By Eduardo Martinez,
Agriculture ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations on Saturday reaffirmed their support for conflict-ravaged Ukraine after gathering in southwestern Japan for two days of talks as Russia's war against its neighbor threatens global food security.
"As food supply and demand change drastically around the world, agricultural policies in each country are at a historic turning point," Japan's farm minister Tetsuro Nomura said at the opening of the meeting in Miyazaki, one in a series of ministerial meetings taking place in the run-up to the G-7 summit next month.
The G-7 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union.
The meeting comes as disruptions in food commodity markets, brought on by the war between the two major grain suppliers, and the coronavirus pandemic, are pushing up prices.
Poorer countries in Africa and the Middle East, for which Ukraine is a major supplier of grain, were hit especially hard following the invasion, spurring fears of a hunger crisis.
Mykola Solskyi, Ukraine's agrarian policy minister, also attended the meeting virtually.
Bearing in mind the damage the war has caused to farms and waterways in Ukraine, Nomura later told reporters that he said during the meeting that Japan will aid Ukraine after the war with the construction of irrigation systems.
Discussions focused on beefing up agricultural productivity to increase output while doing so in an environmentally sustainable manner, according to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
At the end of the two-day meeting, the G-7 farm ministers plan to adopt a joint communique and an action plan concerning sustainable agriculture.
"Innovation is definitely key to feeding a growing population and doing it sustainably," said Canadian Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Marie-Claude Bibeau, who pointed to Canada's so-called clusters initiative, which forms partnerships between the farm industry, government and academia, with support from the state.
Britain's Trudy Harrison, minister for natural environment and land use, said, "In countries such as the U.K., where 70 percent of the land is farmed, our farmers are absolutely vital for the solutions, and that's why we're undergoing (change) to our farming policy to support farmers toward environmental stewardship."
Talks about increasing farm production had not been a major topic of discussion for the G-7, partly because the group's members include major exporters, such as the United States, according to the Japanese ministry. It is also feared that seeking to expand farm production will prompt countries to take protectionist moves, such as subsidizing farmers.
But Japan, a resource-poor and rapidly aging country, believes raising farm productivity is a key issue it must tackle to improve its food self-sufficiency rate, which remained at a low of 38 percent in fiscal 2021 on a calorie basis.
On the fringes of the meeting, the farm ministers of Japan and Canada also agreed to establish a joint dialogue to regularly exchange information on realizing greater sustainability in agriculture production.
Canada is a major source of wheat and other grains for Japan, as well as accounting for 95 percent of its rapeseed supply.
Ahead of the G-7 gathering, Japan agreed with the International Fund for Agricultural Development to strengthen their partnership on eradicating hunger worldwide and launch an initiative to help small-scale food producers engage in sustainable farming with the enhanced engagement of private-sector companies.
The Japanese farm ministry will contribute 230 million yen ($1.7 million) to the initiative.
International organizations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Food Program, have called for urgent action to address the global food crisis, warning that supply chain disruptions, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war have caused an "unprecedented shock to the global food system."
Dozens of countries are experiencing double-digit inflation, while 349 million people across 79 countries are acutely food insecure, the organizations said in a joint statement released in February, adding that many countries identified as "hunger hotspots" are in Africa.
Japan is serving the rotating G-7 presidency this year.
Miyazaki Prefecture is known for its livestock farming, as well as its premium mangoes. Its self-sufficiency ratio on a production value basis was the highest among all prefectures in Japan as of fiscal 2019, according to farm ministry data.
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