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The relationships between free trade, trade liberalization
on the one hand and hunger is uh is very difficult uh...
to explain because it is very clear
that there are
regions
who do not produce enough for themselves and need trade
on which they depend
uh... in order to uh... simply survive
and trade has therefore an essential function to fulfill, there's no question
about this; however,
we should be aware that trade liberalization
has two potentially very negative impacts
that lead me to think like many others that it should be treated
with great caution as a solution to hunger
first
trade usually
benefits in countries who export on the international markets
benefits the larger producers and not the small-scale farmers
so they the small-scale farmers are unable to seize the opportunities that the
development of global food chains is meant to create because they face a
number of obstacles making it very difficult for them to be competitive to meet the
standards requirements and so forth
and these small farmers are the first ones impacted by the imports of cheap food on
their local markets
when they are least competitive
and so in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa for example,
small farmers have been
negatively impacted by the arrival of cheap food,
heavily subsidized by OECD countries
against which they were simply unable to compete because they're not they are not
supported by the governments
so we have to open up the black box of states and see within states who is
affected
negatively who benefits from free trade
but we see that in many cases the poorest do not benefit and that
instead they are negatively impacted and this is certainly true for the small farmers in
many uh... poor countries today
and a second reason why free trade is very uh... difficult to
see as a as a
as a magic bullet and as a solution to global hunger is that countries who depend
extensively on imports to meet their consumption needs
as are many low-income countries today on average the
least developed countries spend about twenty percent
or rather depend for about twenty percent of the consumption on
imported foods
these countries are in a very
fragile situation
as the prices of food commodities go up on international markets their
food bills increase in ways that are rapidly unsustainable and create immediate
balance of payments problems so these countries should
not be fed, they should feed themselves and we should
help them
by providing them the possibility to feed themselves
trade will always be necessary, trade indeed is desirable in many cases but we must
be aware of the very uh...crucial function that
food fulfills
not just as as a means to feed populations but as a source of revenue for small
farmers and as a source of resilience for for countries'
food security.