October 16th Statement : Food Sovereignty is the only solution and way forward
by La Via Campesina
FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS THE ONLY SOLUTION AND WAY FORWARD
16 OCTOBER 2022 AGROECOLOGY AND PEASANTS'SEEDS [1], FOOD SOVEREIGNTY
[2], LAND, WATER AND TERRITORIES [3], TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES AND
AGRIBUSINESS [4]
OCTOBER 16TH STATEMENT
Our fragile world faces an impending global food crisis. The impact of
COVID-19 pushed more people into poverty. Lockdowns devastated family
livelihoods, the economy, and disrupted supply chains. Globally,
according to the Global Report on Food Crises (_GRFC 2022_) [5], levels
of hunger remain as alarmingly high as in 2021, around 193 million
people are acutely food insecure and in need of urgent assistance across
53 countries. This acute hunger is driven by conflicts, climatic shocks,
the dramatic economic and social fallout from the COVID pandemic and
lately by war in Ukraine. Food commodity prices at the start of 2022
were at a 10-year high, and fuel prices at a seven-year high. The
current food crisis is about affordability; even in places where food is
available its cost is beyond the reach for millions of people while
rising prices deepen the challenges for those barely able to pay for
food in normal times.
The food crisis at the moment is unique because it is unfolding amid a
more difficult global context than with the food and fuel crises of
2008. The intensity and frequency of climatic shocks have more than
doubled compared with the first decade of this century. About 1.7
billion people were affected by climate-related disasters, almost 90 per
cent of them became climate refugees in last 10 years. Hunger,
malnutrition and poverty are harder to overcome because of on-going
wars, conflicts and natural disasters. These disrupts all aspects of a
food system, from the harvesting, processing and transport of food to
its sale, availability and consumption.
But ending hunger isn't only about supply. Enough food is produced today
to feed everyone on the planet. The problem is access and availability
of nutritious food, which is increasingly impeded by multiple challenges
including the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, climate change, inequality,
rising prices and international tensions.
As the shift from multilateralism to multi-stakeholderism proliferates
across UN platforms, corporations have continued to gain control of the
narratives for change. Corporate power in food and agriculture systems
has continued to grow too, and financialization is converting food and
land into objects of speculation. The recent UNFSS process is a clear
example of this tendency. The failure of the neoliberal policies and
industrial agriculture (including GMOs) in increasing yields and profits
led to the concentration of corporate power in few transnational
corporations (TNCs) which are controlling Big Data, agricultural land,
ocean resources, seeds and agrochemicals, and aim to increasingly
dominate our food systems and appropriate the 80% of the food produced
by Family Farmers. Financialization led to an unprecedented market
concentration to enhance new investments in Research and Development
(R&D and (bio)technologies, with the aim to extend the frontiers of
capitalism to capture all the world biodiversity.
World-wide, there is a trend towards shrinking space for civil society
and reduced ambition for defending human rights. The activists at the
local level are more and more vulnerable to human rights violation,
oppression, and criminalization. The physical violence of
state-sponsored repression using security and military forces have
targeted individuals and embattled masses of peaceful protesters around
the world. On the other hand, the primacy and legitimacy of the public
sector is increasingly threatened by corporate capture of policy
processes and a development narrative that assigns a lead role to
private sector investment, while multilateralism is under attack from
virulently populist nationalism and corporate-promoted
multi-stakeholderism.
In the past three decades there has been a growth of an increasingly
robust, diversified and articulated network of small-scale food
producers, workers and other social actors ill-served by the
corporate-led globalized food system who advocate for a radical
transformation of food and agricultural systems based on food
sovereignty. These movements have been resolutely engaged in defending
and building ecologically and socially sustainable, and territorially
embedded food provisioning arrangements that tend to be termed
'alternative,' although they are responsible for up to 70% of the food
consumed in the world. Rethinking agriculture policies as a matter of
economic and national security must be a priority.
The food sovereignty movement has been a dynamic part of the
articulation of transformation and solutions since 1990s, through the
landmark Nyéléni Food Sovereignty forum in 2007 and agroecology forum in
2015. 25 years after the creation of the concept of _Food Sovereignty,
_our movements join their voices to call for systemic change to open the
path for a future of hope.
WE DEMAND IMMEDIATE ACTION TO:
* End of speculation on food and the suspension of trading food
products on stock markets. The price of food traded internationally
should be linked with the costs of production and follow the principles
of fair trade, both for producers and for consumers;
* End of the WTO's control of food trade and keep food production out
of free trade agreements. Countries should have public food stockpiles,
and regulate the market and prices, so that they can support small-scale
food producers in this challenging context;
* Create a new international body to conduct transparent negotiations
on commodity agreements between exporting and importing countries so
that countries which have become dependent on food imports can have
access to food at an accessible price;
* Forbid the use of agricultural products to produce agrofuel or
energy. Food should be an absolute priority over fuel.
* Bring a global moratorium on the payment of the public debt by the
most vulnerable countries. Pressuring such countries to pay the debt is
highly irresponsible and leads to socio, economic, and food crises.
WE DEMAND RADICAL CHANGES IN INTERNATIONAL, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL
POLICIES TO RE-BUILD FOOD SOVEREIGNTY THROUGH:
* A radical change in international trade order. WTO should be
dismantled. A new global framework for trade and agriculture, based on
food sovereignty, should open the way for strengthening local and
national peasant agriculture, to ensure a stable basis for a
re-localized food production, the support for local and national
peasant-led markets, as well as to provide a fair international trading
system based on cooperation and solidarity;
* The implementation of popular and integral Agrarian Reform, to stop
the grabbing by TNCs of water, seeds and land, and ensure small-scale
producers fair rights over productive resources. We protest against the
privatization and grabbing of territories and commons by corporate
interests under the pretext of nature protection, through carbon markets
or other biodiversity off-sets programs, without consideration to the
people who are living on these territories and who have been taking care
of the commons for generations;
* A radical shift towards agroecology to produce healthy food for the
world. We must face the challenge of producing enough quality food while
reviving biodiversity and drastically reducing GHG emissions.
* Effective input market regulation (such as credits, fertilizers,
pesticides, seeds, fuel) to support peasants' capacity to produce food,
but also to ensure a fair and well-planned transition toward more
agroecological farming practices;
* A food governance based on the people, not on TNCs. The capture of
food governance by TNCs should be stopped, and people's interests should
be put at the center. Small producers should be given a vital role in
all bodies dealing with food governance;
* The transformation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants
into a legally binding instrument for the defense of rural peoples.
* The development in every country of public stockpiling capacities.
The strategy of food stockpiling should be held both at the national
level but also through the creation and public support to food reserves
at the community level, with locally produced food coming from
agroecological farming practices;
* A global moratorium on dangerous technologies that threatens
humanity, such as geoengineering, GMOs or cellular meat. The promotion
of low-cost techniques that increase peasant autonomy and of peasant's
seeds;
* The development of public policies to ensure new relationships
between those who produce food and those who consume, those who live in
rural areas and those who live in urban areas, guaranteeing fair prices
defined based on the cost of production, allowing a decent income for
all those who produce in the countryside and a fair access to healthy
food for the consumers;
* The promotion of new gender relations based on equality and respect,
both for people living in the countryside and among the urban working
class. The violence against women must stop now.
Facebook [6]Twitter [7]WhatsApp [8]Telegram [9]Email [10]
25 Years of Food Sovereignty [11]
Links:
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[1]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/biodiversity-and-gen...
[2]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/food-sovereignty-and...
[3]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-for/agrarian-reform/
[4]
https://viacampesina.org/en/what-are-we-fighting-against/transnational-co...
[5]
https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000138913/download/?_ga=2.4157308...
[6] https://viacampesina.org/#facebook
[7] https://viacampesina.org/#twitter
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[9] https://viacampesina.org/#telegram
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[11] https://viacampesina.org/en/tag/25-years-of-food-sovereignty/
2 years, 2 months
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UNDROP Thematic Booklet No. 2: “Peasant Rights and Food Production” Now Available
by La Via Campesina
Send [1]
UNDROP THEMATIC BOOKLET NO. 2: "PEASANT RIGHTS AND FOOD PRODUCTION" NOW
AVAILABLE
[2]
The Second Thematic Booklet on "Peasant Rights and Food Production [2]"
is now available! This is the second of four thematic booklets--part of
the popular education materials to be used as a crucial step in
reconnecting those who inspired and created United Nations Declaration
on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in the Rural Areas
(UNDROP).
The right of peasants to participate and define their own food
production systems is an essential part of food sovereignty. In our
struggle to affirm and protect this right, we can learn how to use the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People
Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in our own contexts (See the
introductory booklet [3]in this series for background information on
UNDROP). The different ways peasants grow, gather, hunt, raise, and make
food are together called peasant food production. Food production is the
foundation of peasant food systems. Of course, equitable access to
resources is vital for thriving peasant food systems (see the previous
thematic booklet on access to resources [4]).
THIS SECOND THEMATIC BOOKLET ON PEASANT RIGHTS AND FOOD PRODUCTION [2]
EXPLORES how UNDROP can be used to (1) address and protect peasants'
rights to produce food on our own terms and challenge monopolies that
control the land, tools, and technology, (2) transform food production
and industrial food system into one based on agroecology and food
sovereignty, (3) fight for the protection of traditional knowledge
systems and cultures that shape peasant food production, (4) understand
state's responsibilities and empower ourselves to raise our voices, and
work towards comprehensive popular agrarian reforms to achieve food
sovereignty.
DOWNLOAD THE PDF COPY HERE [2]DOWNLOAD [2]
ABOUT POPULAR EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
The popular educational materials will help us to effectively use the
UNDROP in our struggles to assert and advance our collective and
individual rights. They will help to create broader awareness, promote
deeper understanding and enhance capacities (through training) of rural
people's movements. We should use this booklet as a foundational tool to
ensure that the UNDROP will be respected, implemented and promoted at
all levels, from local to international, from community customs to
policymaking mechanisms. The UNDROP popular educational materials are
being developed by La Via Campesina and FIAN International. ACCESS THEM
ALL HERE [5].
Facebook [6]Twitter [7]WhatsApp [8]Telegram [9]Email [10]
Featured [11] UNDROP Booklet 2022 [5]
This article is available in
* Español [12]
* Français [13]
Links:
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[1]
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[2]
https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/10/LVC-EN-The...
[3]
https://viacampesina.org/en/training-modules-un-declaration-on-rights-of-...
[4]
https://viacampesina.org/en/undrop-thematic-booklet-no-1-access-to-resour...
[5] https://viacampesina.org/en/tag/undrop-booklet-2022/
[6] https://viacampesina.org/#facebook
[7] https://viacampesina.org/#twitter
[8] https://viacampesina.org/#whatsapp
[9] https://viacampesina.org/#telegram
[10] https://viacampesina.org/#email
[11] https://viacampesina.org/en/tag/zoom-on-featured/
[12]
https://viacampesina.org/es/cartilla-tematica-n2-derechos-campesinos-y-pr...
[13]
https://viacampesina.org/fr/le-livret-thematique-n2-de-lundrop-droits-des...
2 years, 3 months
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