France’s answer to global food crisis is EU protectionism

France has launched a political campaign to restore food protectionism at the heart of Europe’s agriculture policy as food riots erupt in poor countries and global leaders give warning of the dire consequences of soaring grain prices. At a high-level EU agriculture meeting in Luxembourg, Michel Barnier, the French Agriculture Minister, called on Europe to establish a food security plan and to resist further cuts in Europe’s agriculture budget.

Mr Barnier said that the EU should not bow to pressure from the World Trade Organisation to reduce further its agricultural subsidies but instead should increase aid to farmers in developing countries. The French initiative at the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council follows a week in which food riots toppled the Government of Haiti and the President of the World Bank voiced concerns about the consequences of food price escalation. It also coincides with Gordon Brown’s calling for concerted international action to tackle rising food prices, including a world trade deal that cuts subsidies to richer countries. In a speech at Goldman Sachs in London today, the Prime Minister is to raise questions about the effect that the rapid move towards biofuels is having on food production and prices. Mr Brown, who is trying to get the issue on to the agenda of the G8 summit in Japan in July, says today that a doubling of wheat and rice prices has pushed world food prices up by 45 per cent, while food reserves are at their lowest for 30 years. He will call for a trade deal that allows poorer countries greater access to developed world markets, as well as international support for agricultural research and short-term help with imports from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for countries suffering balance of payments difficulties. Mr Brown is also urging the chairman of the G8 group of industrialised nations to lead an international plan on food prices. He wants Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese Prime Minister, to ask the World Bank, IMF and UN to work together on a strategy. Robert Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, said that a doubling of food prices in two years was pushing 100 million people into deeper long-term poverty. “We have to put our money where our mouth is now, so that we can put food into hungry mouths.

Full Story France’s answer to global food crisis is EU protectionism

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