Prime Minister's remarks during interactive session
on "Fresh Solutions for Food Security"
at WEF, Davos, Switzerland
on 4 February 2009

Fresh Solutions for Food Security, WEF

Moderator : Mr. Prime Minister, I'll turn to you next. You are responsible for food security of your nation and Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice. Some say food prices have been too low, and commodity prices, for many years. And that the increase is healthy to generate production. But no doubt this price volatility has had a deep impact on the farmers of Thailand. In 2008, production was increased then the prices were lowered. Is there a sustainable model that can help farmers and the world' hungry weather through this volatility? Do we expect price and supply volatility to continue? Last year, only 7% of rice was traded in global markets and are we seeing a fundamental disruption in global food markets? 

PM Abhisit: Let me begin by making some observations. I know so much attention was put on food security. After all, oil prices and commodity prices shot up. There was clearly a reallocation of resources towards energy crops. But the fact of the matter is, it should surprise us all that as we develop the world - and the world has never been more advanced in terms of technology, in terms of creating wealth---that more and more people are actually becoming hungry.  It is also ironic that for a country like Thailand, which is seen to have a food surplus, we are a leading exporter of rice, of tapioca products, of cane sugar, that in fact the people who produce food are also the poorest in the country. So to me, that suggests that the problem we are facing is a reflection of a combination of market and government failures. The system that is in place so far as agricultural products--production and distribution--is concerned, is being distorted. That's the root cause of the problem. 

Before we started, I think there was a presentation showing places in the world that have shortages, and the fact of the matter is in the neighbouring countries of countries that are facing shortages, with similar conditions, with similar amounts of land or water - why are there problems in some countries and not in others? And if you look at the history of famines, you would discover that sometimes food is actually flowing out of the areas where there are famines. The root cause is all about distribution of purchasing power and unless we address that head on, we are going to continue to see imbalances. Frankly put, we've got developed countries providing enormous subsidies to their own agricultural sector which leads to the lack of competition in the world market, decreasing prices and opportunities for farmers in the developing countries. So it's no surprise that we have a shortage or lack of incentives to produce the amount of food that we should have.

Distribution. Clearly, unless we have a fairer system that addresses the issue of poverty. Again, even if you had the amount of food, they will not be distributed to those who need it if they do not have the purchasing power to get the food to them through the market system. So to me, we have to attack the problem on two fronts :

These are all essential and we would certainly welcome another way towards the green revolution to help increase production. But I think that's only half of the story. We need to address the more fundamental issues of distortion and justice which is really the root cause of the problem. 

Let me just mention that in Thailand, despite the food surplus, the very poorest are farmers and often they are drawn into the market system doing their cropping and ending up actually not having the money to buy their own food. In Thailand, we are very fortunate to have His Majesty the King who thought of the concept of Sufficiency Economy, where the people who are not ready, don't have the opportunity, or cannot take advantage of the market system are encouraged to make sure that in small communities they look after themselves and have the self-sufficiency in food by having a diverse set of agricultural products. Then when they become stronger they become integrated into markets. That's just one example, but my main point would be that it is time to face up to the challenge. That is, there are too many distortions as far as food market is concerned. It's time that developed nations get rid of the subsidies, create a fair competition and that we ensure that in all markets in all countries, we have a way of providing social safety nets so even the poorest have the purchasing power to gain access to food.  

For further solutions, I would just quickly mention that in many countries you have a surplus of capital and advanced technology, but lack of resources for agricultural products. But in others the reverse is the case. Is it time that there is some partnership, where we explore these complementarities? Like working through some kind of market system so that capital and technology could be used to increase production in exchange for this production being set aside for food reserves that can be distributed evenly at the global level.

Thank you.

Government Spokesman Bureau
Foreign Relations Division