Showing posts with label Food Security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Security. Show all posts
Sep 18, 2008
Fonterra Scandal
As a fourth child dies, Trans Tasman went to press yesterday with the suggestion that Fonterra might have been complicit in keeping the tainted milk product news hidden until after the Olympics were over. We were a little sceptical of this theory yesterday but news out overnight that another Chinese company that was an Olympics sponsor, has also been selling contaminated milk products, adds some credibility to yesterday's claims. Trans Tasman joined Fran O'Sullivan in criticising Fonterra's media management of this issue.
Jun 11, 2008
Will The 2008 Grain Harvest Ease Food Security Concerns?
A few months ago the expectation was that the market would start responding to higher prices and that production this year would increase. Unfortunately it looks as though bad weather (too much or too little rain) might mean otherwise. This is the subject of a front page article in the latest New York Times.
Jun 10, 2008
New York Times Calls For An End To Agriculture Subsidies
A few years back this lead Editorial in today's New York Times would have been regarded as a major foreign policy triumph for New Zealand. It shows how much the world has changed to our way of thinking. The challenge now is to take full advantage
POLITICS AND HUNGER
One might expect that food riots in Egypt and Haiti would convince the world’s wealthy nations of the need to do more to feed the world’s poorest. If not, maybe the threat of 100 million more people falling into poverty due to soaring food prices would spur them to help.
Yet at last week’s United Nations food summit, the world’s more-developed nations proved, once again, that domestic politics trumps both humanitarian concerns and sound strategic calculations.
Over the past year, the prices of grains and vegetable oils have nearly doubled. Rice has jumped by about half. The causes include soaring energy costs, drought in big agricultural producers, like Australia, and rising demand by a burgeoning middle class in China and India. But misguided mandates and subsidies in the United States and Europe to produce energy from crops are also playing an important role.
The International Monetary Fund estimated that biofuels — mainly American corn ethanol — accounted for almost half the growth in worldwide demand for major food crops last year. About a third of this country’s corn crop will go to ethanol this year. Yet at the summit meeting in Rome, the Bush administration insisted that ethanol is playing a very small role in rising food prices and resisted calls to limit the drive to convert food into fuel. The United States wasn’t alone.
Brazil, which has an enormous sugar-based ethanol industry, also rejected demands to curb biofuel production. Argentina objected to calls to end export taxes that it and other countries have erected to slow food exports. The United States and Europe also rejected suggestions that their farm subsidies should be blamed for depressing agricultural investment in poor countries.
Today, Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 50 years ago. Productivity has slowed to a crawl in India, Indonesia and China.
Several countries have pledged more aid in response to the crisis, but not nearly enough. The Bush administration wants to increase food assistance to $5 billion over two years.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there are 37 countries in critical need of food assistance. Many need not only food, but also seed and fertilizer to plant this season.
According to the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, world food production must rise 50 percent by 2030. This will require investments exceeding $15 billion to $20 billion a year in the farm economies of poor countries, including research into robust, high-yielding crops suited to poor regions like sub-Saharan Africa.
After 9/11 the world’s richest nations saw the link between hunger, alienation and terrorism. They offered a trade deal to eliminate the agricultural subsidies and tariffs that were pushing farmers in developing countries out of the market and further into poverty. Seven years later the tariffs and subsidies are still there.
One of the most useful things industrialized countries could do would be to deliver on their promise and end the fat subsidies they provide their farmers no matter how high prices go. These subsidies depressed food prices for years and discouraged investment in agriculture across much of the developing world.
In a world of growing demand and far too much hunger, they have no justification at all.
POLITICS AND HUNGER
One might expect that food riots in Egypt and Haiti would convince the world’s wealthy nations of the need to do more to feed the world’s poorest. If not, maybe the threat of 100 million more people falling into poverty due to soaring food prices would spur them to help.
Yet at last week’s United Nations food summit, the world’s more-developed nations proved, once again, that domestic politics trumps both humanitarian concerns and sound strategic calculations.
Over the past year, the prices of grains and vegetable oils have nearly doubled. Rice has jumped by about half. The causes include soaring energy costs, drought in big agricultural producers, like Australia, and rising demand by a burgeoning middle class in China and India. But misguided mandates and subsidies in the United States and Europe to produce energy from crops are also playing an important role.
The International Monetary Fund estimated that biofuels — mainly American corn ethanol — accounted for almost half the growth in worldwide demand for major food crops last year. About a third of this country’s corn crop will go to ethanol this year. Yet at the summit meeting in Rome, the Bush administration insisted that ethanol is playing a very small role in rising food prices and resisted calls to limit the drive to convert food into fuel. The United States wasn’t alone.
Brazil, which has an enormous sugar-based ethanol industry, also rejected demands to curb biofuel production. Argentina objected to calls to end export taxes that it and other countries have erected to slow food exports. The United States and Europe also rejected suggestions that their farm subsidies should be blamed for depressing agricultural investment in poor countries.
Today, Africa has less large-scale commercial agriculture than it had 50 years ago. Productivity has slowed to a crawl in India, Indonesia and China.
Several countries have pledged more aid in response to the crisis, but not nearly enough. The Bush administration wants to increase food assistance to $5 billion over two years.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, there are 37 countries in critical need of food assistance. Many need not only food, but also seed and fertilizer to plant this season.
According to the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, world food production must rise 50 percent by 2030. This will require investments exceeding $15 billion to $20 billion a year in the farm economies of poor countries, including research into robust, high-yielding crops suited to poor regions like sub-Saharan Africa.
After 9/11 the world’s richest nations saw the link between hunger, alienation and terrorism. They offered a trade deal to eliminate the agricultural subsidies and tariffs that were pushing farmers in developing countries out of the market and further into poverty. Seven years later the tariffs and subsidies are still there.
One of the most useful things industrialized countries could do would be to deliver on their promise and end the fat subsidies they provide their farmers no matter how high prices go. These subsidies depressed food prices for years and discouraged investment in agriculture across much of the developing world.
In a world of growing demand and far too much hunger, they have no justification at all.
Jun 8, 2008
The Australia Relationship
Fran O'Sullivan today previews the forthcoming meeting of Australian and New Zealand political and business leaders at the leadership forum next weekend. This is our most important relationship and in some ways the most sensitive. It is another relationship that has really not developed much at Government to Government level in recent years, in sharp contrast to the ever increasing economic integration that is occurring. Attempts by the previous co-chairs of the relationship to take the formal relationship forward saw them being fired. On the New Zealand side the Chair is now an SOE chief - NZ Post's John Allen, deemed by MFAT and Government to be a safe pair of hands (ie will do what he is told and won't rock the boat).
Fran looks at what is on the agenda for the discussions and then looks at what should be up for discussion. It will be a great shame if the leaders from both sides of the Tasman don't take this opportunity to discuss Fran's agenda (perhaps with the Customs Union idea dropped).
We also hope that National's Tim Groser is part of the process. He was one of the original negotiators of CER and would be well placed to lead discussion on the first item of Fran's agenda.
What should be on agenda?
The global food crisis: New Zealand and Australia can take leadership on pushing for freer farm trade at the WTO. New Zealand's long-run economic prospects are quite rosy given the dire outlook for food supplies as the world population escalates. This factor is not appreciated sufficiently by Australian elites.
The credit crunch: The New Zealand Reserve Bank fought off an attempt to administer Australasian banking prudential supervision by a single regulator. With the credit crunch in full swing, the wisdom of governor Alan Bollard's subsequent moves to bolster the capital of New Zealand-domiciled banks is clear: the Australian parent banks have not "turned off the tap". But there are still common challenges which should be confronted.
Taxation: Leading Kiwi accountants such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers' John Shewan were chastised by Costello for pushing for mutual recognition of imputation or franking credits. But as the transtasman investment environment gains greater connectivity this issue cannot be left off the table.
Currency: National's John Key pushed a common currency at the last forum and has continued to do so. His contention is Kiwi business would benefit through lower transactional costs. Opponents have pointed to negatives, such as the end of an independent monetary, loss of economic sovereignty and a reduced ability to insulate ourselves from any shocks befalling the Australian economy.
Customs union: The Treasury asked the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research to explore a transtasman customs union, a free trade area with a common tariff. There are revenue implications on both sides and difficulties posed by the varying degrees of protection.
Fran looks at what is on the agenda for the discussions and then looks at what should be up for discussion. It will be a great shame if the leaders from both sides of the Tasman don't take this opportunity to discuss Fran's agenda (perhaps with the Customs Union idea dropped).
We also hope that National's Tim Groser is part of the process. He was one of the original negotiators of CER and would be well placed to lead discussion on the first item of Fran's agenda.
What should be on agenda?
The global food crisis: New Zealand and Australia can take leadership on pushing for freer farm trade at the WTO. New Zealand's long-run economic prospects are quite rosy given the dire outlook for food supplies as the world population escalates. This factor is not appreciated sufficiently by Australian elites.
The credit crunch: The New Zealand Reserve Bank fought off an attempt to administer Australasian banking prudential supervision by a single regulator. With the credit crunch in full swing, the wisdom of governor Alan Bollard's subsequent moves to bolster the capital of New Zealand-domiciled banks is clear: the Australian parent banks have not "turned off the tap". But there are still common challenges which should be confronted.
Taxation: Leading Kiwi accountants such as PriceWaterhouseCoopers' John Shewan were chastised by Costello for pushing for mutual recognition of imputation or franking credits. But as the transtasman investment environment gains greater connectivity this issue cannot be left off the table.
Currency: National's John Key pushed a common currency at the last forum and has continued to do so. His contention is Kiwi business would benefit through lower transactional costs. Opponents have pointed to negatives, such as the end of an independent monetary, loss of economic sovereignty and a reduced ability to insulate ourselves from any shocks befalling the Australian economy.
Customs union: The Treasury asked the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research to explore a transtasman customs union, a free trade area with a common tariff. There are revenue implications on both sides and difficulties posed by the varying degrees of protection.
Jun 4, 2008
Selfish Greens Want To Exacerbate World Food Shortages
Here we have crisis talks going on about how to feed the world. The UN is rightly calling for a free trade solution. Yet our Green Party is wanting to impede New Zealand's ability to maintain existing levels or expand dairy exports with its range of anti-Fonterra policies announced over the weekend. Why is the media not taking them on?
May 15, 2008
New Zealand - The Saudi Arabia Of Milk
We missed this article in the Wall Street Journal the other day so though we should share this review of the New Zealand dairy industry with our readers. It shows how important it is to world food production that New Zealand be allowed to expand supply (there is also an interesting analysis of the cooperative model in farming). Unfortunatly there are groups in New Zealand who want the reverse - reduction in dairy. And the ETS might deliver that outcome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)