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World Food Day 2007: The Right to Food is Food Sovereignty |
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October 16, 2007
World Food Day 2007: The Right to Food is Food Sovereignty |
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On this World Food Day 2007, with the theme of the Right to Food, which was recognized as a universal human right in 1948 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, over 850 million people around the world, particularly in least developed countries, suffer from hunger and malnutrition. For IFOAM, the Right to Food is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity and to produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through ecologically, socially and economically sound methods, defining one’s own food systems, rather than the right to be fed. This counts for each and every individual, as well as for communities and regions. |
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Currently global trade relations and rules, international and national
policies, structural adjustments and trade concentration affect food
security in a number of ways. The inequitable competition between
producers in industrial countries and those in developing countries
severely constrain production in developing countries. The most direct
effects are caused by developed countries dumping their agricultural
surpluses in developing countries and creating unfair competition
resulting from perverse subsidies. When sold on the world market at
less than the cost of production, these surpluses depress local
prices, thereby lowering production and peoples’ direct access to food,
although they may officially have a ‘Right to Food’ in their own
countries.
From IFOAM’s perspective, the Right to Food also
means that life cannot be patented. Patents on life support the
monopoly control of genetic resources by few, thereby extensively
undermining peoples’ right and access to food. IFOAM believes that the
Earth’s gene pool cannot be claimed as commercially negotiable genetic
information or intellectual property by governments, commercial
enterprises, other institutions or individuals. The intentional use of
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which is banned in organic
production, epitomizes abhorrence of the Right to Food. GMO’s and
patents on life substantially contribute to the current deplorable
world food situation.
Organic farming systems prioritize local
and national economies and markets and empower peasant and family
farmer-driven agriculture, food production, distribution and
consumption based on the Principles of Organic Agriculture, which
ensure environmental, social and economic sustainability. Through its
traceable systems, whether through third-party organic certification or
through Participatory Guarantee Systems and the involvement of the
community, organic production guarantees just income to all peoples and
the rights of citizens to choose their food and nutrition patterns.
Organic production is the systematic approach that helps ensure the
rights of people to control their destiny, and as a result, to beat
hunger and malnutrition. Organic farming offers the tools and
techniques necessary to ensure the Right to Food for subsistence
farmers and local communities, and offers sustainable models for
regional development and international trade.
The reality of
what Organic Agriculture can and is doing for food security and in
securing the Right to Food is being proven by intergovernmental
agencies and independent universities. At the conference Organic
Agriculture and Food Security in May 2007 at the headquarters of the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the
findings were that Organic Agriculture empowers social systems to
control their own food supply and organic labels enforce the right to
choose food, and that in sub-Saharan Africa, a conversion of up to 50
percent would likely increase food availability and decrease food
import dependency. (ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/meeting/012/j9918e.pdf)
Reputable studies by major universities are finding organic agriculture
can feed the world as well. A recent study by the University of
Michigan showed that organic farming can yield up to three times as
much food on individual farms in developing countries, and that in
developed countries, yields were almost equal on organic and
conventional farms. (http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936)
A 22- year study by Cornell University concluded that organic farming
produces the same yields of corn and soybeans as conventional farming,
but uses 30 percent less energy, less water and no pesticides. (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.vs.other.ssl.html)
Angela
B. Caudle, IFOAM Executive Director stresses “since food is directly
connected to communities and cultures, the Right to Food is also
connected to community and rural development. There needs to be space
for development that is not created by donating chemical fertilizers,
but rather supports the regeneration and improvement of indigenous and
local knowledge.”
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IFOAM is the international umbrella organization of organic agriculture movements worldwide.
IFOAM’s mission is leading, uniting and assisting the organic movement in its full diversity.
Our
goal is the worldwide adoption of ecologically, socially and
economically sound systems that are based on the Principles of Organic
Agriculture. |
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