improve the efﬁciency, productivity and adaptive capacity of agricultural systems in a sustainable manner.” Still another issue lightly touched in the declaration were the “challenges and opportunities posed by biofuels.” The group called for analysis to be conducted on the relationship between biofuels production and food avail82

ity, and agree on the need to improve the quality, reliability, accuracy, timeliness and comparability of data on agricultural markets (production, consumption and stocks),” the ministers said. “We decided to launch the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) in order to encourage major players on the agri-food markets to share data, to enhance existing information systems, to promote greater shared understanding of food price developments, and further policy dialogue and cooperation. The AMIS will involve G20 countries in the early stage and invite other main grain and oilseeds producing, exporting and importing countries, representatives from major commodity exchange markets and the private sector to participate. The Secretariat of AMIS will be housed in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy and will include a number of international organizations including the FAO, World Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Food Policy Research Institute, World Food Programme, World Trade Organization and others. In view of its experience and expertise, the London-based International Grains Council will be cooperating in the development of this initiative. The AMIS Global Food Market Information Team’s ﬁrst meeting is sched-

uled for September. Comprehensive food market indicators will be developed between January and March 2012, and data collection, examination and consolidation will be carried out by the AMIS Secretariat beginning in March 2012. The collection of data will be realized by means of electronic questionnaires and an AMIS collaborative website where participating countries will directly input the data. The ﬁrst enhanced global market outlook and situation (the main information product of AMIS) will be published by June 2012, the ministers said. AMIS will improve agricultural market outlook and forecasts at both national and international levels for wheat, maize, rice and soybeans, with plans for additional commodities to be added in the future. Even as the group recognized the importance of free and open agricultural trade, the ministers acknowledged the need for “targeted safety nets.” The ministers supported the development of a proposal for a “targeted emergency humanitarian food reserve system” to complement regional and national reserves. The proposal is for the system to cover a limited group of countries selected from Low Income Food Deﬁcit Countries as determined by FAO and Least Developed Countries as deﬁned by the United Nations General Assembly in a particular region. INITIATIVE FOR WHEAT IMPROVEMENT Still more speciﬁc was an appendix document calling for creation of an International Research Initiative for Wheat Improvement (IRIWI). The main objective of the program will be cooperation in “worldwide bread and durum wheat improvement and research efforts in the ﬁelds of genomics, genetics and agronomy, to increase food security, wheat nutritional value and safety while taking into account societal demands for resilient agricultural production systems.”
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World Grain - August 2011

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