FAO highlights potential of agricultural trade as a climate change adaptation tool

Climate change will have an increasingly adverse impact on many regions of the world, with those in low latitudes being hit the hardest, warned the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations at the United Nations General Assembly Second Committee discussion on Macroeconomic policy, trade and development on 11 October.

“International trade has the potential to help countries adapt to climate change in the context of food security, by stabilizing markets and reallocating food from surplus to deficit regions. But this will not happen automatically. We must ensure that the evolution and expansion of agricultural trade is equitable and works for the elimination of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition globally,” said Carla Mucavi, Director of the FAO Liaison Office to the United Nations in New York.

The relationship between Agricultural trade, climate change and food security is the theme of the 2018 edition of FAO’s flagship publication the State of Agricultural Commodity Markets (SOCO), launched in September.

SOCO calls for the countries to assess all possible options to ensure food security and nutrition, employing a range of measures to boost investments and promote sustainable agricultural productivity and adaptation, including through trade.

Mucavi also informed that agricultural trade has almost tripled in value over the past 15 years, driven by economic and population growth, with the share of agricultural imports by middle and low-income countries sourced from other middle and low-income countries rising from 42 percent in 2000 to 54 percent in 2015. She also stressed that, between 2000 and 2015, agricultural imports of LDCs increased from about 2.5 billion to about 32.8 billion US dollars.