"After our youngest son had seen Star Wars for the twelfth or thirteenth time, I said, "Why do you go so often?" He said, "For the same reason you have been reading the Old Testament all of your life." He was in a new world of myth." Bill Moyers, interview with Joseph Campbell
United
Nations, July 19: Slamming the rich countries for "astronomical"
farm subsidies, India has said it was one of the main factors
that "systematically undermined" the agricultural
productive capacity and "devastated" the food security
in developing nations.
Indian
Ambassador to the UN, Nirupam Sen, also sharply criticised
the argument that current world food crisis presented both
threat and an opportunity, saying it would be "unfortunate"
to present the "desperation of millions of vulnerable
people in their struggle to feed themselves as opportunity."
Addressing
the UN General Assembly on food crisis yesterday, he lashed
out at the developed countries for "astronomical"
agricultural subsidies and the Bretton Woods Institutions
giving "harmful prescriptive advice" to "indiscriminately"
shift away from food crops for domestic population to cash
crops for exports.
These
two factors "systematically undermined" the agricultural
productive capacity and "devastated" the food security
in the developing countries, he told the 192-member Assembly.
Sen
said hopes that the high food prices would give necessary
impetus to the developed countries to eliminate agricultural
subsidies too have been belied.
"Earlier
low food prices justified the subsidies of the rich.
Addressing
the meet Srgjan Kerim, UN General Assembly President said
“there is an urgent need to bring about changes in the global
agricultural policies to meet the threats of soaring food
and energy prices”.
Reducing
subsidies, lifting tariffs and other trade barriers would
stimulate food production and offer a route to development
for 180 million small farmers in Africa, Kerim told the 192-member
Assembly.
"The
food crisis therefore offers a win-win opportunity for the
international community to collectively agree to policies
that promote trade efficiency while also boosting agricultural
production and reducing the vulnerability of the poorest around
the world," Kerim stressed.
Welcoming
the proposal by the European Commission for a special funding
facility to provide more than USD 1.5 billion for a rapid
response to the global food crisis, UN Secretary- General
Ban Ki-moon called for a global partnership for food, which
would help bring together governments, donors, UN agencies,
international financial institutions, business, academic communities
and civil society to meet the MDGs.
MDGs
are a set of eight anti-poverty targets to be achieved worldwide
by 2015.
Informing
that between USD 25 and USD 40 billion is required annually
to boost agricultural production and to assist farmers around
the world, Ban warned that the double jeopardy of high food
and fuel prices could undermine the much of the progress made
in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
"If
we do not seek lasting solutions now, more children will die
each day, more families will go to bed hungry. The threats
left to the next generation will be even greater," he
said.
According
to a research by the International Monetary Fund, rise in
food and oil prices could severely weaken the economies of
up to 75 developing countries.
The
World Bank has also estimated that rising costs could reduce
the gross domestic product (GDP) of up to 50 countriesper
by 3 to 10 percent, pushing at least 100 million people into
poverty.