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G20 Summit: Positive Conclusions for Agriculture and Food Security
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21 November 2011 |
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The G20 Summit held in Cannes on November 3 and 4, 2011 marked the end of the G20 French Presidency. While agriculture and food security issues were somewhat overshadowed by the crisis in Greece in the eyes of the general public, the fact remains that significant advances were confirmed by the Heads of State and governments.
Taking up on the Action Plan approved this past June by the Ministers of Agriculture, the Cannes Summit Final Declaration identified a series of priorities to “promote agriculture and fight price volatility”:
- Increasing production and productivity by fostering investment in research and development;
- Improving market transparency through the creation of the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS), whose first report has already been published on November 2;
- Strengthening regulation in commodity derivatives markets;
- Developing risk management and humanitarian emergency instruments through the implementation of emergency reserves in Western African countries, to assess their effectiveness;
- Expanding the international community’s capacity to coordinate policies and provide common responses in time of market crisis through the introduction of the “Rapid Reaction Forum”.
One might certainly regret that the issue of reserves as market stabilization agent was not raised, nor that of concrete procedures regarding market regulation. History will record that the G20 French Presidency definitively put the issue of food security and the fight against agricultural price volatility at the heart of the talks, thus stimulating a series of actions to curb such volatility in the coming months.
What is now at stake for the G20 Mexican Presidency and for key international organizations is to pursue the process that has been engaged.
For his part, momagri will continue to recommend instruments and analyses in order to fuel the debates among players and decision-makers. |
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