Food Security

I agree. Like a number of other countries, the United Kingdom has a long and honourable tradition of not just talking about what needs to be done, but putting money into it. I can say from my long experience of dealing with the World Food Programme that it is an outstanding organisation which delivers the most practical assistance to our fellow human beings in times of need. However, it deals with short-term emergencies. The question is: how are we going to increase global food production in what is literally a changing climate, because farmers throughout the world will have to contend with unreliable water supplies and the increasing frequency of droughts and floods? Food production will be affected by climate change, but it could also contribute to climate change if the wrong agricultural policies are adopted. The common agricultural policy, and agricultural support policies in countries such as the United States of America, keep prices high domestically and do not help poorer countries in the global economy; dumping subsidised produce on local markets does not exactly encourage and help farmers in those countries to produce. All of that is why we need a deal through the World Trade Organisation Doha round, and it is why I agree 100 per cent. with what the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire says about reform of the CAP through the health check. Indeed, at the recent meeting of the Agriculture Council I made the point about what we in the UK have done in decoupling. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support, but the problem is that there are others in the European Union who have to be persuaded that the path of reform is the right one to take. On pesticides, the UK, along with the Irish and one other country, appear to be the only nations that have done the work and identified the potential problem, which is why I spoke in the way that I did when this matter came up at the recent meeting of the Agriculture Council, and we will return to it. On nitrate vulnerable zones and the nitrates directive, I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I would not have started from here, and nor would he; I suppose that this question should be addressed to those who agreed the nitrates directive all those years ago, but I think that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, chaired by the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), got it right in its recent report. On labelling, the upcoming new EU proposals offer an opportunity to make progress on a number of points that hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire raised. Looking beyond the recent price rises in global food commodities—which many commentators believe will come down from their peak, but will not return to where they were previously—we need to consider the future. Apart from giving more help to the World Food Programme, the UK—in the spirit of the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew)—has committed £120 million a year to boost agriculture in poor countries and £400 million over five years for international agricultural research, and Ban Ki-moon has taken an initiative with the task force, which is looking at a range of things that need to be done. Let me make one final observation on the international dimension: ultimately, good governance in countries has a hugely important influence on whether markets work successfully. Zimbabwe, for example, has in the space of 25 or 30 years gone from being the bread basket of Africa to a country that is incapable of feeding itself, not because of any factor except a monumental failure of governance.