Committee on World Food Security
Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition
(First Draft)
A submission by the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty
April 2012
The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) welcomes the open
consultation on the Committee on World Food Security’s Global Strategic
Framework PCFS has the following comments regarding the Global Strategic
Framework:
1. Food Sovereignty: The Global Strategic Framework is supposed to be
a comprehensive plan for food security. However, it falls short of
recognising food sovereignty as a key concept for addressing poverty
and hunger. Food sovereignty incorporates key principles of the right to
healthy and culturally appropriate food that is produced through
ecologically sound and sustainable methods. It also recognises the
peoples’ right to define their own food and agriculture systems free
from external interference and imposition. Adopting a food sovereignty
framework would enrich policy decisions on a national and international
level as it incorporates sustainable agriculture and local ownership into
thinking on poverty and hunger. It would ensure that the structural
causes of poverty, hunger and malnutrition are addressed rather than
treating only the symptoms.
In the circumstances that a food sovereignty framework is not adopted,
PCFS recommends that key principles of sustainable agriculture, local
ownership of food production systems, consultation of grassroots
organisations and freedom from external impositions should still be
incorporated into the Global Strategic Framework.
2. Root causes of Hunger and Malnutrition: Poverty is cited as a root
cause of hunger without describing the causes of persistent poverty.
Large agro-industrial corporations responsible for large-scale land
acquisitions displacing local rural populations as well as the depletion
of natural resources through intensive farming are major contributors to
poverty in the rural areas. This is not acknowledged in the list of root
causes of hunger and malnutrition and is clearly lacking.
3. Section III The Foundations and Overarching Frameworks: While it is
indispensible that the GFS is built on the Rome Principles for Food
Security and consequently the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness
and the Accra Agenda, PCFS urges the GFS to go further and refer
specifically to the need to abandon aid conditionalities altogether. This
is the only way to achieve true ownership and partnership as
enumerated in both aid agreements.
4. Small-scale farmers: Although the Global Strategic Framework
dedicates a section to small-scale farmers in addressing food security,
they are not included in the recommended groups for consultation in
the Right to Food guidelines. Small-scale farmers are the key intended
beneficiaries of the Global Strategic Framework and they are also the
agents for achieving improved food security. In order to develop
suitable policies which can be realised, they need to be included in the
research, development and implementation of the policies and they
should be represented at each of these stages. Processes that exclude
them will miss key insights into culture and environment specific
conditions and practical realisation of policies as well as lose the
commitment of the small-scale farmers.
5. Harmful policies: Although the Global Strategic Framework makes
strong policy recommendations, it neglects to deal with harmful policies
currently in place. These includes food subsidies in Northern countries
and related ‘dumping’ of excess produce in Northern States on
Southern countries; and the creation of legal, economic and political
conditions ideal for foreign land acquisitions which have displaced local
populations and increased poverty and malnutrition in the areas
concerned; as well as the promotion of unsustainable industrial farming
which has negatively impacted surrounding ecosystems and
communities. These are just some examples of policies, which
continue today but are not sufficiently tackled on the international level.
There is a disproportionate focus on improving farming techniques of
small-scale farmers without addressing negative policies, which
impede their development. The Global Strategic Framework provides
on opportunity for these policies to be confronted and revised in favour
of sustainable agricultural policies.
6. Accountability Mechanisms: It is not sufficient for there to be an
agreement on how to proceed without also implementing measures to
ensure that the agreed objectives are met. The GSF is vague on what
kinds of accountability mechanisms are effective. In addition,
recommendations of country level action in paragraph 78 do not
include the need to introduce accountability mechanisms. There needs
to be greater emphasis on the importance of accountability
mechanisms and concrete suggestions of effective measures to
prevent the adoption of principles without any realistic aims to achieve
them.
7. Medium/ long term actions to address root causes of hunger: On
paragraph 33 on the insecure tenure of land and natural resources, the
GFS should explicitly address large scale acquisitions of land in
developing countries. In cases of foreign large-scale land acquisitions,
rural poor were displaced from the land with little or no compensation
and neighbouring populations have lost vital access to water resources
and other natural resources customarily held as common property.
Their displacement has not served to increase food production but in
fact has decreased it. In depth research on foreign land acquisitions
has shown that of total foreign land acquisitions since 2008, 78% was
for agriculture and three quarters of that 78% for biofuels.1 This poses
a great threat to food security in the countries in question.
8. Gaps in consensus on policy issues, International level: Food
sovereignty is referred to in par. 74 as merely a concept on which
requires consensus on the international plane. Food sovereignty is
already a widely known and accepted term especially in countries with
a large proportion of small-scale food producers. Mali, Bolivia, Ecuador
and Venezuela have all incorporated food sovereignty into their
legislative frameworks and the GFS should incorporate these country
lessons as a country level strategy for achieving food security. There is
strong support behind food sovereignty as a key concept as opposed
to food security especially from the targeted beneficiaries of the GFS
and their representative organisations.
W. Anseeuw, et al. “Land Rights and the Rush for Land: Findings of the Global Commercial
pressures on Land Research Project,” International land Coalition, January 2012
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