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Putting food security and agriculture back in the strategic debate: an imperative |
February 1st, 2016 |
Food security and agriculture are without doubt among the major challenges of the 21st century. They are linked to a multitude of issues: world poverty, the plight of farmers, malnutrition, waste, water management but also political and social harmony. Alone, they make and unmake territories, impose a new global architecture, destabilize markets, ensure socio-political harmony or conversely disrupt it.
There will never be enough articles, studies and symposia to remind us of the eminently geostrategic role of agriculture and food security. In the December 2015 newsletter on Risks and Crises by the National Institute for Higher Studies on Security and Justice (INHESJ), researchers Sébastien Abis and Pierre Blanc, deliver their views on the importance of agricultural and food issues for stability in the world.
Various international events in 2015 (the major ones being: the Universal Exhibition in Milan, The Agricultural G20, COP21…) have placed agricultural issues at the centre of political and media attention and confirm the deep interconnection between agriculture, climate and socio-political harmony. However, this is far from sufficient, and the two researchers would like to make the interest and awareness surrounding these issues, a result of the 2007-2008 food crisis, long-term. Agriculture and food security are indeed dynamics for permanent power, currently globalized and multipolar. In the event of another eruption around these issues, it is essential, according to Sébastien Abis and Pierre Blanc, to pursue the reclassification of agricultural, food and rural issues in the strategic debate.
In this context, they conclude, it is necessary to “make the development of agriculture a driver for responsible power and the sustainable influence of France in the world”. However, if agriculture is a key vector of economic diplomacy, especially French, for want of an International Policy for Agriculture oriented towards international cooperation, it is ultimately the food security of our countries that we risk selling off.
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