Une année de crise pour l'alimentation du monde – et un argument fondamental pour la France et pour la PAC

Il y a un peu plus d’un an, les Britanniques, soutenus par les divers “libéraux” de service au sein du système européen, se livraient à un assaut en règle contre la PAC (Politique Agricole Commune) et contre la France. L’argument était bien sûr celui du modernisme, les Britanniques faisant mine de considérer l’agriculture comme un domaine dépassé qui ne devait plus être favorisé, pour mettre l’accent sur la recherche et les technologies. Les événements de 2007 montrent au contraire que l’agriculture devient un domaine stratégique fondamental qui doit bénéficier de la plus grande attention, avec les crises montantes dues aux avantages du “progrès”, – globalisation, crise climatique, etc.

Le site WSWS.org publie aujourd’hui un article rendant compte d’un rapport de la FAO sur une année de crise, l’année 2007 qui se termine. Les conditions de cette crise sont telles qu’il ne faut pas considérer 2007 comme un “accident“ malheureux, mais bien comme le début d’une nouvelle tendance: «Because of the long-term and compounding nature of all of these factors, the problems of rising prices and decreasing supplies in the food system are not temporary or one-time occurrences, and cannot be understood as cyclical fluctuations in supply and demand.» L’agriculture est bien un domaine stratégiqsue essentiel de l’avenir.

WSWS.org:

«Worldwide food prices have risen sharply and supplies have dropped this year, according to the latest food outlook of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The agency warned December 17 that the changes represent an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift in the global food system, threatening billions with hunger and decreased access to food.

»The FAO’s food price index rose by 40 percent this year, on top of the already high 9 percent increase the year before, and the poorest countries spent 25 percent more this year on imported food. The prices for staple crops, including wheat, rice, corn and soybeans, all rose drastically in 2007, pushing up prices for grain-fed meat, eggs and dairy products and spurring inflation throughout the consumer food market.

»Driving these increases are a complex range of developments, including rapid urbanization of populations and growing demand for food stuffs in key developing countries such as China and India, speculation in the commodities markets, increased diversion of feedstock crops into the production of biofuels, and extreme weather conditions and other natural disasters associated with climate change.

(…)

»The world reserves of cereals are dwindling. In the past year, wheat stores declined 11 percent. The FAO notes that this is the lowest level since the UN began keeping records in 1980, while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that world wheat stocks may have fallen to 47-year lows. By FAO figures, the falloff in wheat stores equals about 12 weeks worth of global consumption.

»The USDA has cautioned that wheat exporters in the US have already sold more than 90 percent of what the department had expected to be exported during the fiscal year ending June 2008. This has dire consequences for the world’s poor, whose diets consist largely of cereal grains imported from the United States and other major producers.

»More than 850 million people around the world suffer from chronic hunger and other associated miseries of extreme poverty. According to the FAO, 37 countries—20 in Africa, 9 in Asia, 6 in Latin America, and 2 in Eastern Europe—currently face exceptional shortfalls in food production and supplies.»

Mis en ligne le 22 décembre 2007 à 14H01