Zakir Md. Hossain

Date : January 11, 2010 20:21

Dear Mr Lamy,
We have heard that 5-6 consortium (Syndicate) control the world grain trade!!
It is very easy to push contaminated- unhygienic food stuff to the poor (as they are hungry).
Free cultural aggression gradually do change food habit.
Land of the economically poor countries are being taken over by rich countries (production place shift).
Local food system is being broken by transnational companies.
Monsanto has become the American Company of the Year to forbes.
Transnational companies do not have any business ethics (but only making money).
We would like to have your wisdom on the points above- some day, somewhere.

Patrick- Georges RENARD

Date : December 27, 2009 10:53

Je crois que Pascal LAMY n'est pas l'homme qu'il faut pour parler " idées nouvelles de développement", sauf à ce qu'il admette que l'OMC telle qu'elle est, est la source d'une quantité importante de problèmes que connaît notre planète dont :
- hypercapitalisme
- aggravation de la pauvreté
- source de conflits
- génératrice de pollution extrême

Il existe des solutions pour que le commerce mondiale se développe en harmonie avec les savoirs faires locaux, participe à l'amélioration des conditions de vie en permettant une juste répartition des richesses.

Depuis 1992 je défends mon point de vue sur ce que devrait être L'OMC, à savoir que celle-ci ne peut générer du positif que si un système de taxe de péréquation à l'importation voit le jour.

Les taux de la taxe doivent être variables dans le temps et fonctions de nombreux paramètres.

Je proposais qu'un organisme soit créé pour définir qui paie quoi à l'exportation et vers qui.

Que cette taxe soit collectée par cet organisme et restituée pour partie tant au pays exportateurs qu'aux pays importateurs, et cela en fonction de différents critères dont l'objectif est un resserrement des écarts de pouvoir d'achat d'un pays sur l'autre.

GCAntunes

Date : December 15, 2009 05:26

I wanted to comment on your statement in regards to the Egypt aiming for food self-sufficiency and needing 3 Nile Rivers to accomplish this task. I agree with your concern and I agree that sustainable development is better facilitated international trade because as you've put it, this allows for savings on natural resources such as water. However, I would add that access to food is essential to the equation, one can have all the food exported they need but if the adequate infrastructure is missing, many citizens go without nutrients and the food crisis is repeated. On a second note, I also agree with the above statement posted by Christine, because we function in a global state of interdependence, FAIR trade is essential not just free trade, in terms of reaching an food sustainability goals.

Che Thuy Nhu

Date : November 24, 2009 09:08

Dear Pascal Lamy,
I agree with you that trade have important role in food security, food crisis.
The food security in Vietnam have long story. Every year the government buys rice in harvest with low price and put it in the warehouse.
When the government has accidents: war, Storm, floods .The government give for free or sell rice with low price .You can find information from WTO forum discussion under title “subsidies in socialist system”. If the rice can not be use all .When the deadline came, they sell old rice to market, and buy the new rice put it in warehouse.
Buy rice when harvest with low price – and use it when crisis happen in country but in Global market: rice can’t given for free, it should be sell. With democracy increasing, less and less leaders can give free budget without permission of parliament. In this case trade have big role: where to buy? Which price? Transport is questions need the advice from WTO.
Food: not only rice, other products for eating can be involved.
In the 4ID we can read the experiences of India to made nutrition cakes for Reserve – This is very good experience for national reserve of food.
We needs import the machine and new technology for producing the ready foods, scanner foods, and sell it to the market. Came and develop it .From Vietnam it can be cover to Kampuchea and Lao and Myanmar.
Vietnam have just improve the National Reserve Department belong to Ministry of Finance to General Reserve Department, it has function import –export of reserve goods ( foods ) in case needs .This is good chance for Global market to contact and order the necessary foods in urgent case.
But first they have to learn what the global markets needs, then they produce, after that they will sell and to do export or import.
In same week the golds price increasing , I worry that the price for rice will be increasing .
Thank you

JAVIER MARTINEZ

Date : November 23, 2009 12:52

Acá se deben tomar más conciencia y más responsabilidad Social,por el cuidado del Ambiente partiendo por las grandes potencias, por otra parte la necesidad de invertir más en Ciencia y Tecnológia para desarrollas tecnologías alternas menos contaminantes y más eficaces.
Por lo que así la humanidad necesita mantener siempre elinterés en su progreso y bienestar sin perjudicar al prójimo.
Atte,Javier Martínez

Beatrice Nkundwa

Date : November 23, 2009 05:40

The idea of connecting trade to food security is very interesting. At this point with the economic, social and political reforms the populations should pay more attention to what they eat because that has an impact on them. The children should be well fed at an early stage in order for them to have good habits that they will continue later and pass on to their own children and to other generations to come. Populations still need to be educated on the purchase of food items to get the most of their shopping without harming their health.

Christopher Smith

Date : November 23, 2009 02:50

The problem with open international trade is that the market is imperfect. The economic theory that justifies open trade is comparative advantage. Under a market structure that relies on comparative advantage, every country would be able to specialize in their own specific agricultural products and trade their surplus for whatever products they do not domestically produce. This particular market assumes perfect knowledge and perfect market conditions, but in the globalized food trade there are subsidies and dumping and these mutate the perfect market. When developed states provide subsidies to their farmers they are lowering and distorting the global price for that particular product. The result is less value comes to the developing states from the trade of their specialized products and whose comparative advantage should provide an advantage in the market, so that they can meet their import needs. If open trade is the answer then they way to that answer is to remove any and all subsidies and trade barriers, so that developing states can realize their comparative advantage and provide their own food security.

Syd Martin

Date : November 20, 2009 17:21

When I read your blog it seemed to be more of an advertisement for the WTO rather than an objective assessment of where globalization under the WTO rules has taken us and what needs to change if interdependence is truly an objective. I have added my comments to some of the statements made in your blog which I hope cause the WTO and its members to realize dramatic change is required.

“...to what extent is each one of us ready to pay for protecting and preserving global public goods?”

Comment: With the absence of governance in the WTO globalization model and the damage this has inflicted on global civil society with the financial crisis, I would suggest very few are willing “pay” any more than they already have.

“...Take the example of Yemen, an arid country, that found itself starved of its staple crop - rice - during the food crisis. For these people, trade is part of the solution, not part of the problem!”

Comment: Cotton farmers in Africa would tell you trade is the problem and they would be right. I did see your latter comment on subsidies but it would have been far better to see this issue addressed with this comment.

“...Food security, in that context, comes from stabilizing our interconnectedness, stabilizing trade relations - rather than rendering more unstable, or looking inwards towards the impossible target of food self-sufficiency.”

Comment: As the financial crisis has taught us, many of the world’s countries immediately looked inwards to protect their interests. Like the financial crisis, in a food crisis situation countries will immediately look after their own first. Why would any government which employed policies in the interests of its citizens be foolish enough to forgive food self-sufficiency?

“As the UNDP tells us, if a country like Egypt were to aim for food self-sufficiency, it would need not one Nile, but three! This is also where we see the sustainable development benefits of international trade; it allows water-savings.”

Comment: But climate change is reducing water supplies (see next comment).

“Trade is likely to play an even more vital role in food security with the mounting climate crisis.”

Comment: GHG emissions have escalated dramatically with trade liberalization policies under the WTO rules which make the WTO’s initiatives a major contributor to climate change. So how do you figure this continued pattern of trade conduct will be of benefit to global civil society? As history has proven, globalization in its current WTO form simply exacerbates the climate change problem.

“So the WTO has its contribution to make, in particular through the conclusion of the Doha Round. It would allow us to improve WTO rules,...”

Comment: Does Doha have provisions which call for an overhaul of the WTO rules? I thought Doha aims to deregulate the financial sector even further which means another financial crisis will be born from Doha.

While I support the idea of a WTO, I have a tough time supporting a WTO which operates on the sole basis of mercantilism. The use of the term “sustainable development” by the WTO is merely to pay lip service to global civil society. This is what`s at the heart of the failure of globalization and what needs to changed. I believe the time should be now to address these tougher issues before discussing the issue of interdependance.

Respectfully
Syd Martin

Christine Zarzicki

Date : November 19, 2009 17:49

Mr. Lamy,

I completely agree with your argument that trade is a necessary component in the equation to solving our global issues. I do think that it’s extremely important for developing countries that are suffering from food shortages have the ability to import necessary commodities and export the countries most valuable products. However, I must say, that before globalization, this situation may have been slightly different. Due to open trading policies, there have been frequent instances of food dumping that are the result of developed nations providing subsidies to their agricultural sector. Before this situation emerged, many times local farmers in these developing nations could provide their population with enough food to survive. Perhaps it was not making them a "profit" but it certainly was sustainable. It seems to me, that until the commencement of the globalization project, food shortages were not as big of an issue. But open markets have driven local farmers out of business, pushed them to the cities, and resulted in a rise in the industrial sector of the economy.

This is not to say that globalization has only had negative effects on these nations. It has simply changed the dynamic of the situation. While small farmers have been driven out of business, industry has boomed and many times provided the nation with a specific advantage on the global market. The situation is complex insofar as nations are entirely transformed. Once sustained by local agriculture and business (with relatively no capital formation) these countries are now developing their manufacturing sectors, unable to sustain themselves, but are accruing capital.

So the concept of open trade almost seems non-negotiable to me. The global situation that now exists is one of interdependence, and thus a severing of ties would be fatal for these nations. They no longer have the means to independently survive. The WTO is certainly taking the proper steps to allow for fairer trade (eliminating subsidies, tariff reductions, etc.) but I believe the damage has already been done in terms of eradicating independent sustainability around the world. Therefore, we must keep trade alive, but it must be FAIR trade not just free.