Food companies should be regulated, argues UN

The operations of large food multinationals should be more actively regulated by developing nations heavily reliant on agriculture, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday, writes the Financial Times​ this week.

An FAO study​, released on Tuesday, warns that globalisation "has led to the rise of multinational food companies with the potential to disempower farmers in many countries"​. Developing countries needed "the legal and administrative framework to ward off the threats while reaping the benefits"​. But it concludes that the overall benefits of globalisation are likely to outweigh its risks and costs.

The call for greater regulation, contained in a lengthy study on world agriculture and food trends during the next 30 years, coincides with the growing debate on regulating big multinational enterprises expected to feature at the World Summit on Sustainable Development which opens in Johannesburg next weekend.

The report says the negative impact of globalisation can be mitigated by a combination of measures, including openness, investments in infrastructure, promotion of economic integration and limits on market concentration and control, to make globalisation work for the benefit of the poor.

Multinational companies, which have launched a big campaign ahead of the summit to show that their corporate goals are compatible with sustainable development, are lobbying the UN to endorse their plans for voluntary self-regulation.

But Jacques Diouf, the FAO's director-general, on Monday told the FT that self-regulation was often based on the "immediate interests"​ of big business. He said the FAO also felt genetically modified organisms should be subject to international regulation. GMOs could prove a "good scientific tool"​ to improve life, but they had to be controlled.