Each country should work out an action plan to guarantee its abundant food supplies. This is one of the five principles endorsed in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, which was adopted at the summit in Italy. The final document has taken into account all proposals put forward by Russia, which was represented by Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik and Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko.
The Russian delegation welcomed the document, which says that each nation bears responsibility for fighting hunger in its own country. Undoubtedly, this does not mean that the entire burden of responsibility for guaranteeing sufficient food supplies in the world should be borne by the national governments. A principle of the Rome Declaration says that there is a need to coordinate efforts at the global, regional and national levels so that countries could be rendered aid in case of emergency situations. In fact, many countries, including developing nations do not have their own food security doctrine. Russia, on its part, has long determined its priorities to guarantee self-sufficiency in food, says Elena Skrynnik.
Russia has established a doctrine of self-sufficiency in food in which, on the recommendations of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, approaches toward the food production in the country have been outlined, and the amount of food that has to be produced, and the ways how the government guarantees the Russian population with social, economic and physical access to safety and quality products have been written, said Elena Skrynnik.
The representatives from poor and not-so-poor nations gathered at the forum in Rome anticipated that the G8 delegation would pledge to allocate 44 billion US dollars to support the agrarian sector of the developing countries. This did not happen and the director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization Jacques Diouf condemned the declaration adopted at the summit saying that it had no concrete proposals at all. Pope Benedict the 16th agreed with him and urged the rich countries to supply the poor with the daily bread. He emphasized that cooperation in the world should be based on solidarity that leads to justice.
The majority of countries believe that it is unjust when two thirds of the world’s population consume more calories than are needed, and then people in those countries undergo treatment for overweight, while one third of the world is starving. Consequently, the rich should share money, food and technology with the poor. Advice to develop an own strategies for food security is regarded as greed on the part of the developed countries. Consequently, the principles adopted in Rome to fight against poverty stirred up a wave of criticism against the leading world economies and the summit as a whole. At the same time none of the dissatisfied took into account the fact that the G8 summit in L’Aquila in July adopted a resolution to allocate 20 billion US dollars to promote agriculture in the poor countries. This move was taken amid the global financial crisis.
Natalya Kovalenko
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