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Symposium on food security and biodiversity: Benefit sharing
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Opening Remarks
Ambassador Walter Fust
Director General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) |
It is my particular pleasure to welcome you all to this one day symposium on food
security and biodiversity at the occasion of the world food day here in Basel. We all,
stakeholders from civil society, public, private and research sectors do share one
common objective: To make sure that the worlds' plant genetic resources for
food and agriculture remain widely accessible and their benefits be equitably
shared.
It will be our challenge today to review the respective mechanisms under the FAO
Treaty in the wider context. Ensuring food security is part of the global effort towards
a more sustainable future. But it is further influenced by other factors such as
conflicts and failing states, by trade related issues, but also the digital divide between
North and South, to name but a few important context elements.
My perception is that the pace of economic globalisation today is not matched by the
pace in international development. Some regional progress in the economic, health
and education sectors in past decades cannot explain away the growing rift between
rich and poor. This is not so much a North-South problem alone, but one between
regions and between urban and rural areas. The struggle for access to ever-scarcer
resources contributes to ethnic and religious tension. Conflict and international
migration are some effects of scale of this development.
On the other hand, borders are open today, there is a free flow of information,
advances in technology and increasing awareness of the interdependence among
nations, all carrying the promise for a better future. Switzerland's development
cooperation aims to help reduce this gap between rich and poor, not in a condescending
way but according to the principles of justice and partnership with the people
concerned.
The title of today's symposium is food security and biodiversity. Food is a human
being's most elementary basic need. To achieve a food secure world is perhaps
the single most important goal on the development agenda for the coming
decades. At the World Food Summit 1996, the global community agreed on the
target to halve the number of hungry people in the world by 2015. To reach this
target, 22 million people need to escape from food insecurity every year. But so far
only 6 million have been fortunate enough to do so each year. Still over 800 million
people suffer from malnutrition and hunger and this in a world that is basically
producing enough food for everyone.
It has not come to a surprise that at the World Summit for Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg, food security and biodiversity have been recognised as key
components to reduce poverty. The right of every human being to live in a world free
from hunger has been reemphasised ever since and is enshrined in the Millennium
Development Declaration which provides the guiding compass for international cooperation
today.
Basically, global food security has at least three dimensions: availability, access
and sustainability. Several critical driving forces will determine its future, such as:
- The accelerating globalisation and trade liberalisation
- The changing roles of key actors such as national governments vs. local
governments, NGOs, private sector and other part of civil society).
- The changing face of farming economies, in terms of labour, size,
intensification.
- Climate change, increasing incidences of natural disasters and its effects on
food production.
- The degradation of natural resources and the emerging water crisis.
- The rapid urbanisation, with less producers feeding increasingly more people.
- Current health and nutrition crises among the poor, with particular focus in
Africa.
- continued tensions and conflict, obstructing both production and distribution of
food to the needy population.
- The technological advances in modern sciences.
- A growing public awareness among nations that effective measures to address
these complex challenges are urgent.
These and perhaps other critical factors will largely determine the ambitious goal to
achieve a world free from hunger by 2015.
The world is still growing by an estimated 80 million people a year, resulting in a rapid
increase of food requirements. On the other hand, crop diversity is at serious
risk. An astonishing 8 percent out of the known 250,000 species of flowering plants
are likely to disappear before 2025. Over 15 million hectares of tropical forests
containing the largest pool of biodiversity are lost each year. According to FAO,
traditional crop varieties have been dwindling by 90% in the past century alone.
Natural disasters, mismanagement of natural resources and population pressure all
add up to this. This loss in diversity has serious implications on global food security.
Therefore a number of international agreements to conserve crop diversity and
species collections have been adopted. Among them are the Convention on
Biological Diversity (1992), a Global Plan of Action (1996) that lays out the critical
steps for the conservation and use of crop diversity; and the International Treaty on
Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (2001). The latter is
recognising the need for a multilateral system that establishes for the first time
international law laying out rules for conservation, utilisation, access to and benefit
sharing for plants of agricultural importance.
SDC has been actively supporting these international instruments. They form an
integral part of our development agenda. Sustainable use of natural resources
through promoting biodiversity-conform agricultural and agrobiological
production is one out of the five key policy domains of SDC.
Regarding the implementation of the Treaty we consider a first objective to be the
establishment of a system that keeps the diversity of plant genetic resources in
perpetuity. The Global Crop Diversity Trust – an initiative of the Future Harvest
Group together with World Bank and FAO - is one such financing instrument for the
Treaty. Switzerland is committed to this Trust since its inception.
Secondly, genetic resources for food and agriculture are important for both
developed and developing country agriculture and for both commercial enterprises
and small farmers. Recognising this shared goal, the success of the Treaty will
depend on the final layout of the material transfer agreement and its conditions for
access and benefit sharing. Undoubtedly, it is here where public and private
partners, NGOs and civil society have to work hand in hand. This is another
reason why we gather here in Basel for such an open platform.
No doubt, maintaining a diversity of crops and varieties is a key to survival for
millions of small farmers worldwide. For thousands of years they have used the
genetic variation in wild and cultivated plants to develop their crops and raise more
nutritious, resistant and productive new breeds. Such crops are the life-line in the
fight against poverty and hunger. Farmers and breeders must constantly bolster
crops against pests, diseases, weeds, drought, poor soils and other farming
problems by breeding in new characteristics to protect them. Crop diversity is the
pool from which they draw these traits. Today 75% of the 1.2 billion people earning a
dollar a day or less live in rural areas. It is here where SDC undertakes its key
mandate and is engaged in securing biodiversity for food security.
Before concluding, I like to express the hope that we will have a frank and open
dialogue today on these concerns. Moreover, I am extremely pleased to see so
many stakeholders and interested parties who have followed our invitation to learn
from international collective experiences on the subject.
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