De kwetsbaarheid van het Europese landbouw- en voedselsysteem ...

• Risks other than climate change, such as animal diseases, volcanic eruptions and extreme
price fluctuations on the world market. How can developing countries strengthen their resilience
to these risks?
• Besides food production, also prioritise the storage and transport of food, where there are
still many losses.
• Besides technical improvements, also prioritise institutional improvements, such as providing
farmers with access to markets, capital, means of production and expertise.
For that matter, at the global level there is still a small risk of the opposite effect: overinvestment
in agriculture. This can result in surplus production and falling agricultural prices,
which discourage investments, after which production again lags behind demand, and a new
food crisis results. Consider for The Netherlands would take the initiative to anti-cyclical investments.
Recommendation 15. Promote more sustainability in land grabbing and biofuels
After the food crisis of 2007-08, foreign investments in farmland in developing countries increased
sharply. While these investments can theoretically contribute to the welfare and resilience
of the rural population, there are too many examples of negative developments.
• Support the World Bank in the further development of a broadly supported public/private
code of conduct for land grabbing, followed by implementation and monitoring.
• Promote the application of the certification system for sustainable biofuels, recently established
by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels.
Recommendation 16. Encourage prevention of severe price volatility
Severe price volatility can be harmful to producers as well as consumers, especially in foodimporting
developing countries. The EU can help prevent severe volatility by:
• continuing to stop overproduction and dumping
• creating stockpiles
• establishing a scheme for land set-aside and/or extensification.
However, global governance it is also required, focusing on food security and price stabilisation.
France has already placed two related topics on the agenda in the EU and the G20:
• global transparency about stockpiles facilitating early warning;
• transparency and regulation of commodity futures markets (both inside and outside the
commodity exchanges) to limit speculation by large financial players.
Support this initiative and add two supplementary agenda points:
• coordinate the global reserve production capacity in the form of land set-aside schemes
or a flexible biofuel blending obligation;
• coordinate the global level of investments in agriculture, including investments in energy
crops, to prevent underproduction as wells as overproduction.
Recommendation 17. Encourage preparedness in developing countries
For preparedness and response there is also global governance in place, including the Food
Aid Convention and the Global Food Crisis Response Programme of the World Bank, which
enables developing countries to continue to finance their food imports. In addition, in 2000
the EU created a Food Facility with a budget of 1 billion. The aims of this Facility include
alleviating the consequences of severe price fluctuations for the local population.
In addition, commit to:
• trade regulations of the WTO that are more resilient to scarcity. Such regulations
should offer exporting countries limited room to reduce their exports during times of high
domestic prices. This could prevent more drastic and more harmful export obstacles and
reduce the probability of panic reactions, domino effects and trade policy anarchy;
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