Statement by H.E. Mr Gary Quinlan, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations Second Committee regarding agriculture development and food security. As delivered 28 October 2010.
(as delivered)
Mr Chairman,
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to today’s discussion.
As we know, in 2008 the international community mobilised to respond to the global food price crisis. We worked together to provide emergency food aid to affected communities. And we recognised the need to prioritise support for longer-term efforts to revitalise agriculture in developing countries. We also decided to ensure the General Assembly’s continued attention to these issues, through including this new agenda item in the Second Committee.
The Secretary-General’s report on agriculture development and food security highlights a range of important actions which have been taken since 2008. The High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis has made an influential contribution to ensuring a much more coordinated UN approach to agriculture and food security.
Australia has welcomed the efforts this year to update the Comprehensive Framework for Action, developed with input from many stakeholders to increase focus on environmental sustainability, gender equity, improved nutrition and the needs of the most food insecure. We also welcome the ongoing reform of the UN’s Committee for World Food Security (CFS), and its efforts to be an inclusive platform that will collaboratively address the challenges of food and nutrition security.
Another important recent development has been the establishment of the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). Earlier this month, Australia announced we would contribute $50 million initially to the GAFSP. We recognise the GAFSP as a significant step forward in global cooperation, ensuring funds are available to support developing countries in their efforts to increase poor people’s incomes, stimulate agricultural productivity and improve long-term food and nutrition security.
Mr Chairman,
Australia’s contribution to the GAFSP is part of a comprehensive approach through Australia’s development assistance program to help address the root causes of food and nutrition insecurity.
We tried to respond quickly to the initial impacts of the 2008 food price crisis. We will spend around $300 million on agriculture and food security assistance to developing countries this year. And as our development assistance program doubles from its current level over the next five years, we plan to contribute around $1.8 billion in support for agricultural development and food security. Significant new parts of this program will be directed to Africa.
Mr Chairman,
I might note that the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) is coming up to its 30th anniversary since its 1982 establishment. Over nearly three decades, ACIAR has carried out over 1,200 collaborative agricultural development projects in more than 50 developing countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Pacific.
These projects have ranged from boosting rice yields in Cambodia, to improving aquaculture in Indonesia, to lifting smallholder dairy production in Pakistan, to assisting beef cattle smallholders in southern Africa. We hope that ACIAR has made a good contribution. Certainly our intention is to see it support agricultural research, capacity building, and technology transfer in even bigger ways in the future.
Mr Chairman,
Our efforts to promote agriculture development and food security cannot be limited to development assistance. Australia recognises that reforms to international trade policies are also vital. We are concerned that distortions to global agriculture and food markets – caused in particular by trade barriers and production and export subsidies – are a key factor suppressing agricultural sector growth in developing countries.
These global market distortions have discouraged investment and slowed productivity growth in agriculture in much of the developing world. The major dislocation of global agricultural and food production patterns caused by these market distortions over several decades was a key factor in the tightened demand-supply situation and global food price spike we experienced in 2007-08.
Reducing agricultural subsidies and trade barriers will increase opportunities and incentives for developing country farmers to lift their food output and supply more to domestic and world markets, and thereby improve their incomes. It will also help reduce the risks of another food price crisis.
For these and other reasons, Australia continues to work hard toward an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Round of trade negotiations, in the WTO and other forums, and in our bilateral diplomacy. We will continue to press through the Cairns group of agricultural producing countries for progress in the area of agriculture and food security in particular. We call on all member states to re-energise their efforts on trade, and to implement commitments already made – we really do just have to get serious about this.
Thank you.