Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-22-Speech-2-253"
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"en.20080422.49.2-253"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, food is a right and should not therefore be subject solely to market rules or financial speculation. We are witnessing a crisis and protests that recall our riots for bread, people being killed because they are hungry.
The causes are many and they have already been mentioned: the rise in the price of oil, subsidies for the production of biofuels, bad weather, the increase in meat consumption, futures speculation on foods. What are our responsibilities? Mr Ziegler sums up the problem when he says that globalisation is monopolising the Earth’s riches. The multinationals are responsible for structural violence; they have built a world of inequality and horror. We need to end all this, he says. Will we listen to him?
In addition to the WTO rules, the European Union has opted for a common agricultural policy of subsidies that, although it once seemed inadequate, now appears rather destructive of international equilibrium. The application of quotas to our cereal production, along with set-aside measures, is also responsible for the situation we are facing today.
Let us watch out for the easy appeal of a pro-GMO lobby that promises to rid the world of famine, but which is an ephemeral shortcut that instead would cause enormous damage. British law has been described as madness because, although perhaps less polluting, it certainly does include biofuel quotas that do not prevent the destruction of natural habitats.
Among the possible actions, I would support Mr Ziegler’s suggestion of a five-year moratorium on the production of biofuels. We need to keep the promise we made to halve the number of people who die of hunger by 2015, and Louis Michel is right: increasing finance for the World Food Programme, even if it is our duty, is not the solution, and we welcome the emergency package and USD 10 million contributed for Haiti.
On the finance that has already been announced for African agriculture, I am delighted to hear Louis Michel, if I have understood him correctly, say that it will go to smaller producers and therefore to help subsistence farming, which contributes to overcoming the crisis particularly for the poorest, and not to multinationals dedicated to exporting, which would actually make countries even poorer and more dependent on imports."@en1
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