Towards an APEC Food System

Abstract

What is an APEC Food System? Leaders of APEC's 21 member governments are committed to achieving free and open trade and investment and to better trade facilitation and greater economic and technical cooperation within the APEC region. Considerable progress has already been made towards those goals, but least so in the food sector. The latter needs to be addressed urgently, not only because of the wastefulness of current policies but also because the vast majority of the region's poor depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihood. With this in mind, the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) proposed in September 1998 that APEC leaders take joint action to develop a so-called APEC Food System to boost the food sector's contribution to the prosperity of APEC's economies. While not doubting the region's capacity to continue to meet its aggregate food needs, the question raised by ABAC is whether demand could be met in a more efficient and environmentally responsible way, and in such a way that people feel more food-secure and the poor are better off.