OBSERVACIONES

While consumers had not benefited from liberalization in the period empirically covered in the studies, recent developments make this even more obvious. The

soaring commodity prices for rice in the international markets are reflected most immediately in those countries that have opened their markets most for imports. While the price increases in Indonesia, which is eager to preserve self-sufficiency, remained modest, in Honduras local rice prices in Honduras climbed by 53% between August 2007 and August 2008 (FAO 2009a, 31). The number of rice pro- ducers had declined from 25,000 at the end of the 1980s to 1,300 today. These are, needless to say, not at all in a position to increase their production quickly enough in the short term to close the supply gap that has resulted from the lack of afford- able rice imports in recent months. In the case of Ghana, according to a World Bank report, prices for rice and maize have increased by 20-30% between the end 2007 and spring 2008 (Wodon et al. 2008). Ghanaian rice producers, according to the report, seem to benefit from this increase to some extent. However, after two decades of structural adjustment in this sector, they currently represent only 3.9% of the pop- ulation and only cover 20% of the national consumption. The consequence is that domestic prices followed the international ones and food insecurity is sharpened, especially among poor urban consumers.

Against this background, the lobby work for comprehensive liberalization announced by the high-level task force on the global food crisis is not accept- able. In particular, following particular formulae in trade policy must not, under any circumstances, become the condition for gaining allowances or loans to combat hunger. The fact that similar practices have still been carried out by the IMF and the World Bank, even in the recent past, certainly gives cause for concern in this respect. In fact, according to the FAO, 43 states in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean further decreased their tariffs or custom fees on import tariffs in 2008 as a reaction to the price increases (FAO 2009a, 7). According to De Schutter, this is a problematic response because it can lead to serious losses in government revenues and, in the medium term, can encourage a further increase in imports at the cost of local producers. FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) share this preoccupa- tion: “High food prices have prompted the removal of import restrictions. Tariffs on food imports were reduced or eliminated in many low-income, food-deficit coun- tries (LIFDCs). When such measures are maintained for long periods, there is a risk that they reinforce the import surges that started in the mid-1990s, with negative consequences on long-term domestic food production” (FAO and WFP 2009, 58). In fact this risk is getting higher as agricultural commodity prices have come down considerably since mid-2008 (FAO 2009b).

The study indicates a high urgency to explore and implement policy options consistent with human rights obligations of both developing and developed coun- tries. The negative results of trade liberalization, structural adjustment, and merely market-driven agricultural policies in the rice sector and the current food crisis reveal a need for public policies and development assistance to re-establish mean- ingful support for local rice producers, especially smallholders. They also reveal the need for more policy spaces to re-establish public grain stocks and to protect the markets from cheap imports. Although such cheap imports have recently decreased or even stopped in many countries, they might occur again whenever international prices fall, which is very likely, given the high volatility of international markets.

This means that under no circumstances, should developing countries be obliged, through bilateral free trade agreements or the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, to reduce the ceilings for their import tariffs. On the one hand, more public support and market protection for the rice sector would help to protect and fulfill the right to food of vulnerable small-scale rice producers. On the other hand, in the long run, it would help reduce the reliance of developing countries on highly volatile international markets and thereby secure more stable prices for poor consumers.

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