Commission offers to publish data on agri-forecasts

The European Commission has offered to publish its short-term forecasts for EU agricultural markets so as to improve the transparency of commodity markets

It will also extend satellite monitoring of crop production beyond the EU to cover yields in eastern Europe and north Africa.

Dacian Ciolos?, the European commissioner for agriculture, made the offer to a meeting of farm ministers from the G20 group of the world’s richest and fastest-growing countries this week.

The EU also wants a discussion at the World Trade Organization on the freedom of food-exporting countries to impose export bans.

The G20 meeting, which was the first ever at the level of farm ministers, was organised by France, which holds the presidency of the G20 and is particularly concerned about the volatility of commodity markets. The meeting held in Paris yesterday and today (22-23 June) follows a conference in Brussels last week that discussed speculation in commodities. Greater regulation of the commodity markets is being mooted, partly because of growing concern about food security and partly because of evidence of trading in sophisticated financial instruments that are rooted in those markets.

FAO reforms

The Commission argues that the functioning of the world commodity markets could be improved by providing more data through the agricultural market information system (AMIS), a web portal managed by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. The EU has been pressing for reforms to strengthen the FAO. A new director-general of the FAO is to be elected this weekend. Franz Fischler, a former European commissioner, and Miguel Ángel Moratinos, a former foreign minister of Spain, are candidates.

Other initiatives included in the Commission’s submission to the ministerial meeting include more help for agricultural research to benefit smallholders and a review of commodity-market rules. Last week, Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market, said that he would look at using position limits as a way of preventing abuse of food commodity trade.

Click Here: NRL Telstra Premiership