Niet discussiëren maar produceren

“We moeten onszelf niet verliezen in een eindeloze discussie over de oorzaken van de hoge voedselprijzen. De wereldwijde voedselschaarste is alleen op te lossen als we de productie verhogen met nieuwe en innovatieve manieren van produceren”. Dat zei staatssecretaris Henk Bleker in zijn toespraak bij het seminar over voedselprijzen op 25 maart 2011.

Speech by Henk Bleker, minister for Agriculture and Foreign Trade at the seminar on food prices on 25 march 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would first like to welcome you all and thank you for being here today: speakers, moderator, panellists and all you participants. I am pleased that you are here, because we need your creative thinking on this issue.

In the coming decades, according to OECD-FAO forecasts, we will see consistently higher prices on the agricultural market. These are caused by the serious increase in the demand for food from growing populations, and the greater prosperity enjoyed by some.

It is the developing countries in particular that are having difficulty in buying the more expensive food.

They simply don’t have the money. And this has serious consequences. It could cause extensive food riots which in turn can lead to political and economic instability.

Today we are going to talk about price volatility.

And especially about unexpected peaks and troughs in prices. The variation in agricultural raw material prices over time is not the problem. But serious volatility is.

Serious price volatility not only causes problems for people with little money, but also for producers who have to cope with great highs and lows in the price of raw materials.

Today we are going to talk specifically about the influence of speculation on price volatility.

Many myths on this are going round. A pile of reports have been produced searching for the causes of the continuous price rise. Is it the high price of oil, the production of biofuels, trade measures like export bans, or is it the speculators?

The OECD-FAO report which appeared last week gives a more subtle analysis of the various contributing factors.

Others point the finger at people who see rising prices as a chance to make big money. And leave the hungry to deal with the consequences.

So this is the question we are facing today. Obviously there are the easy answers:

That agricultural markets should perhaps be better regulated. Or that trade should be better supervised to prevent negative speculation.

But I think we need to be careful in making snap judgements and coming up with easy solutions. We should first reflect on the nature of the problem.

What, for instance, do we really mean by speculation?

What actually happens when futures and derivatives are traded? What is the influence of index funds, hedge funds and over-the-counter trading? What effect does this have on price forming on spot markets? What is the role of speculation in this? And does stockpiling play a role as a means of speculation? Or could stockpiling, on the contrary, reduce volatility?

These questions will be answered by scientists and experiential experts here today. And we decided on this on purpose. We must first properly explore the facts before choices can be made. Only once the facts are clear can policy-makers and politicians make responsible and well-founded choices.

And this is a very serious issue: it is about the price of our daily food. We shouldn’t lose our way in discussions about the causes of high prices and their volatility.

Because I believe it is much more important to find a structural solution to the problems. Food security is the more urgent point here. It is clear that global food production must be increased. And that has to be done in a new, innovative way.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I call on you again to put your creative thinking caps on. There are important questions before us that demand answers. I wish you a constructive and enjoyable seminar.

Thank you.