Agriculture

東アフリカの危機に対する国際的な対応は、緊急のニーズには遠く及びませんが、報告されている極度の貧困は氷山の一角にすぎません。世界中で貧困に関連した不必要な死を防ぐには、グローバル・ノースからサウスへの資源の再分配を大幅に拡大する必要があります。

The international response to the East African crisis is far short of urgent needs, yet the extreme deprivation being reported is only the tip of the iceberg. A massively upscaled redistribution of resources from North to South is needed if we are to prevent needless poverty-related deaths worldwide.

Following the latest weak outcome of the Commission on Sustainable Development, it is time to ask if the United Nations is achieving enough in the realm of sustainable agriculture - and to start building a grassroots movement that can forge a new vision for the future.

Unlike the crisis of 1970s stagflation that signalled the end for the Keynesian social-democratic model, the food crisis of 2008 could be marked down in history for setting in motion an opposite trend, writes Adam Parsons.

The escalating crisis of volatile food prices and food insecurity is the result of an industrial development model based on large-scale, export-orientated agriculture tied to international competition, self interest and stock market speculation. With over a billion people going hungry each day despite a huge surplus of food production, a reorientation towards more localised, smaller scale and sustainable agriculture is urgently required.

After decades of famine, grinding poverty, colossal debts and enormous slum-growth, Africa is indisputably the worst casualty of economic globalization. As the region takes the further brunt of man-made climate change, the rich nations hold a moral responsibility to reorder economic priorities and coordinate a massive transfer of resources to the impoverished continent.