UN food rights rapporteur ends tour

A global "daily slaughter" is taking place in which 100,000 people are dying from a lack of food, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said on Friday. Prof Jean Ziegler said millions more were going hungry every day despite there being enough food on the planet to feed its population of six billion twice over. Speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Ziegler said the right to food must have "absolute priority" in global policies so as to ensure people no longer go hungry. Individual governments, the UN and trans-national companies were "duty bound" to ensure that people had enough to eat, he said. Ziegler's comments come as Ethiopia is emerging from a massive humanitarian disaster that left one-in-five of its population needing food aid to survive. In 2004, despite recording one of its largest harvests in five years, 10 percent of Ethiopia's 70 million people will need food aid to survive. Even during years with bumper harvests, some 5 million Ethiopians face hunger and are dependent on hand-outs because of deep-seated structural problems. Land in Ethiopia is currently owned by the state. The government believes that full privatisation of land could result in speculators taking advantage of impoverished farmers, which would lead to massive landlessness in rural areas. Instead it has launched a certification scheme, offering farmers greater land-tenure security as an incentive to invest in their farms. The guarantee, which comes in the form of a registration or ownership book, is expected to be valid for 99 years and entitles farmers to pass their land on to their heirs. But critics say the policy deters farmers from investing more heavily in agricultural production. Ziegler said his team is expected to publish the results of its right-to-food mission in Ethiopia - expected to examine issues of resettlement, food-for-work schemes run by charities and the government’s land policy - within the next three months. The recommendations will then be tabled before the UN General Assembly. If adopted, the international community will be obliged - but cannot be compelled - to implement them.