Food crisis
Bouaké rice.
© Fataiphotorush
The “hunger rioters” really brought it home to leaders around the world who are often too inclined to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to this area of policy: the food crisis is real. Not only that, it is on a scale that forces both experts and governments to rethink existing agricultural policies. Why? Because the crisis is not due to global shortages – despite what some claim as they evoke the spectre of overpopulation – but is the result of a deep-rooted malfunction. Simply put, it would seem that the world is discovering with great surprise that agriculture has always been the foundation on which countries are created. Of course, nowhere is this ‘surprise’ greater than in the original EU-15, where farmers represent just 1.6% of the working population and even the arrival of the 10 Eastern and Central European states only doubled this tiny figure. Food self-sufficiency of a population is a basic precondition for putting into place other policies. So, world leaders have a formidable task before them. For some of them (see the interview with Mattieu Calame) the only long-term solution is to implement a global agricultural policy.
