Meeting of the Security Council on Food Security.
December 4, 2009
The Kremlin, Moscow
Выступление на заседании Совета Безопасности.
4 декабря 2009 года
Москва, Кремль
PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon, colleagues.
This Security Council meeting today is to examine the Food Security Doctrine. I hope that this document will be entirely practical in nature and will be one of the means for implementing our National Security Strategy for the period to 2020, which I recently approved. I hope the Strategy and the Doctrine will help to resolve a number of practical tasks: making food affordable, increasing control over food safety, and helping in general to ensure normal food supply in the country.
The international community is worried about the global food security issue. This is not a new issue. It has been on the agenda for a while now and is one of the priority items at practically all international gatherings. International experts say that if two or more generations in a row face hunger - and this is the situation in a whole number of countries physiological and intellectual degradation starts to take place at the genetic level.
Global trends today are such that food is every bit as strategically important as financial resources and energy security. This is one of the reasons why it is the Security Council that is examining this issue.
Todays Russia must make full use of its unique agricultural potential to not only guarantee supplies of the main foodstuffs but also, we hope, regain the status it once had as one of the worlds leading foodstuffs exporters.
To remind you of some figures that I am sure you know well as it is, Russia accounts for 9 percent of ploughed land, 52 percent of black earth soil, and 20 percent of the worlds fresh water. These are impressive figures. But at the same time, our share in global agricultural production is much smaller than these figures would suggest. We account for only five percent of milk production, for example, and just two percent of meat production.
But thanks to the efforts made through the Agriculture National Project and the State Agriculture Sector Development Programme, as well as the recent anti-crisis measures, the agriculture sector posted one of the best results among our different economic sectors this year. We have managed to restrain food price increases, and this is without question one of our social obligations.
The main types of foodstuffs are showing steady growth now. Consumption of the basic food groups still falls short, however, of the levels recommended by doctors, and even todays consumption level, which is certainly higher and better than in the 1990s, say, is still based on imports to a considerable extent.
Provision of the basic food groups in accordance with the recommended consumption levels is not as good in our country as one might imagine with a saturated market and the decent results our agriculture policy has produced so far. Provision of meat and milk falls short by 25 percent, fish by 45 percent, and vegetables by a quarter.
Achieving real change in this situation requires not fragmentary but systemic measures that will see home-grown products form the bulk of our foodstuffs resources. We need to define the quantity and quality criteria for Russias food security, forecast the risks and take action to prevent possible threats from outside and inside.
What do we need to do first? First of all, the Government must start monitoring the food security situation in the country as a whole and in the regions, both individually and in comparison with the situation in the main food exporting countries, because taking the crisis into account we agreed on keeping watch on the main macro processes. Guaranteeing food supplies is one of the cornerstones of security in general.
Second, we need to introduce rational food consumption norms that meet modern physiological demands for healthy food. We already have such norms the norms for school meals that have already been drafted and are now in force. These are modern standards that were only drawn up just recently. The Government needs to have the relevant documents ready by April 1, 2010.
Third, we need to really and truly get to work on the legislative base governing land relations. The current laws, as everyone knows, create fertile soil for numerous violations. The result is uncontrolled and non-rational use of agricultural land. The aim here is clear.
http://www.kremlin.ru
Loading...
33:55
Выступление Д. Медведеваby vedomosti2,017 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)