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Date
: 17/08/2003
Source: Department of Agriculture
Title: Didiza: International Association for Agricultural
Economists
ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE AND LAND AFFAIRS, MS THOKO
DIDIZA, AT THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR AGRICULTURAL
ECONOMISTS, 17 August 2003
(Check against delivery)
Chairperson,
Honoured guests,
Ladies and gentlemen:
This conference could not have come at a better time to South
Africa. I am convinced that the intellectual capacity gathered here
today can make a great contribution to the resolution of the
complex challenges of inequitable development in the world today.
The developing world is still grappling with issues of food
insecurity while the main concern of the populations of developed
countries today is food safety.
The critical question that we should always ask ourselves is
whether we will be able to strike the necessary balance between
these two concerns such that none receives more priority than the
other.
Food security issues continue to occupy centre stage in southern,
and indeed most of Africa. In this new world order and with
ever-increasing demands on the agricultural sector, it is important
to note that entitlement to food is a fundamental right of every
person, irrespective of nationality or status, and is synonymous
with the right to life.
This entitlement approach to poverty alleviation poses a challenge
to the agricultural economics profession for deeper analysis on the
causes of food insecurity and the solution thereof.
It is my belief that professionals in the field of agricultural
economics should guide governments on the following:
* What it means for a country to develop a food and agricultural
strategy?
* How does a country go about developing a strategy?
* What should be the objectives?
* What lessons can be learnt from other countries and the lessons
learnt through effective techniques of trial and error?
Each of these questions must be addressed analytically to
distinguish a set of answers that will form the actual building
blocks of a country's food policy.
The conference is therefore challenged to redefine the parameters
for an effective food and agricultural policy that will ensure the
analysis of the hunger and poverty problems explicitly through the
food sector, through recognising these linkages within the food
sector from the agricultural sector and to the food consumption
endpoint. This policy approach, apart from its central focus on
food markets, provides the ease with which macroeconomic
influences, especially via the budget and macro price policy, can
be linked to the hunger problem.
Developmental issues have assumed a more prominent role in the
current round of multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO. South
Africa is engaging in the negotiations with its regional partners,
SACU and SADC, as part of the Africa Group and as a member of the
Cairns Group. In the Cairns Group, a group of strong agricultural
exporters of which the majority are developing countries,
developmental issues have substantially grown in importance. Cairns
Group positions are reconcilable with positions of the Africa Group
with only a few differences in the area of market access.
Progress in the Doha Development Round has been very disappointing
to date with the important deadline for the establishment of
modalities being missed by the end of March this year.
For South Africa, the key objectives in the negotiations are as
follows:
* Substantial reduction with a view to elimination of domestic
support to achieve a substantial improvement of market access for
all South African agricultural products with export
potential;
* Elimination of all export subsidies (including subsidies under
export credits) over the shortest period of time possible
* South Africa's further commitment in the area of market access
(tariffs, tariff quotas) should be preconditioned by a clear
commitment by developed countries to reduce trade and production
distorting subsidies (domestic support and all forms of export
subsidies).
South Africa views the efforts by the chair of the negotiations,
Ambassador Stuart Harbinson, as a good basis for
negotiations.
Our concern, however, is that the proposals on modalities by
Ambassador Harbinson are not ambitious enough and will leave the
current situation relating to trade and production distorting
support unchanged for the next 4 - 5 years. South Africa is seeking
faster, real differences in distorting supports that will enhance
not only our development efforts but also that of the African
continent.
As we proceed towards Cancun a breakthrough in Agriculture remains
the determining factor for the other negotiation elements namely
the Singapore and the NAMA. All the breakthroughs here will have a
positive impact on NEPAD.
Source: Department of Agriculture (http://www.nda.agric.za/)