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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

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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/)

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