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Farming

Answer

We are working to secure liberalisation of international trade which, as the Foresight project on the Future of Food and Farming states, will help dampen price volatility by allowing a production shock in one region to be more easily compensated for by output and trade adjustments in others.As part of this work, in June 2011, the UK secured a number of significant results in the final text of the ““Action Plan on food price volatility and agriculture””, which was agreed at the G20 Agriculture Ministers' meeting.The plan represents the first steps towards a clear and positive response to the challenges highlighted in the Foresight report and, if implemented quickly, will go some way towards creating a more predictable world for food producers and consumers in both developed and developing countries.The plan recognises that market fundamentals—supply and demand—are the key causes of price volatility in wheat, corn, maize and soya and that both increasing production sustainably and reducing shocks to supply such as those caused when policymakers respond to poor quality information, are the means to ensure a healthier relationship of supply to rising demand. During discussion of the plan, we emphasised the need to trade openly and remove distorting measures, and that export bans in particular should not impede calls for humanitarian aid.We have established an Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to improve market information and transparency in order to encourage major players on the agri-food markets to share data, enhance existing information systems, promote greater shared understanding of food price developments, and to further policy dialogue and cooperation. The G20 countries committed to disclose reliable, quality, accurate and timely data for this initiative. The first meeting of AMIS will take place in Rome on 15 and 16 September.We also agreed to establish a senior officials' group to act as a "Rapid Response Forum", to share views and plans for immediate actions in order to prevent or mitigate world food price crises. Taken together with the improvement in market information which we anticipate that AMIS will bring, this improved coordination should reduce the extent to which G20 members are themselves the source of avoidable supply shocks in future, as happens for example when panic buying takes place or export restrictions are imposed.The plan will now be submitted to the G20 summit in November 2011.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

71705; 532 c1400-1W

Session

2010-12

Related items

Farming
Monday, 23 May 2011
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Food Prices

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk