Calling for repurposing damaging incentives to the agriculture sector that is price distorting and environmentally and socially harmful, a new United Nations (UN) report has said reconfiguring agricultural producer support rather than eliminating it will help fight climate change better.
The report, ‘A multi-billion dollar opportunity: Repurposing agricultural support to transform food systems’, launched late on Tuesday night by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has found that the current support to producers mostly consists of price incentives. These price incentives such as import tariffs and export subsidies, as well as fiscal subsidies are tied to the production of a specific commodity or input.”These are inefficient, distort food prices, hurt people’s health, degrade the environment, and are often inequitable, putting big agri-business ahead of smallholder farmers, a large share of whom are women,” the report said.
Global support to producers in the agricultural sector amounts to $540 billion per year, making up 15 per cent of total agricultural production value.
