Irish farming interests protected under Sarkozy food security model

IRISH farming interests have been protected by the long-term food security and emergency food stocking model proposed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire at the G20 World Farm Leaders meeting in Paris.

IFA president John Bryan has welcomed France’s strong pro-food pronouncements. Both French leaders said agriculture will be at the forefront of global policies at the G20 discussion under the French presidency in 2011.

France is proposing a shared database on food stocks and harvests, a forum on export restrictions, emergency stocks in food-deficient countries and regulation to reduce commodity-price swings.

Minister Le Maire, who earlier this year also agreed a joint approach on certain core food strategies with Irish Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, is now also urging G20 partners to agree on a strong pro-food strategy to avoid the 21st century from becoming “the century of hunger”.

IFA president John Bryan said: “It was encouraging to hear President Sarkozy passionately calling for action to deal with the extreme price volatility which is damaging for farmers, consumers and society generally.

“The French president told the gathering of farm leaders from 120 countries that he would promote two key principles at the G20: more investment is required from public and private money in agriculture across the globe in areas such as research, processing, capacity, storage, logistics and access to markets.

“He said that it was a mistake that public investment in agriculture had dropped from 15% in the mid-1980s to just 5% today and this needs to be addressed.”

Mr Sarkozy also called for a global governance that would deliver better market transparency and regulate the financial derivatives markets to ensure that commodity prices reflect market conditions rather than speculation.

Meanwhile, though Irish and French views differ in relation to the management of milk production in the remaining quota years, Irish farming stakeholders were also encouraged by other statements made by France’s Minister Le Maire yesterday.

Mr Le Maire drew attention to three very sensitive points in the French G20 proposal — namely, transparency on stocks and production (“because it raises very big questions about national sovereignty”), as well as financial regulation of agricultural-commodity markets and export restrictions.

Mr Le Maire said: “The Chinese consider that being transparent on production and stocks, when you have 1.4 billion people to feed, risks showing a weakness or difficulty to the world. The European countries, in terms of transparency, are not good pupils. Many don’t want to disclose their stocks.”

In response, John Bryan said it was clear from the G20 conference that there is a renewed interest in the concerns facing global agriculture.