Discussion: training manuals on food security

Contribution by Angeline Munzara from the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), Switzerland

Dear FSN members

I would like to input into this important discussion as by highlighting important aspects that should be taken into consideration to ensure a just and sustainable food system. It is evident from the prevalent world food crisis that the world do not have the right rules to ensure food self sufficiency for all. Although the multiple crises have been acknowledged by international and national bodies, the responses they are proposing are woefully inadequate. Our systems for producing, buying, selling and sharing food are profoundly broken, and more of the same will not help. We need to recognize that policies and practices of governments, international organizations and agribusiness have been central parts of the problem and we must accept that hunger is being caused by fractures in the structure of our global society.
This is evident from the fact that after nine years after all governments endorsed MDGs-one sixth of all humanity is still suffering from hunger. It is also evident from the fact that 61 years after signing the Universal declaration on Human Rights the number of people in the world will increase by an estimated 105 million this year. And there are no word for the appalling reality that in 2009 we have crossed the threshold of more than one billion people in the world who are malnourished.
Action points towards ensuring food justice

1. There is need to respect the right to food in all negotiations. It is high time that we all recognize that food should not be treated like any other tradable commodity. It is a matter human dignity and ensures the full enjoyment of the right to life of an individual. Trade negotiations can undermine the efforts and commitments already done to ensure the protection, fulfillment and respect of this right in accordance to the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security (FAO, 2005).

Also with the advent of HIV/AIDS, nutrition aspects have to come into play when developing strategies on feeding the world and respecting the right to food. Article 28 of the Declaration of Commitment by the United Nations General Assembly Special Session dedicated to HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) highlights the essential role of food and nutrition in a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS. It provides, at long last, the high-profile international endorsement needed by campaigns to secure vigorous action by donors and national policy makers on food and HIV/AIDS. The effective response to medication of people living with HIV/AIDS is strongly linked to access to nutritious food.
The Right to Food should therefore be understood as far more than the provision on minimum sustenance through aid to prevent people from starving. It is about ensuring food self sufficiency and control of the means of production to produce food. It is understood as the right to have the means to feed oneself adequately, either through income to buy food or through land or other productive resources to produce it. If neither of these is possible, adequate social safety net policies are needed. In this respect trade liberalization policies that gives way to dumping of cheap products in developing countries undermine this right and destroys local production systems is not helping solving the problem but worsening it.
This requires adopting a holistic approach to address issues related to food security ranging from trade, biodiversity and climate change negotiations. In the meantime, a fragmented approach is being followed with Climate Change upcoming in December at Copenhagen and the WTO Ministerial Conference. The world faces acute crises today – manifested in the severity of the economic crisis, sharp increases and very volatile prices of food, and documented effects from climate change. These crises are interlinked and will have a severe impact on the most vulnerable groups in the developing countries.There is need for a common understanding that food is a matter of justice and comprehensive, multi-sectoral intervention, strategies have to be adopted if feeding the world in 2050 in is to be a reality.
2. Need to adopt sustainable production, consumption and distribution practices
We believe that access to food cannot be guaranteed simply through technical approaches to increasing global production. It is not enough that the world produces enough food to feed everyone. It must reach the poor and the rich alike. At present efforts to increase production are needed in the global South and particularly for small-scale food producers, but in the global North we need to reduce surplus food production that undermines other producers’ livelihoods. In future, the world’s growing population will need an overall increase in global food production. With a large percentage of poor people making their livelihood from food production, it is imperative that in meeting these production needs we look at food not only as something to be eaten, but also something which gives sustenance (physical, economic and cultural) for those who produce it.
The production, distribution and consumption of food must be based on equality, socially and environmentally sustainable agriculture, and economics which prioritize the welfare of all people. Women, who make up the vast majority of smallholder farmers as well as those in poverty, must be empowered through our response. this is only possible if trade rules are also transformed
In reference to the TRIPS Agreement and UPOV 91, these should be reformed to allow the free exchange, saving and further development by local farmers. The means of production should not be left in the hands of the few multinational companies. Just to quote Geoff Tansey (Trade, Intellectual Property, Food and Biodiversity: Key Issues and Options for the 1991 review of Article 27.3(b) of the TRIPs Agreement, Quaker Peace & Service, London, p10. ), the UPOV system “promotes commercially bred varieties geared for industrial systems in which farmers have to pay royalties on such seed and the seed sector becomes an investment opportunity for chemical and biotechnology concerns. This is unsustainable as evidenced by a study in West Africa, that after forty years of breeding research on sorghum and millet at internationally-supported research stations, less than 5% of the crops are planted to such material because it does not meet most farmers’ needs (Carr. S (1989), “Technology For Small-Scale Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Experience with Food Crop Production in Five Major Ecological Zones, Technical Paper No. 109, World Bank, Washington DC) .These farmers abandoned their traditional seed varieties and practices and took up the free inputs of pesticides, fertilizers and hybrid seeds. As a result, they lost their traditional seeds and became dependent on outside technologies. According to the FAO report of 1995, it is estimated that African farmers depend on seeds cultivated within their own communities for as much as 90% of their seed needs (FAO Report, (1995) “A Synthesis Report of the Africa Region: Women, Agriculture and Rural Development”) If these systems are not promoted the food crisis will continue in developing countries where most people depend on local seeds for food security and will witness poverty due to unjust production, consumption and distribution patterns in the world of abundance.
No one size fits all approach should be adopted to solve the food crisis.
Thank you for allowing me to make this contribution
Angeline Munzara
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA)