The new role of agricultural trade within the conflict area of the climate-, food- and economic crises
The number of undernourished and starving people will probably continue to increase. The challenges facing agriculture throughout the world are enormous. Sufficient food must be produced for a rapidly growing world population on continually shrinking productive farmland with decreasing soil fertility, less available water and dwindling fossil resources. This is occurring under increasingly precarious and extreme climatic and economic conditions. Moreover, changing consumer habits and energy concepts will lead to more intense competition between food, animal feed and energy crops. Inequities in distribution will increase.
Videos of the Press Event at the Conference "EcoFair rules!" 
The speakers are Barbara Unmüßig, President of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, Olivier de Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Rajeswari Raina, a member the World Agricultural Report (IAASTD) and Josef Sayer, Managing MISEREOR (January 12, 2010)
Audio: Challenges and Problems of agricultural trade in the face of climate, food and economic crises
Keynote: Olivier de Schutter, United Nation Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Brussels
The global food challenge
Towards a human right approach to trade and investment policies
by Sophia Murphy and Armin Paasch 
It started with the tortilla crisis in Mexico. Slum dwellers had to renounce their daily staple food because of exploding corn prices. Their loud protest in January 2007 was just the first in a series of food riots in about 40 countries. The last straw came in April 2008, in Haiti, when car tires burned in, barricades were built and the Prime Minister was overthrown. Finally the global food crisis was a story for primetime in the international media.
Publication Series Ecology
Climate Change and the Right to Food 
This study highlights how the climate change regime and the human rights regime addressing the right to food have failed to coordinate their agendas and to collaborate to each other’s mutual benefit. It proposes concrete methods by which institutions can address climate change problems and realize the right to food symbiotically, in compliance with the principles of systemic integration under international law.
Peak Oil and the Necessity of Transitioning to Regenerative Agriculture
By Chad Hellwinckel and Daniel De La Torre Ugarte
As global energy availability begins to decline over the next several decades, energyintensive industrial methods of food production will have to be transitioned to regenerative practices that 1) sponsor their own energy, 2) build soils and 3) produce in abundance. There are successful examples of regenerative systems that meet these three imperatives. The foundational principles of existing regenerative systems should be used in the development of new practices unique to each individual ecosystem.
Free Trade in Agriculture: A Bad Idea Whose Time Is Done 
By Sophia Murphy
The push for “free trade” in agriculture first took hold in the 1980s. It was part of a package of policies and investments that moved food and agriculture systems away from government control (too often centralized and unresponsive) toward private ownership. Ironically, private ownership has led to an even more centralized and tightly controlled food system. Local communities have been left more disempowered than they were before, and, increasingly, developing country national governments have found themselves disempowered, too. This essay considers what advocates of free trade promised developing countries, what actually happened, and what some alternatives might look like…
Beyond Copenhagen: towards international action on food security and climate change
By Anne-Laure Constantin
After two years of intensive negotiations started in Bali 2007 the Copenhagen Climate summit ended with the UN gathering merely taking note of a swiftly drafted “Accord”. The Accord falls far short of the global climate challenge. It ignores the substantive discussions that took place at the technical level on monitoring, reporting and verification methods, or on funding mechanisms. It completely overlooks the impacts of climate change on food security around the world.
High Commodity Prices – Who gets the Money? 
A Case Study on the Impact of High Food and Factor Prices on Kenyan Farmers
By Heike Höffler with Booker W. Owuor Ochieng
The idea to commission this study was developed alongside a 4-Country Rapid Assessment that was undertaken by GTZ Headquarters in August 2008 (“Increasing Food Prices on the World Market: What is the Impact on Farmers in Developing Countries. Rapid Assessment from Mexico, Burkina Faso, Kenya & Cambodia”). The main interest was to dig deeper into one of the countries in order to fully understand the dynamics and to let farmers and other stakeholders have their say in the debate. Kenya was chosen as an in-depth case study. Two rounds of field interviews were undertaken: in early October 2008 (before the main grain harvest) and in mid November 2008 (during harvesting season).
World Summit on Food Security 2009 – New international food security regime in sight?
By Alicia Kolmans and Armin Paasch
At the World Food Summit in 1996, governments pledged to halve the number of chronically undernourished people – then 839 million – by 20151. When governments met once again for the World Summit on Food Security in November 2009, the number of people suffering from hunger had for the first time passed the one billion mark. This dramatic trend leaves no room for doubt. The international food security regime has failed. Nor did it fail for the first time in 2007, when global price increases for agricultural commodities and the financial crisis that followed also ruined the rather delicate results that had been achieved in the fight against hunger.
Agricultural Biodiversity is Essential for Adapting to Climate Change
By Johannes Kotschi
Agricultural biodiversity and climate change are rarely discussed in the same context. However, there are close mutual links: Agrobiodiversity is reduced through climate change and – at the same time – is crucial for coping with the consequences of a changing climate. This interrelationship is particularly important since the entire diversity of genes, species and ecosystems in agriculture represents the resource base for food. With climate change progressing, genetic resources are gaining a new quality as they are vital for adaptation.
Agricultural Trade after the Peak Oil
By Rajeswari S. Raina, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi
Peak oil, a peak in global oil production when a significant proportion of recoverable resources has been produced, will induce several changes in the way we produce and distribute agricultural commodities, especially food. How will the current excessive and wasteful dependence of agriculture on fossil fuels be affected once oil becomes expensive and supplies decline? The purpose of the EcoFair Trade Dialogue is to promote a framework for agricultural trade that is ecologically and socially just and sustainable. The objective of this discussion paper is to offer decision-makers and citizens a synthesis of existing information on likely changes in the agri-food systems once oil becomes expensive and scarce.
Agriculture and food security within the WTO – Ministerial Conference 2009 misses opportunity for re-orientation
By Tobias Reichert
In conjunction with the financial and economic crisis in 2009, the extreme fluctuations in world market prices for staple foods, and especially the sharp increase in 2007/08, have led to more hunger worldwide. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that since 2007 the number of people suffering from hunger has risen by over 150 million, reaching a total of one billion . This trend has once again made the problems of agriculture and food security the focus of political attention. At various international forums a debate is under way which new approaches can be used to fight hunger and poverty effectively, especially in rural regions.
One rhetorical swallow does not make a summer of reform
The financial and food crisis, and how it was managed by the G20 and G8
By Peter Wahl
According to the final declaration of the G20 Summit held in London in April 2009, the global financial crisis is 'the greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times'. And indeed, no financial crisis since the global economic crash of 1929 has shaken the world quite as badly as this one. Since the financial system is as it were the nervous system of the economy, its collapse inevitably led to a global economic crisis. No end to the crisis is yet in sight, and we will be dealing with its impacts for years to come. Particularly hard hit are the vulnerable economies of the poor countries.
Further information:
- International responses to the Food Crisis (Assessment from a right to food perspective)
- Alexander Sarris: "Evolving structure of world agriculture trade and requirements for new world trade rules"
- Lucie Weissleder: "Foreign Direct Investment in the Agricultural Sector in Ethiopia"
- Sophia Murphy: "Strategic grain reserves in an era of volatility"
- World Summit of Food Security: "Feeding the world, eradicating hunger"
- FAO: "Food security and the financial crisis"
- FAO: "The investment imperative"
