Tomorrow Obama is expected to make a big speech in Ghana, announcing a new American policy for food security in the Global South. There's a tiny bit of good in what he will announce - and a whole lot of bad. On the occasion of its Italy meeting, the G8 released a statement on food security that recognizes the need and the urgency for action. They say:
Effective food security actions must be coupled with adaptation and mitigation measures in relation to climate change, sustainable management of water, land, soil and other natural resources, including the protection of biodiversity.
That much is good, but sadly, they also call for more free trade, even after the ample amount of proof we already have that free trade policies (particularly coupled with the government subsidies in developed countries) harm food security rather than helping it. Their failure - and Obama's failure - to recognize the problems caused by free trade is nothing short of tragic.
So where's the good part I spoke of? Well, the U.S. is shifting from a "give a man a fish" strategy to a "teach a man to fish" strategy. Instead of shipping American-grown food to the developed world, we will focus on helping needy countries produce enough to feed themselves. And that much is fantastic - almost.
The problem is - and this is a big problem - the U.S. has no interest in taking the scientific, peer-reviewed, global consensus approach to global agriculture. We'd prefer to go a different route, one which has been dismissed by experts but embraced by multinational corporations.
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