“Food for all“: slogan or worthy goal?

Abstract

“Food for All” is the slogan, or goal perhaps, of the World Food Summit to be held on Nov 13–17 in Rome. The meeting will be a showcase for nongovernmental organisations and heads of state to register their support for another worthy event originating from a UN agency. But how will this gathering help the 800 million people who still endure malnutrition or chronic hunger? Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation since 1994, acknowledges that the summit may be seen by some critics as simply a “party of political superstars”. But he remains optimistic. He cites figures showing that while the world's population rose by 40% during the past 20 years, food production grew by 50%, although Africa is an exception to this trend. The problem is not quantity, but access. Nevertheless, food production will have to increase by 75% over the next 30 years to feed 9 billion people. The target, then, becomes food security, in which “all people at all times have access to the food they need for an active and healthy life”. Can science help to meet this social need? In part. FAO estimates that about two-fifths of the world's food production comes from only 17% of land that is irrigated. As much as 80% of any increase in food production must come from such land, with better pest control and wider crop varieties. Improving productivity while retaining environmental sustainability will require large-scale investment in agricultural technologies derived from research. Is the FAO up to the task? Brian Urquhart and the late Erskine Childers, in their review of the UN system (A World in Need of Leadership: Tomorrow's United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöuld Foundation) doubt it: “Too hasty optimism in the North about the ‘Green Revolution’ caused governments to assume that food security and a strong Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN need no longer have high priority. The same kind of optimism, combined with energetic sales promotion, generated the dangerous reliance on chemical fertilisers. Apart from their ecological damage, since 1990 the use of fertilisers has drastically fallen because grains no longer respond to them; but there is now no early substitute for fertiliser-based grains, and cropland available per capita has not expanded. World food reserves are now lower than they were in the food security crisis of 1974. Yet again, the insistence of Northern advisers that developing countries' maintain their colonial-era cash crops for export, combined with the dumping of subsidised Northern food, has resulted in deficient national food production: developing countries' needs of cereal imports will increase by 50 % over the next 15 years”. Part of the difficulty that faces not only the FAO but also other UN agencies is leadership: how candidates to run key UN agencies are nominated and how they are selected. The bias in favour of the incumbent remains enormous. Since the FAO's inception in 1945, there have been seven previous directors general; the first three covered an 11-year period, while the next three had much longer terms of office (B R Sen 1956–67, A H Boerma 1968–75, and E Saouma 1976–93). Urquhart and Childers recommend a non-renewable seven-year term of office for all chief executives across the UN. What further avenues might the FAO pursue in its quest for food security? Kevin Cahill, Director of the Center for International Health and Cooperation and a professor of tropical medicine, has focused on the notion of preventive diplomacy. In his recent book about the role of the UN in stopping wars before they start (Preventive Diplomacy, BasicBooks) he invited contributors to pass their ideas through “the prism of public health”. The FAO might do the same. Of particular importance, as Eoin O'Brien points out, is the need to strengthen international surveillance to identify vulnerable populations. His discussion is directed mainly at emerging infections, but it could be equally applied to food shortages. Public-health strategies could provide some useful lessons for those concerned with food security. As delegates prepare for Rome, we hope they will be thinking how to prevent FAO's “Food For All” from becoming a meaningless platitude, the unfortunate fate of WHO's “Health for All”.