World Food Supplies

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what importance they attach to the consequences of large-scale commercial land acquisitions in the developing world in their policies relating to the developing world and the prevention of a world food crisis.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the UK Government are committed to improving food security and nutrition in the developing world. We believe that private sector investment in agriculture is important in achieving that. We are clear that those investments, particularly any that involve commercial land acquisition, must be socially and environmentally responsible.

[Lord Judd]

Does the Minister agree with the estimate that, on average, every six days, investors buy an area of land the size of London in the poorest countries, which are often already facing acute food shortages? Do not those investors too frequently intend to export what is produced, although those countries are facing acute food shortages; and are not those exports often for biofuel, with all its questionable environmental dimensions? Do not such purchases tend to be made without proper community consent and, furthermore, without proper consideration of the economic and social consequences? What does the Prime Minister intend to propose to the G8 summit on land transparency and such purchases at the forthcoming meeting?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord, who has worked in this area for a very long time, is right to highlight this as a potential problem. However, I cannot agree with his first statement about its scale because there is insufficient evidence. One thing that is extremely important and that we are pursuing is supporting the evidence-gathering in this area to see what the scale of the problem might be so that we can better address it. Nevertheless, the noble Lord is right to say that transparency is the key here. If we can promote that, we can see whether the acquisitions that people may have made reference to are simply anecdotal or whether there is evidence of the nature that he is talking about. I assure the noble Lord that we are emphasising transparency and that at the G8 summit the Prime Minister will indeed focus on food security as one of the issues.

[Lord Chidgey]

What proportion of DfID’s aid budget has been allocated to the provision of more support for sustainable small-scale agriculture to help poor—mainly women—farmers feed their families? What measures are the Government taking to ensure that increased private investment in agriculture, as the Minister mentioned, is aimed at maximising poverty reduction and sustainable equitable growth, as highlighted by many NGOs, including Oxfam and ActionAid?

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord is right. DfID does support smallholder production, and one of the key issues here is trying to establish land rights. The United Kingdom is working in a number of countries to promote this and has increased the spending in this area. It is working in 13 countries to support smallholder farmers by supplying seeds, fertilisers and access to finance and by making sure that women, who are often the ones running these smallholdings, are particularly supported.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

Do the Government agree that the land reforms implemented in rural Scotland over the past decade have shown the benefit of involving those who live on the land in its future use? That benefits both the wider community and the individual families concerned, and may provide some lessons that could be used in our international development policy to assist those who are currently fighting against their movement from the land or the exploitation of their land in other parts of the world.

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Lord makes a good point. He will probably be aware that at the G8 last year the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition was set up specifically to take forward that approach of looking at the responsible development of agriculture, recognising its importance in sustaining the poorest communities and making sure that people are engaged in that positively. The UK is continuing to press forward that approach.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Will the Minister look particularly at any adverse impact on pregnant mothers and nursing mothers and their crucial role in the early development of children in terms of their being denied food because their area is being used to grow biofuels or for other uses?

[Baroness Northover]

The United Kingdom is extremely aware of the importance of supporting pregnant mothers and infants in their first days. The noble Earl will be aware that the first 1,000 days of gestation and a child’s life are so important to the future health of that child. The areas that I have just focused on support this, but I also flag up the fact that we have social safety nets. It is extremely important that financial support reaches pregnant women and those who are trying to support their families so that they have enough money to provide for those families.

[Lord Bates]

Is it not part of the evidence that could be considered the vast increase in local food prices in the poorest parts of this world? Is it not basically immoral to take food from countries in the developing world that cannot feed their own populations to feed biofuel incinerators here in the UK? We should be fuelling those biofuels from the massive food waste in developed countries, rather than have food scarcity in the poorest.

[Baroness Northover]

I was listening to the point on the “Today” programme about food wastage and it is extremely dramatic. Within DfID, we are working with other government departments to look at the impact of biofuels. It seems, although the evidence is disputed, that they have played a part in some of the food price spikes that we have seen. We are into the third one at the moment, which is largely because of the drought in the United States. However, the effect of using maize for biofuels is potentially significant and we are looking at this very closely.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that discussions are taking place, or are planned to take place, with the World Bank about a public freeze by the bank of all agricultural investments that involve large-scale land acquisition? Does the Minister agree that such leadership from the World Bank would leverage responses from other investors and developing country Governments in a much needed initiative?

[Baroness Northover]

We do not agree that there should be a freeze in World Bank lending for agriculture, the reason being that to do so could disrupt valuable projects and because the World Bank itself has high standards in place to try to ensure that things are transparent. We are pushing for greater transparency than is already the case in what the World Bank does. However, it is probably missing the mark to aim at the World Bank rather than looking in other directions. It is extremely important that we take forward the World Bank’s engagement in advising Governments to try to make sure that any land acquisition is to the benefit of their communities.