UN Sec Gen calls for end to food tariffs and biofuel subsidies
Some common sense and plain speaking from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who has called for an end to food tariffs and to subsidies for biofuels as the key way to bring down the price of food and stop millions from starvation.
Sadly this advice will be ignored by the Greens and NZ First who both support protectionist policies such as tariffs.
Also interesting debate on how much biofuels are to blame:
Hunger campaigners single out biofuels – often made by converting food crops into fuel – as a prime culprit for the crisis.
Biofuel supporters say the effect on food prices of diverting crops into ethanol production is small.
US Agriculture Secretary Ed Shafer said before the summit began that biofuels accounted for about 3 per cent of the total food price rise.
But the Oxfam aid organisation says the real effect is about 30 per cent.
It is sort of ironic that us free traders are on the side of the UN and Oxfam while the Greens seem to be in the same camp as the US – supporting tariffs and biofuels.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:19 am
It’s amazing that parties like the Green Party support the French in maintaining the Common Agricultural policy.
Hasn’t New Zealand’s position been to want to gain open access to the European market for its agricultural products (The UK in particular)? After all, New Zealand’s long slide down the economic ladder started when the UK joined the European Community, now European Union.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:55 am
[quote]It is sort of ironic that us free traders are on the side of the UN and Oxfam while the Greens seem to be in the same camp as the US – supporting tariffs and biofuels.[/quote]
Not really. The Greens don’t care about human beings. At least not poor ones in developing countries.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:13 am
The Green movement is anti-human.
Fluffy bunnies good, humans bad.
They want to depopulate the human species to zero. It’s for the good of the planet you understand. AGW is a laugh. The only thing stopping the green movement from achieving their agenda is time and reality.
Free trade is the only way the food needs of the population of the planet can be catered for in the current environment we find ourselves in.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:14 am
If only the mainstream media would haul her over the coals when she returns – the BBC would do it on TV and radio, but NZ media doesn’t seem to have the will to attack the Greens. It’s disgusting, she is part of a NZ delegation, arguing in favour of policies that hurt NZ farmers, and hurt developing world farmers. Even Brazil’s leftwing President Lula has called for the abolition of agricultural subsidies.. http://libertyscott.blogspot.com/2008/06/un-secretary-general-demands-free-trade.html
Vote Green, support a French farmer living off of subsidies.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:36 am
It is great to hear this from the UN, but of course the Greens will ignore it (I just heard on the radio that they are claiming the effect of biofuels on food prices is minimal). It is great to hear a call for free trade like this. I have pointed this out elsewhere, but free trade agreements are entirely inconsistent with penalties for greenhouse gas emissions (such as the ETS).
If you are to penalise businesses within NZ for their greenhouse gas emissions, this will disadvantage them against imported products which are produced in countries without such regulation. The only practical way to even the situation up is to impose climate-based import tariffs on imports.
This means that if you have a free trade agreement with a major importer (such as China), you cannot apply import tariffs. So nor can you fairly penalise businesses within NZ for emissions.
The choices are: an ETS and import tariffs (no free trade agreements), or no ETS and free trade agreements. The ETS and free trade are mutually exclusive. So if we are to follow Ban Ki-moon’s advice we must also trash the ETS.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:42 am
The Greens are now just another extremist peronality suicide cult.
People must die to save the prurdy planet. Bleoved Leader from planet Golgafrinchan Al Gore says it must be!
Their battle cry of screw the people is not really a vote grabber at my end of the demographics thanks.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:45 am
more significant than the disastrous policy of subsidising biofuel production from food crops is the large amount of grain that is directed to animal feed. We could easily and rapidly go a long way to ensuring that the more than ample food production actually feeds people by eating less meat. If the affluent people of the world ate 20% less meat, less poor people would be left without. Is it so difficult?
June 4th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Exactly what tariffs have the Greens said they’re for, and where do they say they are in favour of Europe and America’s agricultural subsidies? I’m dying to know! And where are they supporting the US and Europe’s version of biofuels? Haven’t they said time and again that they are not in favour of replacing food crops, and that they want it from tallow, woodchips, algae etc? Am I totally wrong??
June 4th, 2008 at 8:57 am
also rubbernecker would seem to have a point – probably could have added that the corn the animals are fed is subsidised too.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:09 am
Don’t be too tough on the Greens – these flip-flops of theirs show the difficulties they struggle with when their 19th Century Luddite philosophies collide with the harsh realities of the 21st Century (ie. the real world).
June 4th, 2008 at 9:22 am
the Greens would like to see a 20% reduction in the worlds population. It would be good for the environment. Also easier to monitor people.. make sure no one is smacking their kids!
as for eating less meat.. screw that!
i blame the emerging indian and chinese middle class
seriously though, this biofuel thing is a disaster. its actually quite fucking sick!
people first ya stinkin greenies
June 4th, 2008 at 9:47 am
So Bush is a stinkin greeny?
June 4th, 2008 at 9:51 am
If the affluent people of the world ate 20% less meat, less poor people would be left without. Is it so difficult?
Yes, herding 2 billion (?) individual people to make a decision is so much more difficult than lobbying the EU, Japan and USA to abandon wasteful expensive pork barrel handouts to farmers.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:57 am
It is estimated that if the US turned 25% of it’s arable land to the production of biofuel, they would manage to meet a whopping 3% of the US’s fuel needs!
whoopee.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
The ridiculous comments by Sue Kedgley, or some of them, can be found here http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0805/S00636.htm
it is clear she does not know what she talks about as she balmes free trade for the problem when Ban Ki-moon, the World Bank and others are quite clear that it is the lack of free trade in food which is at the root of the problem.
For anyone interested I have a post, rather lengthy one I am afraid, on the FAO Rome conference at my blog.
On bio-fuels the US politician quoted is being misleading – massive amounts of the US grain crops have been switched to use in bio-fuels because of US subsidies, plus they tax efficiently produced ethanol imports, made from sugar cane, from Brazil.
The US grain issue matters as they feed much of their livestock on grain these days and not on grass, so meat and grain prices go up.
Overall there is not so much a shortage of food as such, but distribution, availability etc is an issue, as is the arch protectionist stance of France and Germany.
Incidentally according to one writer there is in the whole of Continental Europe some 23 million hectares of arable land which is not in production because of various systemic issues.
The NZ Greens also oppose steps to increase farm productivity in many instances.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Sue Kedgley has approvingly commented about what the French agriculture Minister has said about food sovereignty and self sufficiency – he said it arguing to maintain the EU Common Agricultural Policy, she claims the “crisis” in world food is due to free trade – by what measure is there free trade in food? When did the EU, USA and Japan open up their agricultural markets and stop agricultural export and domestic subsidies? or even seriously reduce them? She’s either stupid or deliberately lying about the state of agricultural trade. I honestly can’t figure out which one it is.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Biofuel can work – you can make cellulosic ethanol off any living plant matter, it doesn’t have to be corn-based, which is what’s driving prices everywhere. It would be more expensive, but in a country like New Zealand, where we have strong sustainable forestry Kung Fu, we could make it work quite well.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I am prepared to donate my vast crop of native weeds to an ethanol project. They are available for collection straight from the ground, and I will happily donate to Ms. K plastic bags for her to transport the weeds she extracts to the appropriate site. Hopefully, she will be able to put the bags through a recycling plant and make chairs and desks for the next parliament’s green party members.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Libertyscott, I *think* she is referring to the policies of the WTO, World Bank etc. that in order to qualify for badly needed loans, developing countries had to pull down all subsidies and tariffs on ‘whatever’ sectors, which theoretically protected them in the past from vagaries of other overseas developments like…er, subsidies, although perhaps biofuels are economical now that the price of oil is so high? Subsidies to mitigate subsidies – it is somewhat circular.
I really would have thought they’d be FOR removing the CAP, as their policies quite often align with groups like Oxfam!. I think the CAP is crap, but the Greens have not yet stated a direct policy preference for subsidies or tariffs, to my knowledge.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hooray, this is a historic moment, a UN Secretary-General going by common sense over against fashionable PC / Green ideology………
June 4th, 2008 at 11:58 am
>>I really would have thought they’d be FOR removing the CAP, as their policies quite often align with groups like Oxfam!. I think the CAP is crap, but the Greens have not yet stated a direct policy preference for subsidies or tariffs, to my knowledge.
They may not have said in so many words but there are only 3 ways to controls prices; subsidies, tariffs or quotas
June 5th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Stephen, as the WTO has nothing to do with loans, I think she simply throws the acronym about as part of a general “anti-capitalist” tyrade. The WTO is loathed by the Greens because it is committed to putting decision making in the hands of producers and consumers, not governments – it stops meddling. It is pushing for open markets, but the likes of the Greens think – remarkably – that they are better placed to make these decisions than millions of people buying and selling every day. The WTO is a friend to NZ because it requires unanimity for trade agreements, imposes sanctions on those who break them, and no country is allowed to backtrack on its commitments UNLESS it makes new ones to offset backtracking. Without it, trade rules would be driven entirely by the EU, USA, Japan and the like, the WTO gives small countries a chance to bind a future of progressive liberalisation. The Greens love the UN of course, when it investigates NZ to find racism and the like – but when it comes to trade, suddenly it is about “losing sovereignty” – when the Greens fear “us losing our sovereignty” they mean “government losing the right to intervene in what citizens do”.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Perhaps the WTO and WB work in tandem a little..? Anyway, I’m not particularly happy with how slowly the WTO works, and almost nothing substantial has been done on developed country subsidies and tariffs (esp on agriculture). So i’m not sure how much power small countries have there, though I think an agreement was just made to increase their power on that.
I would rather that producers did NOT have the ability to make decisions about what comes into the country, or we might be ingesting a lot more lead or hormones in beef than i’m comfortable with – I think the ’sovereignty’ issue comes up with regard to the ability of states to block the import of products on health e.g. toxicity or environmental e.g. too much endangered turtle bycatch, or even labour (slave labour, sweatshops) grounds…