Pimbert 08 - Towards Food Sovereignty

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Towards Food Sovereignty

Reclaiming autonomous food systems

Michel Pimbert

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Table of Contents

Introduction��4

Chapter 1. Local food systems, livelihoods and environments�� 91�1�Foodsystemsandlivelihoods��9

1�2�Theecologicalbasisooodsystems��14

Chapter 2. The making of multiple crises in food, agriculture and environment��21

2�1�Thesocialcostsomodernoodsystems��22

2�2�Theenvironmentalcostsomodernoodsystems��27

Chapter 3. Food sovereignty: a citizens’ vision of a better world ��39

3�1�LaVíaCampesinaandtheconceptooodsovereignty��41

3�2�Foodsovereignty:analternativeparadigmoroodandagriculture��44

Enablingnationalpoliciesandlegislation��52

Enablingglobalmultilateralismandinternationalpolicies��53

References��59

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with many people deriving their incomes and livelihoods through work and activities at dierent points along the ood chain—rom seed toplate. Such localised ood systems provide the oundations o peoples’nutrition, incomes, economies and culture throughout the world. Tey start at the household level and expand to neighbourhood, municipaland regional levels. And localised ood systems depend on many dierent local organisations to co-ordinate ood production, storage anddistribution, as well as people’s access to ood. Moreover, the ecologicaland institutional contexts in which diverse ood systems are embeddedalso depend on the co-ordinated activities o local organisations or theirrenewal and sustainability.

Introduction

Troughout the world, civil society, indigenous peoples and new socialmovements, - rather than academics or proessional policy think tanks -,are the prime movers behind a newly emerging ood sovereignty policy ramework. At its heart, this alternative policy ramework or ood andagriculture aims to guarantee and protect people’s space, ability andright to dene their own models o production, ood distribution andconsumption patterns. Tis notion o “ood sovereignty” is perhapsbest understood as a transormative process that seeks to recreate thedemocratic realm and regenerate a diversity o autonomous ood systemsbased on equity, social justice and ecological sustainability.

“Food Sovereignty is the right o peoples to dene their own ood and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be sel reliant; to restrict the dumping o products in their markets; and to provide local sheries-based communities the priority in managing the use o and the rights to aquatic resources. Food Sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather it promotes the ormulation o trade policies and practices that serve the rights o peoples to ood and tosae, healthy and ecologically sustainable production.” (www.viacampesina.org ).

Indeed, the emerging ood sovereignty policy ramework identies theneed or several mutually supportive national and international policiesto strengthen the autonomy and resilience of more localised food systems.It recognises that a) today there are still many diverse, local ood systemsthroughout the world, particularly in developing countries; and b) mosto the world’s ood is grown, collected and harvested by over 2.5 billionsmall-scale armers, pastoralists, orest dwellers and artisanal sherolk.Tis ood is primarily sold, processed, resold and consumed locally,

In this context, “autonomy” and “autonomous spaces” reer to a mode o existence

whereby a social group or a nation denes its own needs and limits and sets the course o

its own development (Illich, 977).

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But despite their current role inand uture potential or meetinghuman needs and sustainingdiverse ecologies, locally-determined ood systems—andthe local organisations that

govern them—are largely ignored,neglected or actively underminedby governments and corporations.

First, the global restructuring o agri-ood systems and livelihoodsthreatens such “autonomousspaces” as a ew transnationalcorporations gain monopoly control over dierent links in theood chain (Magdo et al ., 2000;

Pimbert et al ., 200; McMichael,2004). Te loss o capacity orautonomy and sel-determinationis a direct consequence o theexpansion o the industrial,heteronomous2 model o development rooted in commodity production. An importantmechanism in this process is whatIvan Illich has termed “radicalmonopoly”: “the substitutiono an industrial product or aproessional service or a useulactivity in which people engage or

would like to engage”, leading tothe deterioration o autonomoussystems and modes o production(Illich, 996). Radical monopoliesreplace non-marketable use-values with commodities by reshaping the social and physicalenvironment and by appropriating

2 Heteronomy reers to a system that is driven by an industrial and productivist rationale

(Illich, 977).

the components that enable people to cope on their own, thusundermining reedom, independence and culture (Illich, 976).

Second, much o the Millennium Development community seesdevelopment as a process in which there will be a reduction in thenumber o people engaged in arming, shing and land/water-based

livelihoods. It is assumed that small-scale ood producers, rural artisans,ood workers and many o the rural poor will inevitably migrate to urbanareas and nd new and better jobs. And indeed, most international andnational social, economic and environmental policies envision ewerand ewer people directly dependent on localised ood systems and theirenvironments or their livelihoods and culture. Encouraging peopleto move out o the primary sector and get jobs in the largely urban-based manuacturing and service sectors is seen as both desirable andnecessary—regardless o the social and ecological costs involved.

Tis modernist development agenda and the corporate thrust or

radical monopoly control over the global ood system are mutually supportive elements o the same paradigm o economic progress. Tisview o progress assumes that history can repeat itsel throughout the

world. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a directrelationship between the vast increases in productivity achieved throughthe use o automated technology, re-engineering, downsizing and totalquality management, and the permanent exclusion o high numbers o

workers rom employment, in both industry and the service sector. Tiserosion o the link between job creation and wealth creation calls or amore equitable distribution o productivity gains through a reductiono working hours, and or alternative development models that provideopportunities and local autonomous spaces or the generation o use values rather than exchange values (Gollain, 2004; Gorz, 2003;Latouche, 2003).

Regenerating autonomous ood systems—with, or and by citizens—isa key challenge in this context. Reclaiming such spaces or autonomy and well-being depends on strengthening the positive eatures o localood systems and on large-scale citizen action grounded in an alternativetheory o social change. Tese themes are explored in this book.



Tis book is organised into three parts. Te rst part highlights theglobal importance o agriculture and ood systems or livelihoods andenvironments today. Recent evidence on the social and environmentalimpacts o modern ood systems is also summarised here. Te historicalcontext that gave birth to the concept o ood sovereignty is then briey described, along with more recent eorts to clariy and understand its

deeply political character, which is radically dierent rom the dominantneo-liberal economic system. Te main eatures o this alternative policy ramework or ood, agriculture and land/water use are presented.

Te second part provides empirical evidence o the importance o local organisations or sustainable livelihoods and ood systems.Specic examples are given to highlight some o the many practical

ways in which local, autonomous organisations manage and overseedierent links in the ood chain, rom seed to plate. Te roles o local organisations in sustaining diverse ood systems, livelihoodsand environments, in producing knowledge and innovations, andin designing regulatory institutions are then briey analysed. Teevidence presented suggests that the widespread implementation o oodsovereignty partly depends on strengthening such local organisations andtheir networks.

Te third and last part o the book identies reversals and socialactions needed to support locally determined ood systems andautonomous organisations. I emphasise here that realising the rightto ood sovereignty requires transormation in our interrelated areas:the political, the economic, the social and the ecological. Much morecritical reection and action are needed to identiy and support thoseprocesses that can bring about simultaneous transormation in theseinterrelated areas. In this context, I critically reect on the potential o a new politics in the making that arms the transormative power o the ollowing: citizenship, conederalism, dual power, social inclusion,community control o land and territories, reclaiming knowledge and

ways o knowing, agro-ecological approaches and ecological literacy anddeepening democracy. In each case, I discuss the implications o theseprocesses o transormation or the ood sovereignty movement.



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Chapter 1. Local food systems,

livelihoods and environments

Local ood systems start at the household level and expand toneighbourhood, municipal and regional levels. Food systemsinclude not just the production aspects o ood but also processing,distribution, access, use, recycling and waste. Tey include the actorsthat both participate in and benet rom these activities (ansey and

Worsley,995; Ericksen, 2006). Food systems are directly linked to oodsecurity issues, which do not only depend on ood production but alsoon control over access to ood and its use (Barraclough, 99; George,984). A signicant number o livelihoods and environments are stillsustained by this diversity o local ood systems throughout the world.

1�1�Foodsystemsandlivelihoods

Approximately 2.5 billion people—men, women and children—livedirectly rom agricultural production systems (FAO, 2005). Te term“agriculture” is used here to encompass crop cultivation, livestock production, orestry and sheries across a wide range o ecosystemsand landscapes. From a livelihoods perspective, agriculture providesoccupation, employment and socio-cultural meaning to many small-scale producers. Small-scale ood producers are those women and men

who produce and harvest eld and tree crops as well as livestock, sh andother aquatic organisms. Tey include smallholder peasant/amily cropand livestock armers, herders/pastoralists, artisanal sherolk, landlessarmers/rural workers, gardeners, orest dwellers, indigenous peoples3,hunters and gatherers, and any other small-scale users o naturalresources or ood production.

Farmers. Hal o all working people worldwide are armers, and most o the world’s arming population lives in the South (able .). In sub-Saharan Arica seven out o ten people are armers. Over large parts o

Asia ve out o ten people work in the agricultural sector (ILO, 2005).In Latin America and the Caribbean over a th o the total labour orceis located in agriculture (ILO, 2003). Te vast majority o these armers

3 Not all indigenous peoples are armers. Among indigenous peoples who live o theland, some are armers, whilst others are hunters and gatherers or pastoralists.

are small-scale producers who do their agricultural work by hand (about billion armers), or by using animals such as bullocks or ploughing(300 million). Smallholders who operate plots o land o less than 2hectares currently constitute 85% o the total number o small arms inthe world (525 million). Most o these arms are located in Asia (87%),

while Arica is home to another 8% and Europe to approximately 4%.In Asia, China alone accounts or almost hal the world’s small arms(93 million), ollowed by India with 23%. Other leaders in the region,in descending order, include Indonesia, Bangladesh and Viet Nam(Nagayets, 2005).

In contrast, a relatively small number o armers in the South rely onmodern arm machines such as tractors (20 million). Globally, it isestimated that there are 50 million modern armers, compared with.25billion peasant armers. 4

4 Obviously, not every arm in the South is run by peasants; similarly not all arms inthe North are run by businesses and large armers.

Table1�1�Numberoarmersworldwide(billion)

otal population Active population Active farming population

World population

6. 2.6 .35

North .2 0.4 0.045 (% o total activepopulation in North)

South

India •

4.9

. 2.2

.29 (59% o total activepopulation in South)

0.27 (20% o world totalactive arming population)

Source: Charvet, JP (2005), ransrural Initiatives, 25 January, Paris.



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cities o North America, to as many as 80% in some smaller Siberian and Asian cities (UNDP, 996). In countries and cultures where women domost o the rural arming, women are also likely to do most o the urbanagriculture. For example, 64% o Arican urban armers are emale, 80%o home gardens in Lima (Peru) are armed by women, and 67% o thehydroponics cultivators in Bogota (Colombia) are women (Te Urban

Agriculture network, cited in UNDP, 996).

Pastoralists. In many countries around the world, mobile pastoralistsalso play a key role in ood provisioning. Precisegures are hard to come by, but nomadic andtranshumant pastoralists may numberbetween 00 and 200 millionpeople globally. I extensiveagro-pastoralists are included,the number rises very sharply,and such people orm a clearmajority o dryland inhabitants.Pastoral livestock systems are morethan simply a mode o livestock production; they are also part o diverse ood systems that supportthis large global population (FAO,2003).

Whilst comparatively smaller in numbers, many people are still involvedin community and amily arming in the North. For example, in Italy more than 90% o agricultural enterprises are amily-run and part-time, averaging less than 5 hectares o land. Forests and agriculture play extremely important roles in the amily-based arming o countries suchas Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia. Overall, these and other new memberstates rom Eastern Europe have endowed the European Union with anadditional 4 million armers and 38 million hectares o armable land.

Worldwide, small arms occupy about 60% o arable land.

Urban armers and gardeners. Urban agriculture is a signicanteconomic activity and is central to the lives o tens o millions o peoplethroughout the world. Te United Nations Development Program(UNDP) denes urban agriculture as “an industry that produces,processes and markets ood and uel, largely in response to the daily demand o consumers within a town, city or metropolis, on land and

water dispersed throughout the urban and peri-urban area, applyingintensive production methods, using and reusing natural resources andurban wastes, to yield a diversity o crops and livestock” (UNDP, 996).Urban armers use smaller tracts o land than rural armers, oten inopen spaces that are vacant, unused or unsuited or urban development.Tis vibrant industry consists o a majority o small-scale armers andsome large agribusiness. It is estimated that some 800 million peopleare actively engaged in urban agriculture worldwide. Te percentage o urban amilies engaged in agriculture varies rom 0% in some large



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Fishers. Over 90% o the world’s shers live in developing countries, working in small-scale, household-based or artisanal shing enterprises.Fishing is mostly a seasonal or part-time occupation, peaking in themonths when riverine, coastal and oshore resources are more abundantor available, but leaving time in seasonal lows or other activities. Tisis especially true in sheries or migratory species and those subjectto seasonal weather variations. According to the most recent guresavailable rom the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),between 25 and 30 million people are engaged in shing, with our-ths o the world’s shers and sh armers dwelling in Asian countries.

Arica, where artisanal sheries still dominate, supports 6.5% o the world’s shers (FAO, 999). Other less conservative estimatesindicate that about 200 million people worldwide live on shing andaquaculture5 (WorldFish Center, 2006; Kurien, 2006).

5 Aquaculture—the arming in captivity o sh, shrimp and shellsh previously caught

in the wild—has expanded globally at an average annual rate o 8.9% since 970, and

now provides about 50% o the sh or human consumption.

Forest dwellers. About 60 to 70 million indigenous peoples depend onclosed canopy orests or hunting, gathering and shiting cultivation,thereby sustaining ood systems rich in biodiversity. A urther 350million rural people live in or on the margins o all types o orests or

woodlands, relying on these environments or ood, products (timber,uelwood, medicines…), inputs or crop and livestock production(odder, soil nutrients…), and services (watershed protection,biodiversity conservation…) (Scheer et al ., 2004; CIFOR, 2006).

However, none o the above gures or arming, pastoralism, orestry and sheries account or all the additional livelihoods and jobs associated

with localised ood systems. Each link in the ood chain oers economicniches or many more people—as millers, butchers, carpenters, iron

workers and mechanics, local milk processors, bakers, small shopkeepersand owners o ood outlets, or example. Te number o dierenttypes o livelihoods based on the use o coastal resources in anzania isevocative in this regard (able .2).

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Table1�2�LivelihoodsandtheuseocoastalecosystemsandresourcesinTanga(Tanzania)

Resource Primary users Secondary users

Oceanecosystem/seawater

Seaweed armers, salt boilers, solar salt producers, sea transport workersSeaweed processors, exporters & users o sea transport; tourism operators

Coral rees Lime collectors/burners, housebuilders, tourism operators, trophy collectors

Builders (cement, limestone)

FisheriesFishermen—hand lines, traps, nets (seine & dragnets), dynamite, divers, boat owningshermen“Visiting” shermen, trawlers Fisherwomen —beach seining, octopus & mollusccollectors, tourism operators (game shing)

Men and women sh traders, shprocessors (ryers, driers, and smokers),and sh dealers or inland market andor export, tourism operators.

Beaches Fishermen, sherwomen, households (sanitation needs), tourism operators raders, processors

MangrovesPole cutters, shermen, salt boilers, solar salt producers, lime burners, boat builders,house builders, traditional healers, households engaged in crab & other sheries,mariculture.

Mangrove pole traders, saw millers.

Bare salineareas

Solar salt producers, brine wells Salt traders

Rivers Households, sisal estates, coconut plantations, transport, industries

Ground water Households, armers, sisal estates, industries.

Coastal orests& woodlands

Households o salt boilers, lime burners, timber cutters, charcoal makers, boatbuilders, traditional healers, honey gatherers, hunters

Fish processors, sawmillers, transporterso uel wood

Adapted rom Gorman, 995.



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Data on the numbers o people involved in post-production and oodprocessing in urban ood systems are limited and ragmented. But thenumber o livelihoods generated by post-production activities in urbanareas is likely to be high or two interrelated reasons. First, large volumeso ood are produced by urban armers in both low and high incomecounties. For example, according to UNDP (996), 80% o the poultry and 25% o the vegetables consumed in Singapore are produced withinthe city. Bamako in Mali is sel-sucient in horticultural products,and some products are shipped outside the metropolitan area orconsumption. About 30% o the US agricultural product is produced

within metropolitan areas. Cairo (Egypt) reports 80,000 livestock in thecity, and in Kampala (Uganda) some 70% o poultry needs (meat andeggs) are produced inside the city. In China, the metropolitan area o Shanghai is largely sel-sucient in vegetable and small-scale livestock production (UNDP, 996). Secondly, ood processing acilities are otenlocated close to or in urban areas, oering urban armers and gardenersthe advantage o proximity. Urban arm produce is sold to a wholesaleror directly to local markets or retail outlets, local ood processors andrestaurants or to street vendors o cooked ood.

Te livelihoods and incomes o a huge number o rural and urbandwellers are thus dependent on the local manuacture o arm inputsand on the local storage, processing, distribution, sale and preparation o ood. Even in afuent Western countries such as the USA, the UK andItaly, there is strong evidence that localised ood systems generate many

jobs and help sustain small and medium-sized enterprises. Tis economicact usually becomes more apparent when local economies and oodsystems are displaced by large supermarkets, international competitionand the global industrial ood system. For example, by 992 in the UK,

the building o 25,000 out-o-town large-chain retailers had coincided with the closing o roughly 238,000 independent shops (grocers, bakers,butchers and shmongers) in villages and high streets (DOE/MAFF,995). When 235,000 small- and medium-scale arms were squeezed outby market competition in the mid-980s in the US, about 60,000 otherlocal rural businesses also closed (Norberg-Hodge et al ., 2002). Since99 in Italy, the arrival o superstores known as ipermercati has led tothe demise o 370,000 small, amily-run businesses, including hal thecountry’s corner groceries (Grandi, 998). Whilst the exact numbers areunknown, local ood systems have the potential to provide livelihoods,occupation, employment and socio-cultural meaning to a very large

share o the world’s active working population.



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1�2�Theecologicalbasisooodsystems

Geographically, most local ood systems are embedded in complex, risk-prone and diverse environments, where most o the world’s rural poorpeople live. Tese environments include mountains, hills and wetlands,coastal areas and the vast tracts o the semi-arid and humid tropics. Tey include the ull range o ecosystems, rom those relatively undisturbed,such as semi-natural orests, to ood-producing landscapes with mixedpatterns o human use, to ecosystems intensively modied and managedby humans, such as agricultural land and urban areas. Depending on thecontext, ood systems may either be primarily or exclusively based on:

Farm lands, with their domesticated and “wild” plants and animalsRangelands and migrating livestock Marine and reshwater environments and sheriesForests and their many plant and animal oods and productsUrban/peri-urban environments and small-scale agriculture andgardening

Any other landscape and ecosystem type listed in able .3.

Within these environments and ood systems, the variety o agro-ecosystems6 is remarkable and comprises polycultures, monocultures andmixed systems, including crop-livestock systems (rice-sh), agroorestry,agro-silvo-pastoral systems, aquaculture as well as rangelands, pasturesand allow lands (able .4). Similarly, mobile pastoral livestock systemsspan a diversity o landscapes, rom the dry rangelands o Arica to thesteppes o Central Asia. And artisanal sheries are located along rivers,lakes, estuaries, coastal waters and the open sea, in both temperate andtropical zones.

6 Agro-ecosystems may be identied at dierent levels or scales, or instance: a eld/

crop/herd/pond, a arming system, a land-use system or a watershed. Teir interactions

with human activities, including socio-economic activity and socio-cultural diversity, are

determinant.

•••••

•



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Table1�3�Categoriesoecosystemsandtheirimportanceoragricultureandoodsystems(MA,2003)�

Ecosystem category Characteristics Major food and agricultural activities

Marine Ocean, with shing typically a major driver o change Fishing; mariculture

Coastal Interace between ocean and land, extending seawards to about the middleo the continental shel and inland to include all areas strongly inuencedby the proximity o the ocean

Aquaculture

Inland water Permanent water bodies inland rom the coastal zone, and areas whoseecology and use are dominated by the permanent, seasonal, or intermittentoccurrence o ooded conditions

Aquaculture; shing

Forest Land dominated by trees; oten used or timber, uelwood, and non-

timber orest products

Forestry; gathering; hunting

Drylands Land where plant production is limited by water availability; the dominantusers are large mammal herbivores, including livestock grazing, andcultivation

Crop cultivation (rained and irrigated); livestock grazing;hunting

Island Land isolated by surrounding water, with a high proportion o coast inrelation to the hinterland

Fisheries; crop cultivation (mainly rained)

Mountain Steep and high lands Cultivation (mainly rained), orestry, gathering, livestock

Polar High latitude systems Hunting

Cultivated Land dominated by domesticated plant species, used or and substantially changed by crop, agroorestry, livestock, or aquaculture production

Crop cultivation (rained and irrigated), livestock,aquaculture, agroorestry

Urban Built environments with a high human density Urban and peri-urban agriculture



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Table1�4�Broadcategoriesoagriculturalsystems,theircharacteristicsandrelatedagro-ecosystems(Dixonetal�,2001)�

System category Characteristics Related agro-ecosystems

Irrigated arming systems Embrace a broad range o ood and cash crops Cultivated

Wetland rice based arming systems Depend upon seasonal rains supplemented by irrigation Cultivated

Rained arming systems in humid areas Oten mixed crop-livestock systems Mountain

Rained arming systems in dry or cold areas With mixed crop-livestock and pastoral systems merging into systems constrained by extreme aridity or cold

Cultivated

Dualistic arming systems (mixed largecommercial and small holders)

Located across a variety o ecologies and with diverse production patterns Cultivated

Coastal artisanal shing systems Oten incorporate mixed arming elements Coastal

Urban based arming systems Horticulture, livestock Urban

Forestry and agroorestry Land dominated by trees, mixed trees and crops Forests

Fishery Fishing Marine, lacustrine

Wild game River shing, hunting, gathering Inland water, orests

Livestock breeding Usually large-scale or intensive systems, and more rarely pastoralist systems Cultivated, dryland, urban



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Moreover, dynamic and complex livelihoods associated with these localood systems usually rely on plant and animal diversity, both wild andin dierent stages o domestication. Dierent types o agriculturalbiodiversity (Box .) are used by dierent people at dierent times andin dierent places, and so contribute to livelihood strategies in a complexashion. And throughout the world human communities have playeda central role in shaping nature’s diversity and its associated unctions.

Cultural and biological diversity have evolved together, the one shapingthe other. For example, the gourd shows tremendous varietal diversity because over the centuries people have selectively bred it to meet a

multitude o needs, including containers, pipes, scrubbers, oats,musical instruments, penis sheaths, ornaments and ood. Plantsand animals, both wild and cultivated, have been associatedin complex and diverse agro-ecosystems in terrestrial andaquatic environments. At the broader landscape level, recent

scientic evidence suggests that virtually every part o theglobe—rom boreal orests to the humid tropics—hasbeen inhabited, modied and managed or millennia.

Over time, human agency has shaped the expressiono agricultural biodiversity at the genetic, species,

ecosystem and landscape levels.

Whilst contributing to environmental sustainability, agriculturalbiodiversity and people’s manipulation o it also help sustain many production unctions in both low external input and high input-outputagriculture (e.g. soil organic matter decomposition, nutrient cycling,pollination, pest control, yield unctions, soil and water conservation,action on landscapes, climate and water cycling) (Box .).



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Box1�1�Agriculturalbiodiversity’sroleinagricultureandtheprovisionoecosystemunctions

Agricultural biodiversity reers to the variety and variability o animals, plants and micro-organisms that are important to oodand agriculture and which result rom the interaction between the environment and people’s management systems and practices.It comprises the diversity o genetic resources (varieties, breeds, etc.) and species used directly or indirectly or the production o ood, odder, bre, uel and pharmaceuticals; the diversity o species that support production (soil biota, pollinators, predators,

etc.) and those in the wider environment that support agro-ecosystems (agricultural, pastoral, orest and aquatic); as well as thediversity o the agro-ecosystems themselves. As part o the living environment, agricultural biodiversity plays key roles in:

Decomposition and nutrient cycling. Decomposer communities are highly diverse and are central to nutrient cycling, organicmatter dynamics and other ecosystem unctions, although detailed knowledge o the extent and unctions o this diversity islimited, especially in aquatic environments.

Pest control. Predators, parasitic wasps and micro-organisms play a key role in controlling agricultural pests and diseases. Forexample, more than 90% o potential crop insect pests are controlled by natural enemies living in natural and semi-natural areasadjacent to armlands. Te substitution o pesticides or natural pest control services is estimated to cost $54 billion per year.Many methods o pest control, both traditional and modern, rely on biodiversity.

Soil and water conservation. Soil, water and nutrient conservation have been improved with the use o windbreaks, contourarming with appropriate border crops and cover crops in a wide range o agro-ecosystems.

Pollination and dispersal. Tere are more than 00,000 known pollinators (bees, butteries, beetles, birds, ies, and bats).Pollination mediated by components o agricultural biodiversity is an important unction in a variety o terrestrial agro-ecosystems. About hal o all plant species, including ood-producing crop species, are pollinated by animals.

Climate. As a source o atmospheric constituents agricultural biodiversity contributes signicantly to the chemical compositionand properties o the atmosphere and thus has a marked inuence on climate. In turn changes in climate have a strong eedback on ood and agricultural production.

Functions in the water cycle. Agricultural biodiversity plays a crucial role in cycling water rom the soil to the atmosphere andback. It also has measurable impacts on water quality.

Biomass production and yield eciency. Diverse agro-ecosystems (sh polycultures, mixed herds, intercrops, integrated agro-sylvo-pastoral) are generally highly productive in terms o their use o energy and unit land area (or unit water volume). Tiseciency is largely a product o the systems’ biological and structural complexity, increasing the variety o unctional linkagesand synergies between dierent components.

Source FAO, 999; Pimbert, 999



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In these dierent ways, agricultural biodiversity provides multiunctionalgoods and services or agriculture and land use (FAO/Netherlands,999). It is also this human managed biodiversity which providesmany o the ecosystem goods and services on which the sustainability o all other parts o the ood system (e.g. ood transormation andpreparation) and human well-being directly depend (MA, 2005). Asthey interact with nature’s diversity whilst managing entire ood systems,

local communities and their institutions actively inuence—and otenco-create—key ecosystem unctions such as:

the provision o ood, water, timber and bre;the regulation o climate, oods, disease, wastes and water quality;ecological support unctions like soil ormation, biodiversity orresilience, photosynthesis and nutrient cycling;the basis or culture through the provision o recreational, aestheticand spiritual benets and values.

People associated with localised ood systems thus live in, and oten

sustain, ecosystems o vital importance or human well-being and theuture o lie on Earth (MA, 2005).7 But despite their vital importanceor ood security, the economy and the environment, local oodsystems everywhere are marginalised and undermined by the dominantdevelopment model.

7 Te Millennium Ecosystem Assessment documented the dominant negativeimpacts o agriculture on terrestrial land and reshwater use, and the critical importance

o agricultural landscapes in providing products or human sustenance, supporting

biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services (MA, 2005).

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Chapter 2. The making of multiple

crises in food, agriculture and

environment

For the past 60 years, mainstream neo-liberal policy has encouraged and

justied the elimination o small-scale ood producers and indigenouspeoples who live o the land in both industrially developed anddeveloping countries. Tis process o undermining and eliminatingsmall-scale ood producers is linked with the expansion o a developmentmodel that considers small and medium-scale arming, artisanalshing, nomadic pastoralists and indigenous communities to be outside“modernity”. Farmers, pastoralists, orest dwellers, shing communitiesand indigenous peoples are thus seen as “residues” o history and theireventual disappearance is assumed to be inevitable. Tis process—whichstarted in industrial countries—has spread more recently into armingand indigenous communities in developing countries, along with the

adoption o neo-liberal economic policies.

Troughout the world, small armers, pastoralists, sherolk, andindigenous peoples are increasingly being displaced rom their livelihoodbase through a combination o actors, including:

the imposition o inappropriate neo-liberal development models,nature conservation regimes and industrial technology that erodesindigenous knowledge and ecologically sustainable managementsystems based on local institutions and rights;inequitable property rights which diminish local communities’

access to and control o the resources on which they depend orsurvival. Land, orests, water, plants, animals and other geneticresources are increasingly becoming commercialised and privatisedcommodities;the spread o liberalised markets in which small and medium-sizedproducers cannot compete with imported oodstus and are drivento bankruptcy. Small-scale producers in developing countries are

especially harmed by competition rom highly subsidised and capital intensive agriculture that

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produces commodities that can be sold more cheaply;alling prices o primary commodities, otenbrought about by the increased supplies that havebeen encouraged by World Bank/IMF structuraladjustment policies and development assistance,supported by Western governments (such as increasedcoee production in Vietnam);

the withdrawal o government support linked to structuraladjustment programmes which leads, or example, to the inability o small and medium armers to access aordable credit andgovernment services;inappropriate ood and agricultural research by social and naturalscience institutes that generates policies and technologies that otenharm local livelihoods and environments throughout the world;standards or ood products, production processes and oodmarketing that cannot be met by smaller armers, sherolk andpastoralists, and international rules on intellectual property rightsthat can limit the ability and rights o armers and indigenous

peoples to save and exchange their seeds;the growing impact o transnational supermarkets and wholesalers,o grades and standards, and o export horticulture which allsubstantially avour large arms and corporate-owned operationsthroughout the world (Reardon et al , 2002 and 2003);growing demand or biouels,8 which is leading to a restructuringo agri-ood systems. New strategic alliances between corporationsinvolved in ood, agriculture, biotechnology and the petroleum-automobile sectors are creating a new mercantile-industrialbiouel regime (Otsuka, 2007). Impacts include higher rates o environmental destruction as well as ood scarcity and rising ood

prices as arm produce (coarse grains, vegetable oils….) is used toproduce biouels or energy intensive cars, machines and industry;andthe increasing disparity between the human, economic, social andcultural rights guaranteed by law and their eective enorcement.Conditions o political oppression and marginalisation, together

with the lack o access to eective legal protection, leave peoplevulnerable and with little opportunity to improve their economicand social conditions (ECOSOC, 2007; Ziegler, 2007).

8 Biouels are uels derived rom crop plants. Tey include biomass directly burnt, as

well as biodiesel rom plant seed-oil, and bioethanol rom ermenting grain, sap, grass,

straw or wood.

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Value of world trade in bananas





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Tese actors also directly or indirectly undermine the economic well-being and survival o local ood businesses (rom village shops to cornerstores in towns); providers o agricultural inputs (shing gear, armtools…); and people whose livelihoods depend on ood processing anddistribution (millers, butchers, bakers …). Overall, the social costso this model o development are high. Moreover, today’s industrialood and agriculture sector is generating high levels o environmental

degradation and its ecological ootprint is expanding (MA, 2005).Industrial and newly industrialising ood systems are by ar the mostcostly in terms o social and environmental impacts.

2�1�Thesocialcostsomodernoodsystems

Growing malnutrition and ood insecurity in the midst o plenty. Despite the act that they yield and market largevolumes o agricultural commodities, modern ood systems

are also associated with malnutrition, ood insecurity,deepening poverty and social exclusion in many parts o the world. Te latest guresrom the FAO (FAO, 2006) show that852 million people are hungry today,an increase o more than 25 millionchronically undernourished peoplesince 996. Te vast majority o undernourished people (85 million)live in the developing world, primarily in rural areas. Te hunger problem is most

serious in sub-Saharan Arica, where more than 40% o the populationis undernourished. Nine million o the hungry live in the world’s richestcountries, where, paradoxically, a high level o obesity is also a growinghealth problem (FAO, 2006; Lang and Heasman, 2004).

Lower incomes or ood providers. Farmers, shers and other producersreceive an ever shrinking percentage o the price o ood as transnationalcorporate traders, ood processors, distributors and supermarkets take

an ever larger share in the globalood system. For example, in90, 4% o US spending onood went to armers whilst 5%

went to input suppliers and 44%to marketers. By 990, the armers’share had dropped to just 9%,

with input suppliers capturing24% and marketing 67%, o every US dollar spent on ood.By 997, US armers’ share o theconsumer ood dollar had droppedto less than 8% (Smith, 2005). InGermany today, only about 20%o the price o ood goes to the armer, whereas they received 75% o the share in the 950s. In Ireland, there were about 36,000 amily armsrearing pigs in the early 970s. Bacon actories spread across the country and about hal the value went back to the arm and local community.

By 996, only 70 pig armers and six bacon actories remained. Only a th o the price o bacon now goes to the largely actory arms(Douthwaite, 996). In today’s UK ood system both jobs and value areadded signicantly more at the retail and catering end o the ood chain.Farming and primary production provides 540,000 jobs but only £5.2billion o value added. Retailing provides .6 million jobs and £8.8billion o value added, and catering provides .3 million jobs and £2billion o value added (DEFRA, 2006)

Agriculture without armers. In parallel with declining arm gateprices, armers have had to pay more or their inputs to production—

hybrid seeds, ertilisers pesticides and oil—to run arm operations andmachinery. For example, the price o oil has increased signicantly overthe last three years, reaching US $00 a barrel towards the end o 2007.Te resulting cost-price squeeze is a major reason or the widespreadbankruptcies and human misery in the rural communities o some o therichest countries in the world. For instance, in the UK arming industry one in three armers lives below the poverty line (where average annualincome totals less than £4,000), and almost 80,000 armers havequit the industry since 997. UK government gures show that some

Retailer 40%

Importer / Wholesaler 20%

Shipping costs 10%Export charges & handling 5%

Warehouse & packaging 15%

Picker / grower 10%

EVO MORALES



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200,000 arms disappeared between 966 and 995. At the time o writing, some 37 arm workers are leaving the land every day. More thanone diary arm closes down every day; 2,25 have closed in England

alone since 2002.

rade policies which avour large arms and agribusiness are alsodisplacing small-scale producers everywhere. Te annual UK Common

Agricultural Policy budget o £3 billion gives 20% o armers (largearms and agribusinesses) 80% o the subsidies. Government guresshow that 7,000 armers and arm workers let the land in 2003because they could not make a living (Lucas, 200). EU guressuggest that hal o north European agriculture will disappear within a

generation (Woollacott, 200) as small and medium-sized armers getsqueezed out by the institutions that claim to support them. It is likely that Poland alone will lose up to two million agricultural livelihoods as aresult o joining the EU (Lucas, 200).

Similarly, in the USA the number o arms decreased by 64% to lessthan two million between 950 and 999. Te US arm population

has declined to less than 2% over the same period. And today 90% o recorded agricultural output is produced by only 522,000 arms.

Dumping and undermined prices. Selling goods at less than their cost o production—dumping—ruins small-scale producers in both countrieso origin and sale.9 For example, the import o cheap maize rom theUS to Mexico—ironically, the centre o origin o maize—ruins Mexicanproducers. Likewise, the export o cheap vegetables rom Mexico toCanada ruins vegetable producers in Canada. More oten than not, thedebilitating eects o dumping are elt by producers as well as by otherkey actors in the local economy (ood processors, local ood outlets…).

For example, imports by India o dairy surpluses subsidised by theEuropean Union not only had negative eects on amily based dairy production but also on the network o local dairies and milk processors.In Sri Lanka there is clear evidence o an unavourable impact o importson the domestic production o vegetables, notably onions and potatoes.Te resulting decline in the cultivated area o these crops has aectedabout 300,000 people involved in production and marketing (FAO,2002).

Following the establishment o the WO’s Agreement on Agriculture(AoA), cheaper imports now threaten the viability o small arms,

pastoralists, small and medium-sized ood processors in many developingcountries (Berthelot, 200; Mazoyer and Roudart, 2002). Tis is o particular concern because in most o these counties a large proportiono the population depends on arming or a living and way o lie, e.g.75% o the population in China is made up o armers, 82% in Senegaland 67% in India.

9 Dumping can occur in North-South, South-North, South-South and North-North

trade, and is the result o subsidies and monopoly control over markets and distribution.

EVO MORALES,president o Bolivia

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Marginalisation and loss o sel esteem. Te industrialisation and/orcommercialisation o agriculture and sheries have resulted in theconsolidation o agriculture and orest lands, seeds, livestock breedsand other genetic resources in the hands o agribusiness and other largecommercial entities, displacing entire communities rom their lands andtraditional occupations. Displaced armers, shers, pastoralists, orestdwellers, ood workers and artisans seek insecure, unsae and poorly

paid employment elsewhere. Tis has resulted in widespread migrationo arming, pastoral and shing amilies, the creation o new pockets o poverty and inequality in rural and urban areas, and the ragmentationo entire rural communities. Disenranchisement and disempowermentare common side-eects, especially or women and young people (e.g.see Agarwal, 994; Barraclough, 99; Ghimire and Barraclough,200; Vasavi, 999). Women (oten the keepers o seeds and o localknowledge about livestock and orest products, medicinal herbs, plantsand wild ood sources in traditional ood systems), are let eelingunvalued and impotent. Te ragmentation o amilies and communitiesleaves young people with ew options or personal development and

employment. Low sel esteem, isolation and suicides are increasingly common among arming communities. In the United States, suicide isnow the leading cause o death among armers, and is occurring at a ratethree times higher than in the general population. Farmer suicides takeplace at the rate o one person every week in the UK (Norberg Hodge,2002); calls to the Farmers Crisis Network helpline rocketed by 60% in2006 compared to the previous year (www.armcrisisnetwork.org.uk ).

Forced migration within and between countries. Forcedmigration is an increasingly common outcome o modernisedood systems as the opportunities or large numbers o people to make a decent living no longer exist. Decliningcommodity prices, the cost-price squeeze experienced by producers, destruction o habitat and culture due to socialand environmental injustices, and the privatisation o social

services, health, education and culture, all encourage rural people tomigrate to cities in search o better economic opportunities. However,most rural migrants end up living in urban slums, - joining the Planet o slums described by Davis (2006). Poverty, hunger and despair oten leadpeople to migrate even urther, to other countries. As a result, migrationows between countries and continents are rapidly increasing today,as are the human tragedies and conicts that oten accompany suchmigration.

Many migrants—men, women and children—die whilst travelling tomore “hospitable lands” and conditions or migrants and economic

reugees are worsening day by day. Te UN International LabourOrganization (ILO) estimates that more than 200 million migrantslive in very dicult economic, social and cultural conditions in theirdestination countries. Many o these people come rom the developing

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2�2�Theenvironmentalcostsomodernoodsystems

Land use and biodiversity loss. More natural land has been convertedto agriculture since 945 than during the 8th and 9th centuriescombined. Ecosystems that have been most signicantly altered by modern agri-ood systems include coastal areas, temperate broadlea

orests and grasslands, Mediterranean orests and tropical dry orests.Te conversion o land or producing ood, bre, reshwater, timber,eed and uel is a main driver o biodiversity loss in modern capital andenergy intensive agricultural systems (MA, 2005).

Moreover, industrial models o agriculture promote simplicationand standardisation o agro-ecosystems, with reductions in thenumber o species grown and variability within species. Signicantcrop and livestock genetic diversity has been lost through the spreado industrial monocultures and increased specialisation at the eld,arm and landscape levels. For example, o the 7,098 apple varieties

documented as having been in use between 804 and 904 in the USA,approximately 86% have been lost. Similarly, 95% o the cabbage, 9%o the eld maize, 94% o the pea, and 8% o the tomato varietiesonce in use apparently no longer exist in the USA (Fowler, 99). Inthe Republic o Korea, 74% o the varieties o 4 crops being grownon particular arms in 985 had been replaced by 993 (FAO, 996).Mexico has lost over 80% o is maize varieties since 930. Te loss o livestock genetic diversity is also alarmingly high. In Brazil, only 2 outo 32 native pig breeds are let, and they are all under threat. O the2,576 livestock breeds recorded in Europe, almost hal are considered atrisk. Between 995 and 999, the number o mammalian breeds at risk

o loss has increased rom 33 to 49%; the number o bird breeds at risk o being lost has grown rom 65 to 76% in Europe. In 2000, the FAOreported that two breeds o livestock are lost every week and that ,350breeds ace extinction (FAO, and UNEP, 2000). Te loss o this typeo biodiversity induces sustainability problems, adds to environmentalrisk and signicantly reduces resilience in the ace o climate and otherchanges (FAO,996; FAO and UNEP, 2000; Pimbert, 999; IPPC,2007).



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Soil erosion. Soil is a dynamic, living matrix that is an essential part o the terrestrial ecosystem. It is a critical resource, not only to agriculturalproduction and ood systems, but also to the maintenance o most lieprocesses. More than hal o the Earth’s land surace is intensively usedor agricultural purposes such as cultivation, grazing, plantation orestry and aquaculture. Since 950 one-third o our soil has been prooundly

altered rom its natural ecosystem state because o moderate to severesoil and land degradation (Oldeman et al ., 990). Expert assessmentso soil degradation suggest that almost 75% o crop land in Central

America, 20% in Arica (mostly pasture), and % in Asia is seriously degraded (IFPRI, 2000). It is estimated that 6% o India’s agriculturalland has been made useless as a result o salinisation induced by GreenRevolution agriculture (Rosset et al ., 2000).

Te widespread erosion o soil biodiversity is o particular concern too.Soils contain enormous numbers o diverse living organisms assembledin complex and varied communities. Soil biodiversity reects the

variability among living organisms in the soil, ranging rom the myriado invisible microbes, bacteria and ungi to the more amiliar macro-auna such as earthworms, beetles and termites. Tese soil organismscontribute a wide range o essential unctions or the sustainability o all ecosystems, by acting as the primary driving agents o nutrientcycling; regulating the dynamics o soil organic matter, soil carbonsequestration and greenhouse gas emissions; modiying soil physicalstructure and water regimes; enhancing the amount and eciency o nutrient acquisition by the vegetation and enhancing plant health. Teseservices are not only essential to the unctioning o natural ecosystems,but constitute an important resource or the sustainable management

o agricultural systems (FAO and CBD, 200). It is estimated that thevalue o “ecosystem services”(e.g. organic waste disposal, soil ormation,bioremediation, nitrogen xation and biological control) providedeach year by soil biota in agricultural systems worldwide may exceedUS$,542 billion (Pimental et al ., 997). Land degradation inducedby industrial arming, inequitable land distribution causing overuseor neglect o soils, and economic incentives that work against soilconservation and good husbandry, all undermine these vitally importantecosystem unctions.



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Fisheries in crisis. Food production rom wild sheries has been aectedby habitat degradation, overexploitation and pollution to a point wheremost o these resources are not sustainable without external interventionsdesigned to enhance the abundance o sh stocks. In addition, escalatingshing pressure and use o unsustainable technologies have depletedshing stocks globally (MA, 2005). Tis leads to an overall degradationo aquatic ecosystems.

Industrial shing’s impact on the marine environment is particularly severe. Overshing is an unsustainable use o the seas and oceans. oomany sh are caught or the system to support and not enough adult shremain to breed and replenish the population. According to the FAO,nearly 80% o the world’s sheries are ully to over-exploited, depletedor in a state o collapse. Worldwide about 90% o the stocks o largepredatory sh are already gone (SOFIA, 2006). Ater depleting the mostvaluable sh stocks, commercial shing eets have been moving on tothe second most valuable sh and so on. Scientists agree that at currentexploitation rates many important sh stocks will be removed rom thesystem within 25 years

(www.overfshing.org).

Fishing down the ood web does not only aect target sh species.Te increasing eort needed by the industrialised sheries to catchsomething o commercial value oten means that dolphins and othermarine mammals, sharks, sea birds, non-commercially viable shspecies and marine biodiversity are overexploited, killed as bycatch anddiscarded (up to 80% o the catch or certain sheries). Many shingmethods also have a wider impact on the basic unctioning o marineecosystems. For example, unselective shing practices such as bottomtrawling cause tremendous destruction to populations o non-target

species. Industrial shing is causing the loss o species as well as entireecosystems. As a result the overall ecological health o oceans and seasare under stress and at risk o collapse. Tus, human societies everywhererisk losing a valuable ood source on which many people depend orsocial, economical and dietary reasons (Clover, 2004; SOFIA, 2006;www.overfshing.org).

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these virtual water ows hasbeen assessed at between 700and ,00 cubic kilometres peryear (Hoekstra, et al ., 2003). Teequivalent o 20 River Niles aretranserred each year rom thedeveloping to the developed world

(Pearce, 2006).

Tis ow o virtual water as aconsequence o world ood tradeis increasing, with some regionsbeing eectively “mined” or waterto produce export crops and l ivestock or the international market.For example, apart rom Israel and Jordan, no country in the semi-aridregions o the world has made policy choices to reduce or abandonexports or local production o water-intensive crops, replacing them by imports or higher return crops to allow optimisation o water use (World

Water Council, 2004). Moreover, global changes in diets towards more

meat consumption also have an increasing impact on water resources.

For example, while ,000 litres o water are needed to produce a kiloo wheat, ve to ten times as much water is needed to produce a kilo o meat. I every human being adopted a western-style diet, some 75%more water would be needed or ood production globally (Zimmer andRenault, 2003).

Agro-chemical pollution. Commercial pesticides aect the health o arm workers and many other non-target organisms and their habitats

Water use and pollution. Water is required in the production o oodsuch as cereals, vegetables, meat and diary products. Food productiontoday uses about 70% o all resh water withdrawals. Irrigation oragriculture is by ar the greatest consumer o water and the diversiono more water to ood and agriculture threatens environmentalsustainability (MA, 2005). Industrialised livestock production is thelargest sectoral source o water pollution and is a key player in increasing

water use, accounting or over 8% o global water use (Steineld et al .,2006). Run-o and seepage o synthetic ertilisers and concentratedsources o livestock waste damage aquiers, rivers, lakes and even oceans,

with costly eects on drinking water quality, sh habitat and recreationalamenities (FAO, 2006; WWAP, 2003).

Te global trade in ood reects a “virtual ow” o water rom oodcommodity exporting countries to importing countries.0 Tus thereis currently a major export o virtual water embodied in ood exportedrom the Americas, South East Asia and Oceania and in major importsin North America, Western Europe, Central and South Asia (Hoekstra

and Hung, 2002). A ustralia, a dry continent subject to periodic

drought, is the world’s second

largest net exporter o this virtual water embedded in its grain,livestock and dairy exports. New Zealand and Australia togethersupply a third o the world’straded milk products, and bothcountries are in the top 2 net

water exporters (Chapagrain &Hoekstra, 2003). Te scale o

0 Te amount o water consumed in producing a product is called the “virtual water”

contained in the product (Allan, 998).



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(WWAP, 2003). Over-use and mismanagement o pesticides poisons water and soil. Te replacement o natural pest control services witharticial pesticides is estimated to cost US $54 billion per year (CAS,999). Moreover, the addition o massive amounts o chemicalertilisers to agricultural elds in recent decades has resulted in annualnitrogen inputs to ecosystems increasing by 50% and phosphorusuxes by 4.6% (MA, 2005). Te result is eutrophication o water

tables, reshwater and coastal environments. Tis is characterised by dramatic changes in biotic and abiotic conditions, leading occasionally to toxicity, loss o biodiversity and lowering o water quality (Carpenteret al ., 998). Between 890 and 990, the total amount o biologically available nitrogen created by human activities increased nine-old, andhuman activity now produces more nitrogen than all natural processescombined. Agrochemical nutrient pollution rom the US arm belt isthe principal cause o the biological “dead zone” in the Gul o Mexico,500 km away; similar impacts are elt in the Baltic Sea and alongthe coasts o India and China, as well as in the Great Barrier Ree o

Australia. Similarly, the global atmospheric transport o agricultural

pollutants—including greenhouse gases—means that environmentalcosts are oten borne by populations ar removed rom the site o production (UNEP, 2005).

Global trade in ood and agricultural inputs is signicantly modiyingbiogeochemical cycles on a planetary scale. Troughout the modernood system, the large-scale extraction or production, transormation



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and consumption o biophysical material entails the displacement andremoval o carbon and nutrients (e.g. potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen,calcium and sulphur). For instance, material ow assessments tracedthe import into Benelux countries o cassava chips rom Tailand,destined or eed to intensive animal and poultry industries. Te chips

contain more potassium than is re-applied in the orm o ertiliser to the whole o Tai agriculture. In other words, such production and exportrepresents a orm o mineral mining that is rarely noticed and not pickedup in market signals. Moreover, the resultant nutrient-rich animal wasteleads to surpluses in the destination countries. Much o the decomposedsurplus has been ending up in waterways and the air, causing urtherproblems. Similarly, the embedded carbon costs o global ood tradingand retailing have been estimated or some countries (Pretty, 2002);these are costs that would appear unsustainable in climate change terms.

Invasive species and genetically modifed organisms (GMOs). Some

introduced agricultural crops, livestock, trees and sh have becomeinvasive, spreading beyond their planned range and displacing nativespecies (Mooney et al ., 2005; Mathews and Brand, 2004). Genetically modied crop varieties and other GMOs also have the potential tobecome invasive species or to hybridise with wild relatives, leadingto the loss o biodiversity and undermining key ecological processesand services (Altieri and Rosset, 999; Omamo and Grebmer, 2005;Oksman-Caldentey and Barz, 2002; Wan Ho et al ., 2003).

Agrouels11 Tere is now growing demand or agrouels with theprospect o oil production peaking in the next ew years and the

world running short o ossil uels. Biodiesel rom plant seed-oil,and bioethanol rom ermenting grain, sap, grass, straw or wood, areespecially in demand. Agrouels are now grown on a signicant scale,

competing with ood crops. For example, 20% o all corn grown in 2006 was destined or ethanol production.

Tere is evidence that the large-scale cultivation o agrouels willsignicantly increase rates o environmental degradation throughout the

world. Critical ecosystems and biodiversity are already being destroyed toplant agrouel crops in developing counties. Examples include sugarcane(Brazil) and soya (Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil). Biodiversity loss due to oil plantations is accelerating in countries such as Indonesia,Malaysia, Cameroon, Colombia and Ecuador. Large-scale agrouelproduction is causing signicant deorestation and loss o biodiversity in

tropical regions in particular (Smolker et al , 2007).

Soya has been identied as the main driver o deorestation in the Amazon. According to a report o the US National Aeronautics andSpace Administration (NASA), the price o soya directly correlates

with the rate o orest destruction in that region (Morton et al ., 2006).Soya expansion has also been identied as the main cause o thehigh deorestation rates in Latin America’s tropical and semi-tropicalseasonally dry orests since the late 990s, particularly in Argentina,

Tis paper ocuses on particular types o biouels, called “agrouels” because they are

produced by intensive industrial agriculture, generally as monocultures, oten coveringthousands o hectares, most oten in the developing world.



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Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil (Grau et al ., 2005). Agrouel expansion isexpected to push up the price o soya by creating an additional marketor soya biodiesel.

Biodiversity and associated ecosystem services are urther eroded by the use o irrigation and ertilisers to boost yields o agrouel crops.Irrigation depletes lakes, rivers and aquiers, while ertilisers increase the

burden o nitrates in soil and water. Impacts include eutrophication, amajor threat to sh stocks. Herbicide tolerant genetically engineered(GE) biouel crops acilitate the use o aerial spraying o herbicides, withserious eects on biodiversity and small-scale arming (Biouelwatch et al ., 2007).

Agrouels have been presented as “carbon neutral”: their combustiondoes not add any additional greenhouse gas to the atmosphere sinceburning them simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide thatthe plants removed when they were growing in the eld. However, ratherthan combating climate change, agrouels may in act accelerate it. Teirproduction involves considerable emission o greenhouse gases romsoils, carbon sink destruction and ossil uel inputs. Te clearance o

Indonesia’s peat orests to plant oil palm plantations has caused massiveoutputs o CO2

( Hooijer, et al 2006; Page et al , 2002). Forests thatare cut down to plant bioenergy crops release huge carbon emissions.Te most disastrous option is to convert tropical orest into cropland,

which leads to a net loss (emission) o 200 tonnes o carbon per hectare



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(Righelato and Spracklen, 2007).2 Tere are also extra costs in energy and carbon emissions rom the production and use o ertiliser andpesticides used or growing the crops, o arming implements, processingand rening, renery plants, transport and inrastructure or transportand distribution. Tese costs can be quite substantial, particularly i theagrouels are made in one country and exported to another. Lie-cycleanalyses o agrouels generally give a small to negative energy balance;

when proper accounting is done, the result is mostly a negative energy balance – the production o agrouels uses more energy than the energy ultimately generated by these uel crops (ISIS, 2006).

Food systems, energy use and emissions o greenhouse gases. Industrialood systems are heavily implicated in climate change. Animals areresponsible or 3% o greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nitrogenertilisers or 38% (Stern, 2006). A 2006 Joint European ResearchCentre lie-cycle analysis ound that the ood and drink sector wasthe most signicant source o greenhouse gases,accounting or 20 to 30% o the various

environmental impacts o the mostcommon types o Europeanconsumption (ukker et al ., 2006). A lie-cycle accountingshows thatrom arm to

2 Te Stern Report on the economics o climate change commissioned by the UK

reasury noted that putting a stop to deorestation would be by ar the most cost-eective way to mitigate climate change, costing as little as US$ per tonne o CO

2

avoided rom being emitted (Stern, 2006).

dinner plate, the French ood system is responsible or more than 30%o national greenhouse gas emissions ( Jancovici, 2004). Te EU study concluded that the most signicant contributors o GHGs were rstly meat and meat products and secondly the dairy sector.

Te modern ood system is also a major contributor to global warmingand climate change through intensive use o ossil uels or ertilisers,

agrochemicals, production, transport, processing, rerigeration andretailing. Each unit o ood energy produced requires many times moreossil uel energy inputs (Leach, 976). For example, over 7% o theUSA’s total energy use is consumed by the country’s ood system. Onaverage, the US ood system consumes 0 units o energy or every unit o ood energy produced (Pimentel and Pimentel, 2008). Inindustrialised countries, between 0 and 5 energy units are spent orevery energy unit o ood on the dinner plate (Gunther, 2000). Grain-ed bee requires 35 calories or every calorie o bee produced, and a cano diet soda that provides maybe calorie o energy needs 2,200 caloriesto produce it (70% o which is tied up in the aluminium can) (Heller

and Keoleian, 2000). For every energy unit o ood transported perthousand air-miles, 2.5 energy units are used (Voeding, 200; Pirog,2003).

In turn, the energy sector’s ecological ootprint as a result o exploration,extraction and inrastructure development is signicant. Explorationor hydrocarbons, pipeline construction, uranium mining, hydroelectricdam construction, uelwoodextraction and, increasingly,biouel plantations can all leadto signicant habitat degradation

and emissions o greenhouse gases.Such energy intensive industrialood systems and their greenhousegas emitting energy inrastructuresdirectly and signicantly contributeto climate change and its impacts(IPCC, 2007).

In sum, the social andenvironmental costs o modernood systems are extraordinarily

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high. Tese trends have been described separately here, - possibly giving the impression that each ‘crisis’ can be ‘managed’ in an isolated,piecemeal, sector-ocussed way. But in the real world o interconnectedpeople, landscapes and ood systems, these social and environmentalcosts combine and ampliy each other, with increasingly devastatingconsequences everywhere. As this conversation between Danish and

Argentinean armers clearly shows, deep systemic and simultaneous change

is needed to reverse current trends in the global ood system:

“Danish meat production is based on soya rom Latin America, especially Argentina, where vast areas are planted with monoculture GM soya. Soil is depleted o nutrients and exposed to erosion. Te soya producers grow bigger and bigger – taking new land rom orest and virgin land. Even Danish armers are losing, as they have to produce ever cheaper ood, which is only possible on large arms. Small armers have to give up in this competition.Danish nature is also losing due to a surplus o nitrogen ertilization derived rom the manure – extracted rom the Argentinian soil (which is depleted!).Te peasants in Argentina that were originally producing a variety o ood

(vegetables, meat, milk) are selling their land to the soya producers as their possibilities to produce are undermined by pesticide spraying rom the air, or their land is taken away, since they have no papers on their legal rights to the land. As local armers no longer produce or the local people, there is hunger and malnutrition. People are ed soya, which is not part o the traditional diet. Te Danish population is losing the skills and knowledge to grow and consume a traditional diet rich in local ruit and vegetables and now eats more meat and milk than is good or their health – as does the rest o the Western world.”

From a discussion between Danish and Argentinean farmers

recorded in the report of the Nyeleni 2007 Forum on FoodSovereignty.



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Chapter 3 Food sovereignty: a



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Chapter 3. Food sovereignty: a

citizens’ vision of a better world

Te previous section shows that throughout the world, small-scaleproducers and their environments are directly aected by the combined

processes o economic development, liberalisation and the integrationo agri-ood systems into a globalised world economy. Yet the dominantdevelopment paradigm considers it benecial and even necessary to haveless people living in rural areas, arming and depending on localised oodsystems3 (Pimbert 2006; Perez-Vitoria, 2005; Ollivier, 2007). It oreseesand encourages an exodus o people rom rural areas to work in industry and urban-based trade and services (APM-Mondial 200, Desmarais2007; Pimbert et al ., 2006). Many development programmes aremotivated by the belie that those subsistence producers who continueto arm, sh, rear livestock and harvest orests and common property lands should “modernise” as quickly as possible. Tey should become

ully commercial producers by applying industrial ood and agriculturaltechnologies that allow or economies o scale (Desmarais, 2007). Tose who cannot make this transition should move out o arming andrural areas to seek alternative livelihoods. Tis modernisation agendais seen as both desirable and inevitable by most policy-makers, donors,development scholars and several mainstream NGOs.

3 Small-scale producers, peasants and other rural people rarely depend solely on

arming or their livelihood. Occupations that are related to local ood processing andother sources o livelihoods are commonplace. Tereore the issue is not simply whether

less people arm (ull-time) but whether people can make a living in rural areas, through

a combination o agriculture, land and water use, and associated livelihoods.

However this neo liberal path to growth is but one o several possible



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However, this neo-liberal path to growth is but one o several possibledevelopment models and political choices or the uture o ood,arming, environment and development. Te extinction o armers,ood workers and indigenous peoples is thereore not inevitable. Teidea that small-scale producers and indigenous peoples as a group arebound to disappear reects just one vision o the uture—it is a politicalchoice that relies on specic theories o change that can be disputed and

rejected.

Te knowledge, priorities and aspirations o small-scale producers,and other citizens whose livelihoods depend on ood provisioning, arerarely included in policy debates on the uture o ood, arming anddevelopment (Edelman, 2003). When governments do decide to holdpublic consultations to help guide their decisions, policy experts as wellas representatives o large armers and agri-ood corporations are usually centre stage in these debates, rather than small-scale producers, ood

workers, small ood businesses and other citizens. Similarly, when policy think tanks and academics organise discussions to inorm the choices

o decision-makers it is striking that the voices o armers, pastoralists,sherolk, ood workers and indigenous peoples are largely absent romsuch processes (Pimbert et al ., 2006).

“Food sovereignty” is an alternative paradigm or ood, sheries,agriculture, pastoralism and orest use that is emerging in responseto this democratic decit. Tis alternative policy ramework or oodand agriculture is also a citizens’ response to the multiple social andenvironmental crises induced by modern ood systems everywhere.Indeed, many proposals or ood sovereignty directly seek to reversethe socially and ecologically destructive nature o industrial arming,sheries, orestry and livestock management, and the wider ood systemsthey are part o. “Sel suciency and autonomy are now political demands,well rooted in the experience o millions o Indians, campesinos, ‘urbanmarginals’ and many other groups in the southern part o the globe. Re-rooting and regenerating themselves in their own spaces, they are creating eective responses to ‘the global orces’ trying to displace them” (Esteva andPrakash, 998).

Food sovereignty is a relatively new political concept. Ater severalyears o development, it was rst put orward internationally by La VíaCampesina at the UN FAO’s World Food Summit in 996. Since thenmany social movements, organisations and people have adopted andtaken part in developing the concept o ood sovereignty.

From the beginning La Vía Campesina distanced itsel rom large-scale3 1 LaVía Campesina andthe concept o ood sovereignty



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From the beginning, La Vía Campesina distanced itsel rom large-scaleor “corporate” armers and non-governmental organisations. Its membershave always emphasised that it is the initiative o peasants and not o NGOs. At the 996 World Food Summit, La Vía Campesina reused tosign the NGO declaration as it “elt that it did not address suciently the concerns and interests o peasant amilies” (Desmarais, 2002). La VíaCampesina is also very clear about the kind o armers it represents, or

allows as members. Its relationship with Te International Federation o Agricultural Producers (IFAP) is illuminating in this regard (Box 3.).

Box3�1�IFAPandLaVíaCampesina

Created in 946, IFAP usually claims to represent armers aroundthe world4 in a range o inuential institutions such as the Foodand Agriculture Organization o the United Nations (FAO), theInternational Fund or Agricultural Development (IFAD), the

World rade Organization, the World Bank and the Organisation

or Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Desmarais,2007). However, IFAP was seen by many to be “representing theinterests o larger armers primarily based in the industrialisedcountries” (Desmarais, 2007). IFAP is considered a “conservative”(Edelman 2003), “reormist or conormist” (Desmarais 2007)organisation that supports the liberalisation and globalisation o agriculture (Desmarais 2007). Tis is why many o the small-armers’organisations were opposed to allowing IFAP and its aliatedorganisations to join La Vía Campesina (Desmarais 2007; Edelman2003). La Vía Campesina was in act created as a “much needed andradical alternative to the IFAP” (Desmarais 2007), to more adequately represent peasant, indigenous, small amily armers and othermarginalised small-scale producers.

4 According to IFAP’s President Graham Blight at the Agricultural Producers’ Caucus

o the 996 World Food Summit, IFAP spoke “on behal o 83 national organisations o

amily armers in 59 countries throughout the world, over hal o which are developing

countries” (Blight, G./IFAP, 996). However, as Desmarais explains, several armers’

organisations in developed and developing countries do not belong to IFAP, or a range

o reasons, one o which is the very high membership costs. In act, IFAP is mostly

made up o “elite and corporate producers” (Edelman 2003: 23), and the majority o its organisations are rom developed nations, despite IFAP’s eorts to “recruit” more

developing country member organisations (Desmarais 2007: 85).

3�1�LaVíaCampesinaandtheconceptooodsovereignty

“We, La Vía Campesina, a growing movement o arm workers, peasant, arm and indigenous peoples’ organisations rom all the regions o the world, know that ood security cannot be achieved without taking ull account o those who produce ood. Any

discussion that ignores our contribution will ail to eradicate poverty and hunger. Food is a basic human right. Tis right can only be realised in a system where Food Sovereignty is guaranteed.” (La VíaCampesina, 996).

La Vía Campesina is an international movement which co-ordinatespeasant organisations o small and medium sized producers, agricultural

workers, rural women and indigenous communities rom Asia, Americaand Europe. It is an autonomous, pluralistic movement, independento all political, economic or other denominations. La Vía Campesina isorganised in seven regions as ollows: Europe, Northeast and Southeast

Asia, South Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Central America,and South America. It was ormed in April 992, when several peasantleaders rom Central America, North America, and Europe got togetherin Managua, Nicaragua, at the Congress o the National Uniono Farmers and Livestock Owners (UNAG). In May 993, La VíaCampesina’s rst conerence was held in Mons, Belgium, where it wasconstituted as a world organisation, and its rst strategic guidelines andstructure were dened.

La Vía Campesina’s proud Mexico and Central America is noteworthy in this regard:

ALBERO GOMEZLa Via Campesina



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La Vía Campesina s proudadoption o a “peasant identity” isalso particularly notable in today’scontext. Among the multipleterms used to describe small-scale, amily-based producers (e.g.smallholders, traditional armers,

subsistence gardeners, petty producers…), the term “peasant”is oten laden with negative valuesand prejudice in many dierentcountries and languages. In “thepopular imagination… ‘peasants’

represented backwardness” (Edelman 2003). So why has La VíaCampesina chosen to call itsel “the international peasant movement”?

As Nettie Webbie, a Canadian armer who is part o La Vía Campesinaexplains, “I you actually look at what ‘peasant’ means, it means ‘people o the land’ …it’s the land and our relationship to the land and ood

production that distinguishes us. …We’re not part o the industrial machine.We’re much more closely linked to the places where we grow ood and how we grow ood’ (quoted in Edelman 2003). La Vía Campesina and othercontemporary rural activists are trying to “re-appropriate the term‘peasant’ and inuse it with new and positive content” (Edelman 2003).Bernstein acknowledges this, saying “there is a recent ashion to embrace (‘amily’) armers in both South and North under common terms like ‘people o the land’ or indeed ‘peasants’. Tis typically registers a political stance critical o capitalist agriculture (and agribusiness)’ (Bernstein, 2007).

Indeed, both Marxist and neo-liberal certainties about the “end o thepeasantry”, the “inevitability o progress” and “modernity” are all beingchallenged today 5.

Te experience o the Campesino a Campesino armer networks in

5 As Walden Bello points out both Marxist and capitalist ideologies have similar

views on the uture o peasants in modern industrial society. “Te two dominant

modernist ideologies o our time give short thrit to the peasantry. In classical socialism,

peasants were viewed as relics o an obsolete mode o production and designated or

transormation into a rural working class producing on collective arms owned and

managed by the state. In the dierent varieties o capitalist ideology, eciency in

agricultural production could only be brought about with the radical reduction o thenumbers o peasants and the substitution o labour by machines. In both visions, the

peasant had no uture” (Bello, 2007).

Mexico and Central America is noteworthy in this regard:

“ Contrary to conventional wisdom, today’s campesinos are not culturally static or politically passive. Nor are they disappearing as a social class.Campesino amilies across Mesoamerica and the Caribbean (and around the world) are constantly adapting to global, regional, and local orces…. A story o unfagging resistance to decades o a ‘development’ that sought to

eliminate peasants rom the countryside and, more recently, to neoliberal economic policies that prioritize corporate prot margins over environment, ood security, and rural livelihoods.

[this is] a struggle or cultural resistance because campesino culture has withstood both socialist and capitalist version o progress… Even today,campesinos across the Mesoamerican isthmus resist the devastating economic eects o globalization both rom their home communities and rom the elds, actories, and service sectors o the United States, to which they supply an inexhaustible army o cheap, expendable labor “ (Holt-Gimenez, 2006).

In the ace o a development model geared to ensuring the extinctiono subsistence armers, nomadic pastoralists and other small-scaleood providers, La Vía Campesina is redening what it means to bea “peasant”. A process o re-peasantisation is slowly unolding as morenational and regional organisations proudly embrace the term “peasant”to describe themselves, projecting an alternative identity and modernity rich in meaning and hope or the uture. As Annette Aurelie Desmaraissays in her excellent study o La Via Campesina:

“Tis is a politicized identity. It refects people who share a deep commitment to place, who are deeply attached to a particular piece o land, who are all part o a particular rural community, whose mode o existence is under threat. Tis place-bound identity, that o ‘people o the land’, refects the belie that they have the right to be on the land. Tey have the right and obligation to produce ood. Tey have the right to be seen as ullling animportant unction in society at large. Tey have a right to live in viable communities and the obligation to build community. All o these actors orm essential parts o their distinct identity as peasants; in today’s politicized globalization, articulating identity across borders and based on locality and tradition is a deeply political act” (Desmarais, 2007).

consumers, environmental and urban movements rom more than 80



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Since its creation in 993, La Vía Campesina has held our internationalmeetings6 to bring together its member organisations, discuss anddene common positions, strategies and actions. Tese actions primarily involved participation in several important international meetings andorums, such as the 996 World Food Summit and the 2002 WorldFood Summit: ve years later (both o which took place in Rome, Italy and were convened by FAO); the 2000 Global Forum on AgriculturalResearch (held in Dresden and hosted by the FAO); and the 200

World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. At all o thesemeetings representatives o La Vía Campesina stated their opinions andrecommendations on issues o agricultural trade, agricultural productionmethods, genetic resources, land reorm, the right to ood, and otheraspects. Teir statements show how they have shaped and developed theconcept o ood sovereignty.

However, to dene the concept more ormally and democratically, LaVía Campesina organised two major international conerences on oodsovereignty. Te rst was a gathering o 400 delegates rom organisationso amily armers, peasants, indigenous peoples, landless people andartisanal sherolk, as well as civil society oganisations, academics andresearchers rom 60 dierent countries. Tey met at La Havana, Cuba in200 or the World Forum on Food Sovereignty (APM-Mondial 200).Te second event was an even larger gathering: 600 representativesrom the same types o organisations, but this time also including rural

workers, migrants, pastoralists, orest communities, youth organisations,

6 st meeting: 993 in Mons, Belgium; 2nd meeting: 996 in laxcala, Mexico;

3rd meeting: 2000 in Bangalore, India; and 4th meeting: 2004 in Itaici, Brazil (seeDesmarais, 2007).

,countries. Tis event was held in Sélingué, Mali in 2007: the NyéléniForum on Food Sovereignty. Te broad range o armers and othercitizens involved in these ongoing discussions has decisively shaped theconcept o ood sovereignty over the last decade.

Box3�2�Foodsovereignty:auturewithouthunger3�2�Foodsovereignty:analternativeparadigmoroodand

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g y g

During the 996 World Food Summit, La Vía Campesina presentedseven mutually supportive principles that dene an alternative paradigmor ood, agriculture and human well-being:

1. Food – A Basic Human Right

Food is a basic human right. Everyone must have access to sae,nutritious and culturally appropriate ood in sucient quantity andquality to sustain a healthy lie with ull human dignity. Each nationshould declare that access to ood is a constitutional right and guaranteethe development o the primary sector to ensure the concrete realisationo this undamental right.

2. Agrarian Reorm A genuine agrarian reorm is necessary which gives landless and armingpeople—especially women—ownership and control o the land they

work and which returns territories to indigenous peoples. Te rightto land must be ree o discrimination on the basis o gender, religion,race, social class or ideology; the land belongs to those who work it.Smallholder armer amilies, especially women, must have access toproductive land, credit, technology, markets and extension services.Governments must establish and support decentralised rural creditsystems that prioritise the production o ood or domestic consumptionto ensure Food Sovereignty. Production capacity rather than landshould be used as security to guarantee credit. o encourage youngpeople to remain in rural communities as productive citizens, the work o producing ood and caring or the land has to be suciently valuedboth economically and socially. Governments must make long-terminvestments o public resources in the development o socially andecologically appropriate rural inrastructure.

3. Protecting Natural Resources Food Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use o naturalresources, especially land, water, seeds and livestock breeds. Tepeople who work the land must have the right to practise sustainablemanagement o natural resources and to preserve biological diversity.Tis can only be done rom a sound economic basis with security o

agriculture

Te concept o ood sovereignty had already been under discussion ora ew years when it was released at La Vía Campesina’s internationalconerence in laxcala, Mexico, in April 996. At this conerencedelegates decided that they wanted proper representation in international

ora, such as the Word Food Summit. Tey also expressed the needto encourage NGOs and civil society organisations (CSOs) to discussalternatives to the neo-liberal proposals or achieving ood security (seeBox 3.5).

In the words o La Vía Campesina, ood sovereignty is “the right o eachnation to maintain and develop their own capacity to produce oods that are crucial to national and community ood security, respecting cultural diversity and diversity o production methods.” (www.viacampesina.org ). Tisdenition ocuses on the right o smallholder armers to produce ood,

which is undermined in many countries by national and internationalagricultural trade policy regulations.

During the 996 World Food Summit, La Vía Campesina presenteda set o mutually supportive principles that oered an alternative to

world trade policies and would realise the human right to ood. Teirstatement, Food Sovereignty: A Future without Hunger (996), declaredthat “Food Sovereignty is a precondition to genuine ood security”.La Vía Campesina’s seven principles to achieve ood sovereignty arepresented in Box 3.2. Subsequent declarations and documents by La VíaCampesina and other organisations have built on these principles since996 (Box 3.3).

www.viacampesina.org

tenure, healthy soils and reduced use o agro-chemicals. Long-term code o conduct or transnational corporations is thereore needed.







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sustainability demands a shit away rom dependence on chemicalinputs, on cash-crop monocultures and intensive, industrialisedproduction models. Balanced and diversied natural systems arerequired. Genetic resources are the result o millennia o evolutionand belong to all o humanity. Tey represent the careul work andknowledge o many generations o rural and indigenous peoples.Te patenting and commercialisation o genetic resources by privatecompanies must be prohibited. Te WO’s Intellectual Property Rights

Agreement is thereore unacceptable. Farming communities have theright to reely use and protect the diverse genetic resources, includingseeds and livestock breeds, which have been developed by themthroughout history. 4. Reorganising Food radeFood is rst and oremost a source o nutrition and only secondarily anitem o trade. National agricultural policies must prioritise productionor domestic consumption and ood sel-suciency. Food importsmust not displace local production nor depress prices. Tis means thatexport dumping or subsidised exports must cease. Smallholder armershave the right to produce essential ood staples or their countries andto control the marketing o their products. Food prices in domesticand international markets must be regulated and reect the true costso producing that ood. Tis would ensure that smallholder armeramilies have adequate incomes. It is unacceptable that the trade inood commodities continues to be based on the economic exploitationo the most vulnerable–the lowest earning producers–and the urtherdegradation o the environment. It is equally unacceptable that trade andproduction decisions are increasingly dictated by the need or oreigncurrency to meet high debt loads. Tese debts place a disproportionateburden on rural people and should thereore be orgiven. 5. Ending the Globalisation o HungerFood Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. Te growing control o multinational corporationsover agricultural policies has been acilitated by the economic policieso multilateral organisations such as the WO, World Bank and IMF.Regulation and taxation o speculative capital and a strictly enorced

6. Social PeaceEveryone has the right to be ree rom violence. Food must not be usedas a weapon. Increasing levels o poverty and marginalisation in thecountryside, along with the growing oppression o ethnic minoritiesand indigenous populations, aggravate situations o injustice andhopelessness. Te ongoing displacement, orced urbanisation, repressionand increasing incidence o racism o smallholder armers cannot betolerated.

7. Democratic ControlSmallholder armers must have direct input into ormulating agriculturalpolicies at all levels. Te United Nations and related organisations willhave to undergo a process o democratisation to enable this to become areality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate inormation and openand democratic decision-making. Tese rights orm the basis o goodgovernance, accountability and equal participation in economic, politicaland social lie, ree rom all orms o discrimination. Rural women, inparticular, must be granted direct and active decision-making on oodand rural issues.

Source: La Vía Campesina, 996; www.viacampesina.org

descriptions o the loss o markets to imports, the drop in producer prices due d b k d h lF d h l h h d d l l





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to unair competition, and government cutbacks to producers except the large exporters. Te January tortilla crisis in Mexico ound its counterpart in the May palm oil crisis in Indonesia, when the price o both staple oods soared due to diversion to agrouels and transnational control o markets” (Carlsen,2007).

Food sovereignty thus implies the right o individuals, peoples,communities and countries:

to dene their own agricultural, labour, shing, ood, land and watermanagement policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances;to ood and to produce ood, which means that all people have theright to sae, nutritious and culturally appropriate ood, to ood-producing resources and to the ability to sustain themselves andtheir societies;to protect and regulate domestic production and trade and preventthe dumping o ood products and unnecessary ood aid ondomestic markets;to choose their own level o sel-reliance in ood;to manage, use and control lie-sustaining natural resources: land,

water, seeds, livestock breeds and wider agricultural biodiversity,unrestricted by intellectual property rights and ree rom GMOs;to produce and harvest ood in an ecologically sustainable manner,principally through low-external input production and artisanalsheries.

Behind the development o the ood sovereignty policy ramework lie aglobal network o social movements, indigenous peoples and civil society organisations, and a number o conerences, ora and declarations whichhave resulted in several signicant statements on ood sovereignty (Box3.3). Solidarity, - and a shared vision o what should be done -, emergesorganically through conversations that lead to the mutual recognition o common problems and struggles. As Carlsen reported rom a 2006 ViaCampesina international orum in Mexico city:

“ For most peasant armers in Mexico, Asia has always seemed literally and guratively a world apart. But when Uthai Sa Artchop o Tailand described how transnational corporations sought to patent and control their varieties o rice seed, Mexican peasants realized that the Tais’ rice was their corn. When Indonesian armer ejo Pramono spoke o how remittances romsons and daughters working in Hong Kong and the Middle East subsidize a dying countryside, Mexican armers thought o their own relatives orced to migrate to the United States. Both sides nodded knowingly at the other’s

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Alternative viewing on YouTube

Soberania Alimentaria

Box3�3�Theemergenceotheoodsovereigntyramework:atimelineokeydocumentsandstatements

www.nyeleni2007.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZ3LdWMCUA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZ3LdWMCUA

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1996Food Sovereignty: A Future Without Hunger. La Vía Campesina’s 996 Statement by the NGO Forum to the World Food Summit , NGO Forum to the World Food Summit

2001Our World is Not For Sale. WO: Shrink or Sink. Our World is Not or Sale Network.Final Declaration o the World Forum on Food Sovereignty, Havana, Cuba.Priority to Peoples’ Food Sovereignty. La Vía Campesina.Sale o the Century? People’s Food Sovereignty. Part 1 – the Implications o rade Negotiations. Friends o the Earth International.Sale o the Century? People’s Food Sovereignty. Part 2 – a New Multilateral Framework or Food and Agriculture. Friends o the EarthInternational.Food Sovereignty in the Era o rade Liberalisation: Are Multilateral Means Feasible? Steve Suppan, Institute or Agriculture and rade Policy.

2002Food Sovereignty: A Right or All. Political Statement o the NGO/CSO Forum or Food Sovereignty. Rome, Italy.Statement on People’s Food Sovereignty: Our World is Not or Sale. Cancun, Mexico.

2003What is Food Sovereignty? La Vía Campesina.owards Food Sovereignty: Constructing an Alternative to the WO’s AoA. International Workshop on the Review o the AoA, Geneva,Switzerland.rade and People’s Food Sovereignty. Friends o the Earth International.How RIPS Treatens Biodiversity and Food Sovereignty. Hyderabad, India.Statement on People’s Food Sovereignty: Our World is Not or Sale. Cancun, Mexico.

2005Food Sovereignty: owards Democracy in Localised Food Systems. Michael Winduhr and Jennie Jonsen, FoodFirst Inormation and Action

Network (FIAN), FIAN International.

2006 Agrarian Reorm and Food Sovereignty: Alternative Model or the Rural World. Peter Rosset, Univ. Caliornia at Berkeley/Global Alternatives.

2007Final Statement o the Nyéléni Forum on Food Sovereignty. Sélingué, Mali.

Source: Adapted rom Winduhr and Jonson, 2005; www.nyeleni2007.org

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Te concept, and the struggle to achieve it, is bringing together armers,indigenous peoples pastoralists and all manner o rural groups rom Box 3 4 Nyéléni: shaping the ood sovereignty ramework





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indigenous peoples, pastoralists and all manner o rural groups, romboth the South and the North. New issues and challenges are constantly brought up in the debates.

For example, social movements and representatives o small-scaleproducers7 recently organised a world orum or ood sovereignty in Mali. At the Nyéléni Forum on Food Sovereignty (Box 3.4), theparticipants urther developed the political, economic, social andecological dimensions o this alternative policy ramework or ood andagriculture. Tey also sought to strengthen the political power o thoseadvocating or ood sovereignty by: () expanding the debate outsideproducer groups to consumer groups and workers’ trade unions; (2)building momentum and support among governments who are in avouro ood sovereignty; and (3) developing a collective and global strategy to ensure that the right o peoples to ood sovereignty is recognised asa specic and ull right, and that its deence is legally binding or statesand guaranteed by the United Nations (see www.nyeleni2007.org).

7 Te organisers o the Nyéléni 2007 Forum on Food Sovereignty were: La Vía

Campesina, see http://viacampesina.org; ROPPA: Le Réseau des Organisations

Paysannes et de Producteurs de l’Arique de l’Ouest (Network o armers and producers

organisations o West Arica), see www.roppa.ino and www.cnop-mali.org; Te

World March o Women, see www.worldmarchowomen.org/; Friends o the Earth

International, see www.oe.co.uk; World Forum o Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers

(WFFP), see http//wpsheries.org; NGO members o the Food Sovereignty Network,

see www.peoplesoodsovereignty.org/; IPC – Inte rnational NGO/CSO Planning

Committee or Food Sovereignty, see www.oodsovereignty.org.

Box3�4�Nyéléni:shapingtheoodsovereigntyramework

Nyéléni was a legendary Malian peasant woman who armed anded her peoples well; she embodied ood sovereignty through hard

work, innovation and caring or her people. Named ater this woman,the Nyéléni Forum brought together, rom around the world, some600 representatives o organisations o peasants/amily armers,artisanal sherolk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural

workers, migrants, pastoralists, orest communities, women, youth,consumers, environmental and urban movements. Held in Sélingué,Mali, between the 23 and 27 February 2007, the event attractedparticipants rom over 80 countries.

Te Nyéléni participants deepened their collective understanding andvision o ood sovereignty which, according to their nal statement:

Focuses on ood: It puts the provision o sucient, healthy,nutritious and culturally appropriate ood or all individualsand peoples, including those who are hungry, under occupationor in conict zones, at the centre o ood, agriculture, livestock and sheries policies. It rejects the proposition that ood is justanother commodity or component o international agri-business.

Values ood providers: It values and supports the contributionmade by women and men, peasants and small-scale amily armers, pastoralists, artisanal sherolk, orest dwellers,indigenous peoples and agricultural and sheries workers,including migrants, to cultivating, growing or harvesting ood.It rejects those policies, actions and programmes that undervalue

small-scale producers, threaten their livelihoods and eliminatethem.

Localises ood systems: It brings ood providers and consumerscloser together; makes providers and consumers central todecision-making on ood issues, programmes and policies;protects ood providers rom the dumping o cheap ood andood aid in local markets; protects consumers rom bad ood,

.

2.

3.

For its supporters, ood sovereignty is an approach that oers practicalsolutions or armers and other citizens in both the North and South

inappropriate ood aid and ood tainted with GMOs andother potentially unhealthy components It resists governance





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solutions or armers and other citizens in both the North and South.But in all situations, moving towards endogenous ood systems thatare rich in bio-cultural diversity calls or radical changes in our closely interrelated domains: ecological, political, social and economic. Foodsovereignty is not, and cannot be, a piecemeal approach. It entails aundamental shit away rom the industrial and neo-liberal paradigm orood and agriculture (able 3.).

Te need or such a holistic approach was strongly emphasised by the Nyéléni participants because many actors today are increasingly co-opting the term “ood sovereignty” to imply sel-suciency and

other potentially unhealthy components. It resists governancestructures, agreements and practices that depend on unsustainableand inequitable international trade and give power to remote andunaccountable corporations.

Puts control locally: It gives control over territory, land, water,seeds, livestock and sh stocks to local ood providers who canuse and share them in socially and environmentally ways andpreserves diversity. It rejects the privatisation o natural resourcesthrough laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights.

Builds knowledge and skills: It builds on the skills and localknowledge o ood providers who preserve, develop and managelocalised ood production and harvesting systems, developsappropriate research systems to support this and passes onthis wisdom to uture generations. It rejects technologiesthat undermine, threaten or contaminate these, e.g. geneticengineering.

Works with nature: It uses the contributions o nature in diverse,low external input production and harvesting methods thatmaximise the contribution o ecosystems and improve resilienceand adaptation, especially in the ace o climate change; it seeks toheal the planet so that the planet may heal us. It rejects methodsthat harm benecial ecosystem unctions, that depend on energy-intensive monocultures and livestock actories, destructive shingpractices and other industrialised production methods whichdamage the environment and contribute to global warming (seewww.nyeleni2007.org).

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5.

6.

Table3�1�Dominantmodelversusoodsovereigntymodel

ISSUE DOMINANT MODEL FOOD SOVEREIGNTY MODELrade Free trade in everything Food and agriculture exempt rom trade agreements





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rade Free trade in everything Food and agriculture exempt rom trade agreements

Production priority Agroexports Food or local markets

Crop prices “What the market dictates”

(leave intact mechanisms that enorce low prices)

Fair prices that cover costs o production and allow armers and armworkers

a lie with dignity

Market access Access to oreign markets Access to local markets; an end to the displacement o armers rom their own

markets by agribusiness

Subsidies While prohibited in the Tird World, many subsidies are

allowed in the US and Europe — but are paid only to

the largest armers

Subsidies that do not damage other countries (via dumping) are okay; i.e.,

grant subsidies only to amily armers, or direct marketing, price/income

support, soil conservation, conversion to sustainable arming, research, etc.

Food Chiey a commodity; in practice, this means processed, contaminated

ood that is ull o at, sugar, high ructose corn syrup, and toxic residues

A human right: specically, should be healthy, nutritious, aordable,

culturally appropriate, and locally produced

Being able to produce An option or the economically ecient A right o rural peoples

Hunger Due to low productivity A problem o access and distribution; due to poverty and inequality

Food security Achieved by importing ood rom where it is cheapest Greatest when ood production is in the hands o the hungry, or when ood is

produced locally

Control over productive resources

(land, water, orests)

Privatized Local; community controled

Access to land Via the market Via genuine agrarian reorm; without access to land, the rest is meaningless

Seeds A patentable commodity A common heritage o humanity, held in trust by rural communities and

cultures; “no patents on lie”

Rural credit and investment From private banks and corporations From the public sector; designed to support amily agriculture

Dumping Not an issue Must be prohibited

Monopoly Not an issue Te root o most problems; monopolies must be broken up

Overproduction No such thing, by denition Drives prices down and armers into poverty; we need supply management

policies or US and EU

Genetically modied organisms (GMOs) Te wave o the uture Bad or health and the environment; an unnecessary technology

Farming technology Industrial, monoculture, chemical-intensive; uses GMOs Agroecological, sustainable arming methods, no GMOsFarmers Anachronisms; the inecient will disappear Guardians o culture and crop germplasm; stewards o productive resources;

repositories o knowledge; internal market and building block o broad-based,

inclusive economic development

Urban consumers Workers to be paid as little as possible Need living wages

Another world (alternatives ) Not possible/not o interest Possible and amply demonstrated

Source: Rosset, 2003

Box3�5�Foodsovereignty versusoodsecurityisolationist proposals that reject exchanges and complementaritiesbetween regions. Other actors cherry pick elements o the ood



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“I the people o a country must depend or their next meal on the vagaries o the global economy, on the goodwill o a superpower not to use ood as a weapon, or on the unpredictability and high cost o long-distance shipping, that country is not secure in the sense o either national security or ood security” (Rosset, 2003).

In a way, the ood sovereignty concept has developed as a reaction tothe increasing (mis)use o “ood security”. Te mainstream denitiono ood security, endorsed at ood summits and other high levelconerences, talks about everybody having enough good ood to eateach day. But it doesn’t talk about where the ood comes rom, whoproduced it, or the conditions under which it was grown. Tis allowsthe ood exporters to argue that the best way or poor countries toachieve ood security is to import cheap ood rom them or to receiveit ree as ‘ood aid’, rather than trying to produce it themselves. Tismakes those countries more dependent on the international market,drives peasant armers, pastoralists, sherolk and indigenous peoples

who can’t compete with the subsidised imports o their land and intothe cities, and ultimately worsens people’s ood security.Food sovereignty, on the other hand, promotes commonsenseprinciples o community autonomy, cultural integrity andenvironmental stewardship – i.e. people determining or themselves

just what seeds they plant, what animals they raise, what type o arming occurs, what economic exchanges they engage in, and whatthey will ultimately eat or dinner. In act, some would argue thatgenuine ood security is impossible without rst achieving oodsovereignty.Source: Peck, 2005; GRAIN editorial, April 2005; La Vía Campesina,

1996).

g y psovereignty ramework and ignore others, thereby reproducing narrow approaches that ultimately hamper positive change. Tis trend isevident in ill-inormed or deliberate attempts to equate the notion o “ood security” with “ood sovereignty” (Box 3.5) as well as in recentgovernment declarations on the need or “ood sovereignty” (Box 3.6)

Like any other policy ramework, ood sovereignty implies a purposeulcourse o action taken by social actors to address particular issues andadvance towards specic objectives. In this regard, policies or ood

sovereignty pursue three types o objectives: Re-direction o both hidden and direct subsidies towards supportingsmaller-scale producers and ood workers to encourage the shit

•



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Equity: securing the rights o people and communities, includingtheir undamental human right to ood; arming and celebratingcultural diversity; enhancing social and economic benets; andcombating inequalities, such as the ones responsible or poverty,gender discrimination and exclusion.Sustainability: seeking human activities and resource use patternscompatible with ecological sustainability.Direct democracy: empowering civil society in decision-making,and democratising government institutions, structures and markets.

Ideally, these objectives should be pursued in an integrated and coherentashion, avoiding piecemeal approaches.

So ar, the ood sovereignty movement has developed a broad policy vision and discourse.8 And rather than presenting a xed menu o policy instruments, it identies a range o policy shits and directionsor national governments and other actors who seek to implement ood

sovereignty within their societies. Tese are listed below and urtherdiscussed in the third part o this book.

Enablingnationalpoliciesandlegislation

Equitable land reorm and redistribution o surplus land to tenants within a rights-based approach to environment and development.Reorm o property rights to secure gender-equitable rights o accessand use o common property resources, orests and water.Protection o the knowledge and rights o armers and pastoralists

to save seed and improve crop varieties and livestock breeds, orexample banning patents and inappropriate intellectual property right (IPR) legislation.Re-introduction o protective saeguards or domestic economies toguarantee stable prices covering the cost o production, includingquotas and other controls against imports o ood and bre that canbe produced locally.Policies that guarantee air prices to producers and consumers, saety nets or the poor.

8 A policy discourse is an ensemble o norms, rules, views, ideas, concepts and valuesthat govern practice and behaviour, and help interpret social and environmental realities.

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2.

3.

•

•

•

•

•

p gtowards diverse, ecological, equitable and more localised oodsystems.Increase in unding or, and re-orientation o, public sector R&Dand agricultural/ood-sciences extension towards participatory approaches and democratic control over the setting o upstreamstrategic priorities, the validation o technologies and the spread o innovations.Broad citizen and non-specialist involvement in raming policies,setting research agendas and validating knowledge, as part o aprocess to democratise science, technology and policy-making orood, arming, environment and development.Mechanisms to ensure that the real costs o environmental damage,unsustainable production methods and long-distance trade areincluded in the cost o ood and bre.Clear and accurate labelling o ood and eedstus, with bindinglegislation or all companies to ensure transparency, accountability and respect or human rights, public health and environmental

standards.

•

•

•

•

Enablingglobalmultilateralismandinternationalpolicies legally responsible or breaches in environmental and social laws,and international agreements.



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Re-orientation o the end goals o trade rules and aid so that they contribute to the building o local economies and local control,rather than international competitiveness.Supply management to ensure that public support does not lead toover-production and dumping that lower prices below the cost o production, harming armers in both North and South.International commodity agreements to regulate the total output to

world markets.Creation o regional common agricultural markets that includecountries with similar levels o agricultural productivity. Forexample: North Arica and the Middle East, West Arica, Central

Arica, South Asia and Eastern Europe.Protection o the above regional common markets against thedumping o cheap ood and bre, using quotas and taris toguarantee air and stable prices to marginalised small-scaleproducers, ood processors, and small ood enterprises. Prices shouldallow small-scale producers, artisans and ood workers to earn a

decent income, invest and build their livelihood assets.Restrictions to the concentration and market power o major agri-ood corporations through new international treaties, competitionlaws and adoption o more exible process and product standards.International collaboration or more eective antitrust law enorcement and measures to reduce market concentration indierent parts o the global ood system (concerning seeds,pesticides, ood processing and retailing, or example).Co-operation to ensure that corporations and their directors are held

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•

•

•

•

Box3�6�Foodsovereignty:romradicalreorientationsto

rhetoric

Already, some developing country governments are seeing the value

o a ood sovereignty policy ramework and are taking their own stepsto implement it. But some countries, like Bolivia and Mali, have amore radical interpretation than others. For example, the governmento Mali was involved in a consultation process with armers to dratits new agricultural ramework law. Ater more than a year o work,this law has enshrined ood sovereignty as a priority or allowingthe country to improve rural and urban living standards. Malianarmer organisations and the government are now discussing wayso implementing the ood sovereignty ramework throughout thecountry (LOA, 2006 ).

Other countries o the ECOWAS (Economic Union o the West Arican States) increasingly reer to ood sovereignty in their policy statements, albeit in more ambiguous ways, which emphasise only part o the ood sovereignty ramework and oten inconsistently so.Governments o most other developing and developed countries only use the term “ood sovereignty” as a rhetorical device. For example,the ormer French President Jacques Chirac recently co-opted the

words “ood sovereignty” to describe and justiy the continuation o neo-liberal arming policies in France and Europe. He was speakingat the opening o a major agricultural orum in Senegal, in February 2005 (www.ambarance-sn.org/article.php3?id_article=477).

ransormation o the current international investment law regimeby challenging corporate investor rules. Te expansion o currentoreign investment rules should be blocked and arbitration processesshould be reormed to ensure transparency and airness. Alternativerules should also be constructed and implemented, ocusing onthe responsibilities o international investors to ensure sustainabledevelopment and enhance environmental, labour and human rightsprotection.

An independent dispute settlement mechanism integrated within aninternational Court o Justice

An international Convention to replace the current Agreement on

•

•

•

Te search or ood sovereignty is thus part o a wider armation o the right to sel-determination and endogenous development. New

l d l l h d

Agriculture (AoA) and relevant clauses in other agreements o the World rade Organisation (WO). Within an international policy k h d l l l d d

Korean armer struggle song

http://www.ambafrance-sn.org/article.php3?id_article=477

http://www.ambafrance-sn.org/article.php3?id_article=477



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social movements or ood sel-reliance in the context o endogenousdevelopment are arising worldwide. Troughout Latin America and inmuch o Arica, South and Southeast Asia, armers, pastoralists, women,indigenous peoples and migrants are organising, linking together withtheir counterparts in the North. Tey are gaining support rom scholars,activists, consumers and progressive policy-makers (Cohn et al ., 2006).

Te more radical social movements among them are not working or‘inclusion’ in existing political structures and the dominant culture.Instead they strive to ‘“transorm the very political order in which they operate” (Alvarez et al , 998). In this process o transormation, radicalsocial movements are creating alternative identities, new solidarities,alternative social spaces, and alternative political cultures (Eschle, 200).Critical social movements are thus seeking new meanings and ways o being in the world. ogether, they are reraming ood, agriculture andthe “good lie” in terms o a larger vision based on radical pluralism anddemocracy, personal dignity and conviviality, autonomy and reciprocity,and other principles that arm the right to sel determination (see, or

example, Box 3.7: owards a Consensus o the Peoples ).

ramework that incorporated rules on agricultural production andtrade o ood this Convention would implement the concept o oodsovereignty and the basic human rights o all peoples to sae andhealthy ood, decent and ull rural employment, labour rights andprotection, and a healthy, rich and diverse natural environment.Multilateral co-operation to tax speculative international nancial

ows (US $,600 thousand million/day), and redirect unds tobuild local livelihood assets, meet human needs and regenerate localecologies.

It is acknowledged that policies or ood sovereignty cannot be speciedin detail or all people and places. Tey have to take into account localhistory and culture as well as the unique social and ecological contextsin which ood systems are embedded. In this context, democraticparticipation and citizen empowerment are seen as crucial or theprocess o policy-making (who makes policy and how it is made) andthe implementation o policies. As Patel puts it, the ood sovereignty

movement argues “or a mass re-politicization o ood politics, through acall or people to gure out or themselves what they want the right to ood tomean in their communities, bearing in mind the community’s needs, climate, geography, ood preerences, social mix and history…” (Patel, 2007). Tispoint will be more ully addressed in the subsequent and closing parts o this book.

•

Box3�7�TowardaConsensusothePeoples

W h 00 36 l 4 i h i di W h h h i l l i



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We, more than 00 persons o 36 peoples, rom 4 countries o threecontinents, came together over several days in Mexico City, to talk and to reect together about our realities and perspectives.

We cannot talk on behal o the communities and peoples to which we belong, and even less on behal o all o the peoples o

the continent. We believe, nevertheless, that the abric o ideas andattitudes that we have been weaving in the course o our conversationsis inspired by them and perhaps can inspire others.

We are suering, like many others, the consequences o neoliberalpolicies. Capital has more appetite than ever, but not enoughstomach to digest the many it wants to control. Millions o peopleare becoming unnecessary, disposable. Te constituted powers allover the world, allied to the transnational corporations, blindly apply the senseless policies o the so-called Washington Consensus, at anunsupportable human and environmental cost.

More than these evils, known to all o us, we talked about who weare, and o what we orm in a rich mosaic o many “we´s” that deneus. We talked about the attitudes that make us be what we are, o thediculties that we conront, o our dreams and o the meaning o ourstruggles.

Te “conclusions” that we reached are only a moment o reectionon a path that we started long time ago, and on which we continue

walking. It has not been an easy and straight path. We have beenorced to walk it in the middle o conict, o the conrontation

imposed to us. It is a path o dignity and also o rebellion. Who walkstoday through these paths needs to do it struggling.

One o these “conclusions” is that it seems that there is in the processo ormation, at the grassroots, a CONSENSUS OF HE PEOPLES.Tis consensus, i it eectively would be reached, could articulateand connect their activities, with the ull respect to the diversity and autonomy o each community and people, who can live this

consensus in dierent ways. We hope that others, particularly inthe communities, can enrich what we have woven so ar, which has,among other things, the ollowing elements.

Radical Pluralism. We want to create a world in which many worlds can be embraced. Tat the dissolution o cultures and

peoples in order to integrate them into one design on the termso the old western project o domination is stopped. We wanta world in which the cultural dierences are appreciated andrespected, or them to coexist in harmony, based on a radicalpluralistic attitude.

Personal Dignity. We celebrate the dignity o each man and woman, which nurtures the dignity o their peoples and cultures.Based on it, the richness o their diversity will ourish. Teextension o personal and cultural dignity will challenge all theexisting political and economic systems, and will demonstrate that

they have an oppressive, unjust and irrational character.

Autonomy. In dignity, we base the de acto autonomy o ourcommunities and peoples. We will continue to struggle until weget its legal recognition. Since the laws o the colonizers, the legalmachinery has always been at the service o the powerul and thebad government. Te courts are a travesty o justice. Withoutabandoning our internal normative systems, we continue to re-vindicate the legal and political process; together they orm thestructure o reedom. We will conquer legal autonomy.

New Political Regime. Te constitutional recognition o theexistence, autonomy and sel determination o the peoples whoorm the most proound layer o our societies, could orge a new political regime that leaves behind the structure o dominationinherent in the nation state, and is sustained by the sovereignty o the people and preserves it, even in the globalizing disorder.

Subordinate the economy. We want to reestablish politics andethics as the center o social lie, expelling rom it the economic

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obsession o the dominant system, that only concentratesprivileges in the ew. Instead o submitting needs and desires tothe competitive ury o the great economic powers to eed their

be controlled rom our autonomy, so that the people themselvesdetermine what they preer.



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the competitive ury o the great economic powers, to eed theirvoracity, we will put the economic operation at the service o thepersons, the communities and the peoples.

Radical Democracy. Given the current disenchantment withso called ormal democracy, in which political parties and

governments are unable to harmonize the collective endeavorsin a just order, we want to base our eorts in our community democracy, that weave a consensus at the grassroots. Democracy can only be where the people are. In our own places we arereconstructing society, with the participation o everyone, in orderto generate new social and political consensus.

Conviviality. We generate a convivial way o lie in ourcommunities and neighborhoods. We will not let consumer society,in which he who is not a prisoner o the addiction to products andservices he has learned to consume alls victim to envy or those he

cannot aord, dissolve it.

Communality. Beore the possessive individualism that continuesto aect our daily lives, we raise communality, as a condition o harmony in our living together, with ull respect or liberty and therights o natural and human persons.

Remake the world. o change the world, and all o its oppressiveinstitutions is very dicult, next to impossible. It seems howeverviable to construct a new world that is economically easible,socially just, and ecologically sensible. Tose o us who have

not let ourselves be restricted by orces and structures that seemunstoppable and pretend to determine everything are already doingit.

Autonomy in exchange. We resist the alse choice between“ree trade” and “protectionism”. One hands over power to thecorporations, the other to the bureaucrats who oten are at theservice o the rst. “Protectionism” does not protect the people.“Free rade” does not respect our reedom. Exchanges have to

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Socialization. We resist equally “privatization” and “statization”. We are looking or socialization o goods and services, constructedon the basis o autonomy. It is insane and unjust to turn oversocial resources and public services to private voracity. Bureaucraticmonopolies are not an eective or appropriate alternative. We rather

put our trust in a decentralized and autonomous administration o general goods and services, with citizen participation.

Service and Reciprocity. We want the strengthening andarticulation o the coalitions o the discontent with the dominantsystem. From them, we will widen our interactions, to learn romone another and to oer mutual solidarity, in the spirit o serviceand reciprocity dening us.

Horizon and ranscendency. Our knowing wants to be wisdom. We are oriented towards being, rather than having. Te same

principle inspired our conversations and is at the center o all ourattitudes, behavior and gazing. It is not a doctrinal or ideologicalprinciple. It is born rom the heart, not the mind. Its name isspirituality.

Mexico City, December 9th, 2003Source: Estevá et al , 2007.

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Solidarity, unity and imagination are generating new hope that anotherood and agriculture are indeed possible. Tis is well captured in the LaVía Campesina’s slogan “Globalise the Struggle Globalise Hope”



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Vía Campesina s slogan Globalise the Struggle – Globalise Hope .

However, in the ace o the organised power o science, business andmainstream politics, the more diuse—but networked power—o the growing ood sovereignty movement is conronted with many interrelated challenges and constraints.

Overcoming the constraints to achieving ood sovereignty partly depends on strengthening local organisations o ood providers and oncitizens reclaiming power over their lives. Te next section o this book describes the importance o local organisations or the management andgovernance o ood systems.

ThisisthewebversionotheintroductionandfrstthreechaptersoabooktobepublishedbytheInternationalInstitute

orEnvironmentandDevelopment(IIED)inwinter2008�



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Te International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is an international policy research institute and non governmental body working or more sustainable and equitable global development. IIED acts as a catalyst, broker and acilitator and helps vulnerable groups ndtheir voice and ensure their interests are heard in decision-making. Environmental sustainability is a core concern but not at the expense o people’s

livelihoods.

IIED, Endsleigh Street, London WCH 0DD, UK el: +44 (0)20 7388 27 Fax: +44 (0)20 7388 2826Email: [email protected] www.iied.org

© Michel Pimbert, 2008

Dr Michel Pimbert is Director o the Sustainable Agriculture, Biodiversity and Livelihoods Program at the International Institute or Environmentand Development (IIED) in London, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

Te publication o this book has been made possible through the generous support o the Ministry o Foreign Aairs (DGIS) o the Government o Te Netherlands, the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Irish Aid, Novib-OXFAM (Te Netherlands) and Te Christensen Fund. Disclaimer: Te views expressed in this report are those o the author and do not necessarily reect the views o IIED, its partners or the projectdonors.

Extracts rom this book may be reproduced or non-commercial purposes without permission, provided ull acknowledgement is given to the authorand publisher as ollows:

Michel Pimbert (2008). owards ood sovereignty: reclaiming autonomous ood systems.IIED, London.

Photo search and design by: Nick urnerNick urner is Communications Ocer at the International Institute or Environment and Development (IIED) in London, UK.E-mail: [email protected]

Full reerences or these chapters will appear in the nal publication

References

All reerences cited here can be ound at the end o the ull book that will be published by IIED in winter 2008, - Towards food sovereignty:

mailto:[email protected]






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p y , f g yreclaiming autonomous food systems. IIED, London.

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