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JAKARTA, INDONESIA - AN INTERNATIONAL farming group on Saturday urged countries to step up domestic food production by providing more facilities to small-scale farmers in a bid to help end the global food crisis.
La Via Campesina, which represents millions of small-scale farmers around the world, gathered in Indonesia's capital for a five-day international conference on the rights of agricultural producers.
'The solution to the global food crisis is to strengthen the domestic market and the capacity of family farmers to produce food for their own needs,' Mr Paul Nicholson, of La Via Campesina, told reporters during a press conference.
Galloping food prices and food shortages have sparked protests and even riots in some countries and export limits in others, hurting developing nations where food costs consume the lion's share of household income.
'The current food crisis is the outcome of extensive farming, food chains controlled by transnational companies and food market liberalisation,' he said.
'Food trade has destroyed the capacity of food production locally. Today, with the world food crisis, there's no cheap food and that means a country has to return to producing food for their own needs,' he added.
The group recently criticised UN chief Ban Ki Moon over his calls for ending food export bans, saying the 'logic of profit' was ruining farmers' lives.
Mr Ban has urged key producer nations such as Brazil and Egypt to end the bans in the face of soaring global food prices, saying it had reduced supplies and contributed to price hikes.
Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt have all imposed limitations on the export of certain produce in order to ensure domestic food security.
'We're not saying no to trade, but we have to prioritise domestic food production,' Mr Nicholson said. -- AFP
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