wfn.org | Reaction to World Food Summit

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3313 notes).

Note 3310 by UMNS on Nov. 27, 1996 at 13:33 Eastern (4255 characters).

SEARCH:   food, summit, agribusiness, NGO, Harrison, Rome
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CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                      596(10-24-71B){3310}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           Nov. 27, 1996

NOTE: This story may be used with UMNS #594 {3308}.

Agency staff member cites
weaknesses in world food summit

                 by United Methodist News Service

     WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- Returning from Rome, Italy, after the
world food summit in November, United Methodist Board of Church
and Society executive Mark Harrison did not hold much hope for
positive results.
     "This summit did not have the international impact that
previous U.N. gatherings had. It was not a U.N. conference. This
meeting was an FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization]
conference," explained Harrison, program director for economic
justice for the board.
     Although there was a document, no nation signed it; and there
is no way to enforce the concepts in it, Harrison said.
     "So it was a week of opportunity to talk about the issues of
hunger, poverty, sustainable development," he concluded of both
the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) forum and the world food
summit attended by such officials as U.S. Department of
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.
     Glickman presented a speech at the summit in which he said,
"The United States shares the belief that hunger is a
fundamentally unacceptable human condition -- whether it exists on
American soil or anywhere in the world."
     He went on to say that the United States is doing a great
deal toward eliminating world hunger, but that developing nations
must change their national policies, that a world market is
"essential to global food security," and that waste should be
eliminated, research encouraged and the private sector involved. 
     Harrison said although officials made it sound like the
United States agrees with the idea of a basic right to food, "the
U.S. is never for a basic right to food." 
     He and others also had problems with the way the United
States officials talked about enhancing the environment and pushed
free trade as a solution to world hunger.
     "Is it an environment for small producers and micro-
enterprise, or is it an environment that makes countries open up
their markets to agribusiness?" Harrison questioned. "The role
that agribusiness plays was never discussed in any formal way
within the plan of action declaration."
     While the religious community was represented in Rome, it was
not as strong a presence as it should have been, Harrison said.
Although more than 1,000 people from all the nations of the world
attended the NGO forum, the U.S. churches should have had more
people there, he said, adding that he was the only United
Methodist from any of the church's agencies.
     The United States has admitted having a food access problem
in inner city and rural neighborhoods, Harrison said, but no one
working on that issue was in the U.S. delegation to the summit.
     The religious community among the NGOs were concerned that
there was "no discussion of over-consumption," Harrison reported.
The United States will not talk about over-consumption, he said.
"That's a taboo for the United States."
     Population or over-population is, however, a problem the
United States mentions in connection with food and hunger
problems. The Pope, in addressing the summit, did not emphasize
the traditional Roman Catholic stance against birth control.
Harrison said there was much support for the Pope's statements in
this instance.
     Harrison expressed concern about follow-up. When there was
discussion of calling for a code of conduct or a covenant for the
nations, it appeared that it was the North Americans and the
Europeans discussing these possible courses of action without much
involvement on the part of the other NGOs, he said. 
     He said he is convinced that the NGOs will continue to push
their own governments on the issue of food security or
availability, and he finds some hope in that.
                              #  #  #

     

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