Conflict over EU policy looms, writes Seán Mac Connell, Agriculture Correspondent.
EU:MANAGEMENT OF the Common Agricultural Policy will come under increasing pressure as the world food crisis intensifies with clear divisions on its causes between member states such as Germany and France.
Earlier this week at a meeting in Luxembourg, the French launched a campaign to restore the protection of food supplies to the core of the Common Agricultural Policy. At the farm ministers' meeting, French agriculture minister Michel Barnier called on Europe to establish a food security plan and to resist further cuts in the EU agriculture budget.
In insisting that cereals in particular be produced for human consumption rather than biofuel, France argues that this humanitarian measure also bolsters the case for maintaining the subsidies and supports paid to farmers in forthcoming world trade talks. This is an argument that wins support from countries like Ireland.
While the commission believes that higher food prices will stimulate farming output and increase food security, the French, who take over the EU presidency in July, believe that supports and subsidies for farmers growing food are still a valid policy option.
Mr Barnier, who works very closely with the Irish Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, has blamed economic liberalism and "too much trust in the free market" for the soaring cost of food. "We must not leave the vital issue of feeding people to the mercy of market laws and international speculation," he said.
The French will almost certainly be in conflict with EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. She is a firm believer in more open global trade.
While in Ireland during the closure of the sugar industry, she said the commission would not support the growing of beet here for ethanol production because it "can be purchased at quarter the price from Brazil".
Her thinking is more in line with that of German chancellor Angela Merkel who blamed bad agricultural policies and changing eating habits in developing nations for rising food prices, and not biofuel or non-food production.
While environmentalists and humanitarian groups campaign vociferously against biofuels, arguing they divert production away from food and animal feed while contributing to sharp rises in the price of cereals and milk products, the Germans say no.
In a remarkable speech Merkel blamed "inadequate agricultural policies in developing countries and insufficient forecasts of changes in nutritional habits" as the cause of rising food prices.
"If you travel to India these days, then a main part of the debate is about the 'second meal'," said Merkel.
"People are eating twice a day, and if a third of one billion people in India do that, it adds up to 300 million people. That's a large part of the European Union," she said.
"And if they suddenly consume twice as much food as before and if 100 million Chinese start drinking milk too, then of course our milk quotas become skewed, and much else too," she added.
As the countdown to the so-called "health check" on the Common Agricultural Policy later this year begins, the French and the Germans are lobbying for their respective positions. The French in particular want that health check to reflect the realities of possible food shortages in the union.