Draft Resolution Submitted by Mexico

THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASIA PACIFIC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM

Considering that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 826 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition and many millions more are under threat of suffering from them if access to resources to food and how to produce it does not improve quickly;

Taking into account that during the last decades the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization have imposed the liberation of trade in developing countries, which has established in many countries a predominant agricultural model at great scale oriented toward exportation, to the detriment of sustainable local food production and that of local markets;

Concerned because 25,000 people in the world die every day of hunger and malnutrition, of which at least 11,000 are children;

Considering that lack of investments in agricultural research, rural development and farmer’s education by the country’s development authorities and international financial institutions have exposed, above all, small farmers to disloyal competition, which has deepened their poverty and vulnerability and reduced their capacity to produce enough food;

Taking into account that, export and food aid subsidies have been responsible for decades for the destruction of subsistence agriculture and small-scale agriculture in developing countries and have left millions of families without land or sufficient access to food;

Considering that according to the Millennium Ecosystem Evaluation (EM), it has been foreseen that, if current tendencies are kept, the number of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa would increase from 315 million in 1999 to 404 million in 2015;

Recognizing that the current food crisis is also the consequence of increased speculation on basic agricultural and food products as well as of the increase of droughts and floods due to climate change, increased competition between food production and bio-fuels, trade liberalization without restrictions, growing world population, higher oil prices, and consequently, of agricultural production factors, and the increase of the world demand for food due to dietary changes of emerging economies;

Considering that because of the global financial crisis, the use of basic agricultural products for meat and bio-fuel production has stimulated speculation with basic agricultural products, which must be curtailed urgently and submitted to world control;

Aware that policies applied to agriculture, fishing, forestry, industry, commerce, transportation, labor, gender issues, health and finances have significant repercussions on national food security, and that the ultimate obligation of establishing the conditions necessary to obtain national and home food security behooves the highest political leaders;

Taking into account that the price increase, in addition to a reduction of internal aid and tariffs in developed countries, relative improvement of developing countries, making or maintaining certain agricultural productions profitable in places where it was not so in the past;

Resolves to:

1.             Exhort all APPF members to avoid new mass waterproofing of farm land for construction and transportation purposes;

2.             Call upon Parliamentarians to establish a sustainable balance between food and energy production based on an impact evaluation of food security;

3.             Encourage a complete impact evaluation of policies and programs of Asia-Pacific countries in the fields of energy, development, agriculture, foreign trade and industry in order to assume full responsibility for effective measures and instruments to achieve global food security;

4.             Strengthen work methods, participation criteria and objectives, which, based on consultation, dialog and understanding, afford all countries long-term food security;

5.             Double efforts to guarantee each nation’s food sovereignty and contribute towards compliance with the United Nations Millennium Declaration to eradicate hunger in all countries, constantly working toward the long-term and not just for 2015, as established by the first objective of the Millennium Declaration;

6.             Increase practical knowledge, resources, technologies and the commitment to different international instruments, such as the Rome Declaration, Millennium Declaration and Human Rights to demonstrate the will to achieve hunger eradication;

7.             Sensitize parliamentarians about the problem of food insecurity and promote the search for solutions;

8.             Examine recent studies and perspectives in terms of the world’s food security situation keeping in mind regional variations and trade of agricultural products;

9.             Establish a normative framework and approve an action plan, to be applied by governments, international organizations and all sectors of civil society so as to always move towards universal food security;

10.         Intensify international cooperation to fight hunger and malnutrition;

11.         Contribute to world stability and peace through achieving greater food security.