Scenesetter for the World Food Summit, Rome 10-13, 2002

SEC. VENEMAN: Thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be here. And I especially want to thank those of you who are listening in to this conference. It is an honor for me to be leading the U.S. delegation and representing the president and the American people at the World Food Summit in Rome next week. As you know, this summit is hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organization. I'm glad to see Chuck Ramonschnieder (sp) here today from the FAO Washington office. But I wanted to take this opportunity today, on Thursday before we leave on Saturday, to discuss a little bit about the summit with you and take some questions.

       First, we've got a sizable delegation going with us that will include two undersecretaries of Agriculture, Dr. J.B. Penn, who is here with me today, who heads our farm and foreign agricultural services area, and Eric Bosk (sp), who is our undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, and in that capacity overseas all our feeding programs here in the U.S. -- food stamps, school lunch and the like.

       We're also very pleased that we will have as part of our delegation Undersecretary of State Alan Larson, as well as Administrator Andrew Natsios, administrator of the Agency for International Development.

       More than 800 million men, women and children around the world suffer from severe hunger. Now, that number is nearly three times the population of the United States, to put it in perspective. This is a staggering and unacceptable loss of human potential. As you know, in 1996, the United States joined 180 other nations in making an historic pledge to reduce by half the number of their people suffering from chronic hungers by the year 2015. Some nations are on target to meet the 1996 goal, and others are not. In the U.S., we anticipate reaching the goal five years ahead of schedule. The summit is intended to take stock of where we are and to look at what individual nations and the global community together is doing, and what needs to be done to achieve this ambitious but attainable goal.

       At the summit, we will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the goals of the 1996 summit, and we'll present a number of ideas for meeting those goals. First, we intend to pursue a three-pronged strategy that focuses on the following. First, boosting agricultural productivity in the developing world. Second, ending famine. And third, alleviating severe vitamin and mineral deficiencies. We will be asking our partners, other donors, developing countries and international institutions to work with us on each of these fronts.

       The United States takes the 1996 commitments seriously, and has a very long history of helping others. We are the world's largest donor of food aid, and a major donor of all assistance resources. We are the leading donor in responding to needs in Afghanistan and in the crisis in southern Africa. We fund a wide range of initiatives in agricultural development, health, technology, research, debt relief, environmental protection, and treating HIV/AIDS. Nine million children in 38 countries are being fed through out international school feeding efforts. And we maintain one of the world's most open markets, importing $450 billion in products from developing countries, more than eight times the amount that these countries receive in total aid.

       But all of this is not enough, and we are committed to doing more and doing it better. In March, President Bush proposed an ambitious compact for development and declared that the U.S. will lead by example, pledging a 50 percent increase in U.S. funding for international poverty reduction efforts. He called it "raising harvests where hunger is greatest." Funding will be targeted to poorer countries that demonstrate a commitment to broad-based development and economic freedom. Aid and assistance can help developing countries grow their way out of poverty and dependence, but only when assistance is linked to policies that attract investments, encourage private initiative, and create opportunities for all.

       There's a great deal of work to do if the nations of the world are going to meet the goals that were set in 1996. This is a global challenge, requiring a global effort. And I am looking forward to a renewed global commitment at next week's summit. The focus will be on the world's poor and hungry, but the commitment countries make and the actions they take over the next few years will determine the future for all of us.

       Thank you very much. And again, thank you all for being here. And I'd be happy to respond to some questions. And Dr. Penn will be available to answer questions as well.

       Q My name is Adu Asari (sp), reporter for AfricaNewscasts.com There is a cycle of U.S. rise in agricultural productivity, then let's say for example African drop in agricultural productivity and an increase in hunger and their -- or the commitment to raise that -- to raise productivity in Africa and other developing areas. And you have all said that there is going to be -- I mean U.S. is involved in funding initiatives to raise this productivity. How would you reconcile this cycle with the economic aspect of the U.S. agricultural productivity, if there should be a rise in the productivity in the developing world?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Let me -- I think I understand your question. What we -- what our goal is, and part of our three-pronged approach is to raise productivity, particularly in the areas where people are most hungry around the world -- and, of course, that includes many parts of Africa. We talked about the importance of developing countries as we launched the Doha round in November, and in fact, as you know, it's called the Doha Development Agenda, and that includes a commitment by many of the developed countries towards capacity building, working with the developing world not only to develop their own capacity to produce and feed themselves and the institutions that will help them participate in global trade negotiations, in developing the kinds of systems that will allow them to be more active in the international trade environment, but also other technologies that will allow productivity to increase.

       One of the areas we've talked about a tremendous amount in terms of productivity and helping the developing world is the area of biotechnology and looking at new technologies that can help productivity. We in the U.S., and particularly through some of our research institutions, some of our land grant institutions, are working directly with some of the African countries to look at technologies that will actually be specific to certain regions in Africa to allow them to find gains in productivity and find the means to better feed themselves.

       And so I think through -- through the Doha Development Agenda, through this re-commitment to work towards reducing world hunger through the Monterrey conference that I talked about, where the U.S. agreed to increase by half the amount of money it would put in, and then the conference that's coming up later on in Johannesburg, where we're looking at agricultural sustainability as part of that effort -- that all of these things really fit together hopefully to produce the kind of overall goals we're talking about, and that is to alleviate poverty, and particularly to alleviate global hunger.

       Q My name is Ida (sp) from Kyodo News, Japan. In the draft resolution of the conference, it refers to the reduction of agricultural subsidies or increases the openness of the market. How do you respond on that? And also that the draft resolution refers to the establishment of a trust fund in the amount of 500 million.

       How do you respond on that in that kind of issue (as a final ?)

       SEC. VENEMAN: In terms of the open markets and reducing barriers, that ties directly in to what was agreed in Doha, particularly with regard to the agriculture agenda. As you know, in Doha it was agreed that we would pursue an aggressive trade agenda that would include reducing or eliminating export subsidies, and in fact, the U.S. put forward a proposal this week to eliminate export subsidies, to substantially increase market access -- that is, reducing tariffs. As you know, we converted tariffs to their tariff equivalents through a process of tariffication in the Uruguay round, and we would hope now that those tariffs could be brought down. Our average tariff for food and agriculture in the U.S. is about 12 percent. Around the rest of the world, average tariffs for food and agriculture are around 62 percent. So we think it's important if we're going to have more open trading in food and agriculture that we continue to open market access by reducing tariffs.

       Finally, we've talked about the need to continue to negotiate reductions in the most trade-distorting domestic supports, and that was defined primarily in the Uruguay round as what was called the "amber and blue box" categories. And, again, the countries committed to working towards and aggressive result in that regard.

       I'm going to ask J.B. Penn to answer the question about those $500 million, because I'm not sure I've seen the specifics on that particular issue.

       MR. J.B. Penn: Well, I can't comment on the specifics of that either, but I would just add that with respect to the language that you talk about, trade and development go hand in hand. Trade boosts income. Income -- trade is the greatest source of funding for development that we have. And so the idea is that we need to link trade and development now to boost incomes and to expand the economic opportunities for everybody.

       Q Not about the summit but about your trip to Italy -- as far as I understand, you plan to meet in Rome with your Russian counterpart. May I ask you to tell us a little bit what kind of issues do you plan to discuss with him, and especially I'm interested in this chicken issue? Do you personally think that the case is closed? And if not, what do you think the both sides should do to find the acceptable solution? Thanks.

       SEC. VENEMAN: Thank you. I do have a meeting scheduled with Mr. Gordeev (ph), who is my counterpart from Russia. We've had the opportunity to talk on the phone several times, and I think we have established at least a long distance good working relationship in that regard. But we have not yet had the opportunity to meet face to face. And so I am very much looking forward to meeting him. And, as you say, we do have a number of issues, but primary on the food agenda and the agriculture agenda these days has been the poultry issue. And we have -- there is a team, a technical team arriving later this week to talk further about some of the technical details that we have yet to work out. I don't consider the issue closed. We still have a number of details to work out to get trade moving again. It has begun to move to a small extent, but with a lot more hurdles. And we're anxious to get protocols in place that will allow our poultry to again move into the Russian market in the way that it has in the past to provide the consumers of Russia the quality product that we produce here in this country.

       Q Before this press conference, I talked to a couple of Russian experts, and they -- how can I say it -- they are grumbling that they haven't yet received the information about how you handle this issue of chicken flu, especially in Virginia state. Could you comment a little bit about this? Thanks.

       SEC. VENEMAN: I think -- yeah, I thought -- we have sent, I believe, all the information on how we're dealing with that issue, and we've been very aggressive in our eradication efforts, and I believe we've seen a virtual -- the leveling off and a virtual elimination now because we've been so aggressive in depopulation. As you know, this is what's called a low path avian influenza. It is not a reportable disease under the OIE, and it should not be grounds for action against our exports, according to the OIE. And so I think it's important that we provide the information that's been requested, but I think it's also important to point out that this is what's called a low path avian influenza, not reportable and should not be subject to trade action.

       But again, in my meetings with Mr. Gordeev (ph), I hope that we can go beyond the poultry issue, that we can begin to talk about broader cooperation in the area of food and agriculture. I think we -- we certainly have a number of things in common that we could work toward. And I think it's very important that we find a way for Russia to work with us to resolve this poultry issue so that the product can move, because, as you know, Russia wants to be a member of the WTO, and we think it's very important that -- that the -- that these issues be resolved as if Russia were a member, so that we can see good faith towards moving in that direction.

       Q (Inaudible) -- Italian News Agency ANSA (sp). Mr. (sic) Secretary, are you satisfied with the FAO performances, or are you bringing to Rome some proposals to improve this performances and reform the FAO?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Well, we are -- we are not going to this summit with a broad agenda in terms of the FAO. As you know, the FAO conference was last November. We had the opportunity to meet with the director-general at that time. We talked about the FAO and we've had the opportunity to meet with him since then, and we continue to have people who work on issue of the FAO and how it operates. And that's very important. It's important that international organizations today are responsive to the needs of the countries that are members, and to the donor countries as well.

       This is, as you know, the World Food Summit. It happens once every five years -- or at least I believe this is the third one. And we will have the opportunity to meet again with the director-general. We'll continue to talk about issues of the FAO but that will not be the central focus of our visit to Rome.

       Q Again, my name is Adu Asari (sp), Africa Newscasts. I would like to follow-up on the question by the gentleman concerning the poultry exports to Russia. I was surprised a couple of weeks ago in a conversation with some business people from West Africa who complained that in their effort to have some poultry export from Virginia, the farmers there were reluctant because they claim that there's too much paperwork involved from the USDA. So, my question is, is there any way in which the USDA could probably tone down the amount of paperwork required for exporting poultry and poultry products abroad?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Okay. That seems to be the opposite from what we're dealing with with Russia, who wants more paperwork. But, we -- you know, we're constantly looking for ways to streamline processes, to get more processes into, you know, computerized systems, to make processes more efficient and to provide the product. I have not heard the specific complaints about paperwork that you're talking about, but certainly if -- if people can make us aware of where there are roadblocks, we'd certainly be willing to look into them.

       Q (Inaudible). There is a view that as long as your orthodoxy about the considers food to be a marketable commodity rather than a sacred commodity, the problem of hunger will not be solved. There are two aspects of this. One is the positive impact of whatever research is being done will not be felt as long as your dominant factory is in private hands. The absence of public research, that is hampering the progress as far as your goals are concerned. Secondly, the negative impact is traveling very fast because of the market being involved in research. Genetically altered feeds are being indiscriminately spread, and they are causing havoc as far as local agriculture is concerned in many countries.

       SEC. VENEMAN: Can you just -- I'm not sure what you're referring to in the last part of your question.

       Q I'm talking about the side effects of bio-technological progress because of which there are two aspects. One their marketing companies or the agrobusiness research is putting things like "terminator genes" which will make the farmers dependent on that particular company for repetitive use of the patented genes. So the impact of intellectual property formulations on lack of agriculture research in this country.

       SEC. VENEMAN: Okay. I think you raise interesting issues about research, and I think there is a growing amount of research that's being done much more in the public domain in terms of -- as I mentioned, we have research going on with some of the African countries specifically on products that could apply uniquely to areas where there is drought, or unique soil conditions and so forth.

       And I think that -- that kind of product will develop over time that will be more publicly available to some of these countries, and we do see some of these things in development now. I mean, the one example, of course, is the golden rice, the vitamin A rice. Nobody's trying to protect that. It is available, and I think can provide tremendous health benefits to people.

       I think the other it's important to point out with regarding to bio-technologies, we are also -- not only do we see potential benefits in terms of productivity increases, particularly in parts of the developing world, where food -- access to food has been an issue, but we're already seeing gains on the environmental side in this country. In Australia, where we're using BT strains of cotton for example, the chemical amounts that are required to produce a crop are much less, and we're already beginning to see benefits in the water quality in surrounding watersheds. So, I think it's important to point out that biotechnology also has that kind of benefit.

       In terms of some of the issues of the seeds, again, that's going to be a marketing issue, to some extent dependent upon whether or not the companies are in possession of the product that's been approved. But I do believe that there will be more publicly available products that will be coming on the market in a relatively short period of time. One of the things about this technology -- it is -- it is really relatively new in terms of what the potential is. We're already beginning to see potential for medicines in biotechnology through plants and through food, and there are so many things now in development that could help so many people, both from a health standpoint as well as from a hunger standpoint.

       Q Madam Secretary, could you tell us, when you're speaking in Rome, some sense of your schedule, also maybe some of the other bilaterals? And, there are a couple of questions that have come up about the U.S. -- U.S. position. You talked about the interest of the United States in increasing agricultural -- (audio break.) Will anybody else in the administration be announcing any kind of new initiatives or new funding on agricultural aid? And also, do you have any particular plans for encouraging other countries to participate in the McGovern-Dole School Lunch Program?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Let me begin -- that was a long question. Let me just begin with the last one. Let me begin with the last one because when I -- as you may know, when I was in FAO -- at the FAO conference in November, I did specifically talk about what was then not called the McGovern-Dole School Lunch Program, it was called the Global Food for Education Initiative -- but I truly believe that is the kind of model that we should be encouraging other countries of the world to participate in. We have not found a lot of other countries that are willing to join us in this effort. But the fact of the matter is is that we know that if children are fed at school, they're more likely to come to school and they're more likely to learn at school. And so we think the idea of feeding children at school is a good one.

       I recently had one of our American ambassadors in my office, who serves in one of the poorer African countries. And he was telling me about how he was traveling out in the countryside and ended up staying in a school one night that was completely abandoned because at one time they did serve some food to the children in the school and then the children came to school, and when they quit, the children quit coming to school. And that means they don't get an education, there isn't the opportunity to get ahead, and we don't see education then giving the opportunity to develop and make progress. And so I thank you for asking that question because I do think, you know, that is a very important initiative, and one that certainly we will be mentioning.

       I will be speaking some time on Monday, probably late afternoon. We're not entirely sure of the time slot yet. There are a number of heads of state that will be representing their countries, and they will all, obviously, go ahead of a delegation like ours that is represented at ministerial level. So we believe it will be some time Monday afternoon.

       I will, as you indicate, be having some bilaterals. I am going to meet my counterpart from Russia. I believe we're going to have one -- I believe the Chinese delegation will be led by a vice premier that oversees the agriculture portfolio, and we have a meeting there. We will be meeting, again, with our Italian counterparts.

       MR. : (Inaudible.)

       SEC. VENEMAN: Oh yes. And we're also doing a very interesting thing. We're going to take the opportunity to meet with, as a group, the IICA ministers -- the International Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture is an institution that's based in Costa Rica, in San Jose, Costa Rica, and it is an association of all the AG ministers in the Americas. We just in November elected a new director of that, Mr. Braithwaite (sp). He has been looking very aggressively at how to make IICA more responsive to the needs of today, and so we're going to sit with our counterparts, and I really talked with my counterpart in Brazil about doing this initially, and we're going to hold a meeting to talk about how we can really make the work that IICA does relevant to what countries need today. And it will be an opportunity to discuss with the countries -- the developing countries as well as those that are the primary donors. The primary donors -- I think the four top donors are the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Mexico, and so we'll be having a chance to meet with our counterparts from IICA. So, we're looking forward to that as well.

       It's -- and then there is, I believe, a conference -- a conference separate but as sort of part of the overall time there on biotechnology, to allow people to have some -- access to some -- I think -- I believe Norman Borlag (sp) is going to be chairing that event. So, I think that will be a good opportunity to share some good, sound science about biotechnology and where it's going, and what the opportunities are.

       Q (Off-mike.)

       SEC. VENEMAN: Oh, yes, Mr. Museveni. I did have the opportunity to meet Mr. Museveni and be on a program with him at the Chamber of Commerce -- he is the president of Uganda -- when he was visiting here. Uganda is quite a success story in Africa, and particularly in agriculture because they are a -- they are a surplus producer of food in Africa. Am I right on that?

       Q (Off-mike.)

       SEC. VENEMAN: Well, that's what Mr. -- (laughs) -- that's what Mr. Museveni told me. But we'll have a chance also to meet with him again and renew our acquaintance from when he was here in Washington.

       Q (Off-mike.)

       SEC. VENEMAN: Okay.

       Q (Inaudible) -- on the issue of development aid initiatives, is it appropriate to ask you about that, or is Mr. Natsios handling it? I'm not sure. But I just wondered if there's anything -- since you brought up the subject, I wondered if there's anything in particular coming up on that next week?

       SEC. VENEMAN: On development, we -- we will be announcing an initiative -- it's not a development aid initiative per se -- we're going to announce an initiative in my speech, which I am not going to pre-announced today. But in terms of development aid, we are going to recommit to a minimum of 2.5 million tons of food aid. And our emphasis really is on partnership, looking at the best ways -- if you look at what the president announced in Monterrey, I mean, that's all about working with countries to produce measurable results and thereby, you know, spending the additional resources that he committed, based upon measurable results. I think that follows very well on the Doha Development Agenda, where we talked a lot about capacity building. And so that's really going to be the focus, is looking at, you know, the three goals -- how we can partner, how we can utilize all of these different initiatives that are -- and conferences that are going forward.

       Q Sorry for taking too much of your time, but I believe that the summit cannot come to a good conclusion without the questions about U.S. farm bill. The -- not too long ago, we had a briefing here by Dr. Penn, and I --

       SEC. VENEMAN: Did he do a good job?

       Q He had an ear full. (Laughter.

       ) I believe he did. And I looked at the transcripts and came to the conclusion that Dr. Penn's defense of U.S. farm bill 2002 with respect to all the criticisms coming from outside the country was that the U.S. is not -- is not -- is meeting the WTO obligations, and that the U.S. has an obligation also to its domestic farmers. At home, I mean here in the states, this would not be a contradiction, but outside of here, especially in Africa, the U.S. farm bill is seen as a form of protectionism. As a matter of fact, most of the reporters who covered Dr. Penn's briefing left here -- one TV reporter -- I wouldn't mention the name here, but identified -- characterized Dr. Penn's defense as unilateral declaration of protectionism by the U.S. What will be your defense in Rome?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Well, I think -- I think it's very unfair to call the farm bill protectionist, because the farm bill does not put any new trade barriers in place. It doesn't raise a single tariff. It does nothing to change market access to this country. And as you know, we import a tremendous amount of food and agriculture product into this country. So, I don't believe it's appropriate to characterize this farm bill as protectionist.

       Now, there has been criticism of the amount of money that's being spent, but the fact of the matter is, is the amount of money basically mirrors about what we've been spending over the last four years, in the form of supplemental amounts of money that have been appropriated. And, we have a limit that we can spend under the WTO -- $19.1 billion. It will stay within those limits, and if it appears that it won't, we have what's called a "circuit breaker" to make sure it does stay within limits. And I think it's very important to recognize that the limit that we have under the WTO for spending is about a third of what the European Union has.

       And I am very concerned that countries in Africa and in the developing world not look at this legislation as something that is protectionist, because there is no change in the ability to access the market in this country. So, I think it's -- it's very important. I mean, we have, you know, a number -- we have the AGOA preferences. We have preferences with a number of other developing countries through the GSP, Generalized System of Preferences. So, none of those things change with this farm bill. So I guess I am a bit surprised that we continue to hear that this has created protectionism, because it has not changed anything at the border whatsoever.

       MODERATOR: Does anyone else have a question, because we are running out of time?

       Q Just a short one. You mentioned a meeting, a bilateral meeting with your Italian counterpart. There is any bilateral problem with Italy you have to raise with him?

       SEC. VENEMAN: Well, we had the opportunity to meet when I was there in November, and this will be a follow-up meeting. We did, at that time, discuss a number of the challenges in Europe with regard to products of biotechnology. I think that we'll probably continue that conversation to some extent. But I think it is -- it is primarily a meeting to continue to establish a working relationship. And again, he -- I am in Italy and I think it's appropriate that we have the opportunity to visit with the agriculture minister in the host country.

       MODERATOR: Thank you, Secretary Penn -- Veneman. And thank you, Dr. J.B. Penn.

       MR. Penn: You're welcome.

       SEC. VENEMAN: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

       MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.