Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today about hunger and starvation in the developing world and how Canada could help.
Many say that the world grows more than enough food for everyone. Why then do almost one billion people still face hunger today?
Many of Canada's current aid and trade policies support replacing small scale local farming abroad for chemically dependent industrial agriculture centred on exports. We are adding to the problem. Especially bad is the conversion of food crops to agrofuels and the promotion of patented genetically modified crops that prevent poor farmers from saving their own seeds.
This leads to situations like 2008, when market speculation drove food prices up and when countries that could no longer afford to feed themselves suffered food riots and hunger.
Our development and trade policies need to support the food sovereignty and security of developing countries instead of dismantling local sustainable farming.