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Asia's food security endangered

21 February 1996

By Eva Cheng A coalition of non-governmental organisations has warned that the scarcity and insecurity of food production remain a grave problem in Asia despite rapid economic growth in recent years. It urged the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to look seriously into the situation when it convenes its World Food Summit in Rome in November. There are 23 countries in Asia and the Pacific, out of a world list of 90, which fall into the FAO 's classification of "low-income" and "food-deficit". FAO statistics reveal that almost 800 million people in developing countries face chronic malnutrition, and 192 million children under five suffer acute or chronic protein and energy deficiencies. The Asian Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), at a September meeting, agreed that food security can be achieved only by way of fundamental changes to policies in at least four areas. Two of them are problems arising directly from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was reorganised into the World Trade Organisation last year. The proposed reforms are in:

agricultural trade policies which, under GATT, would allow further commodification of food, cash cropping and cheap imported foods to undermine local food production;

intellectual property rights which, under GATT, would infringe farmers' access to genetic resources as well as their other rights;

access and control by poor rural communities over land and other production assets for food production (through agrarian land reform and assistance from capacity-building organisations such as seed banks);

making sure women have access to land, extension services and technological expertise.

In a nutshell, the main barriers to food security are the unequal distribution of wealth, power and resources, according to ANGOC members.

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