CLA holds vital talks on food crisis

Food and environmental security were at the heart of vital talks the CLA held at the UK's largest gathering of arable farmers this year.

As global crop prices soar, the rural economy experts underlined the critical challenges farmers and landowners face over the next 20 years, at Cereals 2008 in Leadenham, Lincolnshire from June 11-12.

Speaking at the two-day event, CLA President Henry Aubrey-Fletcher said: "Cereals 2008 is a massive opportunity to discuss the reality that rising population and their income growth - together with demands for biofuels - are placing growing demands on food supplies.

"With global stocks at low levels and prices rising rapidly, many countries are resorting to export restrictions to alleviate the political pressures that rising food prices bring. It would not be dramatic to suggest that global food security will be one of the most important challenges that we face during the coming decades."

The CLA President said: "We must at the same time address the environmental challenge. In the EU, public demands for higher standards of environmental stewardship show no signs of abating. The challenge we face - the great 21st Century land challenge - is to improve the productivity of the land while, at the same time, maintaining high standards of environmental stewardship.

"When the CLA began highlighting this great challenge nearly two years ago, the Government paid little attention. Now that the first signs have begun to appear with the dramatic increase in international food prices, food production has risen rapidly up the political agenda. Both Government and industry have to understand the implications of this new and historic challenge, and find practical ways of addressing it."

The CLA's concerns were vindicated by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as he called for global food production to rise by 50 percent by 2030 in order to meet soaring demand.

Addressing the UN Food Summit in Rome on 3 June), the Secretary General said urgent agreement was needed on world trade talks and appealed to countries to avoid trade restrictions that are pushing up food prices.

He cited World Bank estimates that suggest up to 950 million people could be short of food amid what he termed as a "global food crisis."

As well as reducing trade restrictions, Ban said nations should boost farmer food production, improve food security and expand food aid.