The outcome of the Summit has been exactly zero

The media facade of the g-20, beginning of the "World Government" is flashy, the reality of what is in place is disappointing, sometimes alarming. There is concern on the financial regulation (our last column), discussed in Copenhagen on climate, it lamented this week in Rome at the Summit of the FAO (United Nations food and agriculture). This Conference was decided two years ago, in the course of agricultural commodities boom that had revived the "hunger riots". All experts warn us: the number of hungry people is distributed upward. Feed 9 billion people that will be the planet by 2050, to double production and, to put in place a new global agricultural model. No leader of the G8, except host Silvio Berlusconi, has thought necessary to come to Rome. The outcome of the Summit has been exactly zero.

Humanity will be a food crisis because "green revolution" (mechanization, fertilizers, hybridization, improvements in transportation...), set up in the 1950s around the world, severely exhausted its effects. Its results were remarkable: a third of the world's population was hungry fifty years, the proportion fell to 16. In absolute numbers, the victory was however less: 900 million hungry in 1960, 820 million in 1997, at the bottom of the curve, and more than a billion in 2009. And it is precisely this persistence of hunger and this non-lift not only since the financial crisis but for ten years in favor of changes. Exhaustion of the model can be seen in the yield limits: their increase for rice rose from 2.3 per year to only 1.1 in the past decade. 3.8-2 For wheat.

The urgency of a revival in is compounded by the degradation of natural resources such as water, climate warming and the volatility of world prices become unsustainable because of the excess liquidity in the financial markets. The urgency is highlighted, especially by the multiplication of the purchases of millions of hectares by countries (China, Saudi Arabia...) who believe thus ensure "food security" and nationalist reflexes (tension on the CAP in Europe, restriction of exports to Argentina...). These practices are large threats of violent conflicts.

The land is fertile: the goal is not out of reach. There are means of eradicating hunger and feed 9 billion people. Person is in doubt. The challenge is not at all as to climate, where lack of political consensus, the technologies, the general economy and, in fine, despite the profusion of type horror movies that Al Gore, the credibility of the project to public opinion. Regarding food, technologies are, the debate is really ideological, technical and local. There is not a model but many, respect for diversity, including through support of food crops, becoming the rule.

The excellent of Washington Ifpri (International Food Policy Research Institute) is a list of the conditions for success: food aid (relegated to 3.8 of the total of development aid against 17 in 1980, said the FAO), extending the role of markets, rediversifier cultures out of major cereals (wheat, corn), integrate farmers and their environment and limit the volatilities of course by mechanisms of reserves (Joachim von Braun)(ifpri). To give some 20 examples of successes, large and small. The India yesterday importing of milk became exporting through a technology revolution, the infrastructures and markets throughout the sector. In Bangladesh, facilitated sale of irri-gation materials and discontinuation of import quotas have stimulated the production of rice, which has doubled. Everywhere in Asia, cultivation of improved varieties of mung beans is advancing the yields of 30-55.

FAO says that we should put EUR 56 billion a year to feed the world, an increase of 50 of the current rate. Beyond the figure, the message forgot to Rome is that it is an urgent need to re-invest in agriculture.