Introduction: Time for food sovereignty1 February 2007
Food sovereignty (PDF) is about regaining control over natural resources in order to ensure access to adequate, safe and healthy food.
These resources include:
- Land
- Seeds
- Water
- Fish
What is food sovereignty?
At the 1996 UN Food and Agricultural Organisation's World Food Summit, Via Campesina launched food sovereignty.
At the summit, world leaders promised to halve hunger by 2015.
10 years on 820 million people suffer from chronic hunger - 23 million more people than in 1996 - that's 1 in 7 people globally.
History
Friends of the Earth International has been campaigning on food sovereignty since 1999.
During the mass mobilisations against the WTO in Seattle, Friends of the Earth International met Via Campesina and began working together on food sovereignty.
This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and alliance that would grow stronger year on year.
Today, campaigns on food sovereignty include those working on food and GM issues as well as trade and corporates issues.
These campaigns also reach out to other campaign issues such as climate.
The problem
Transnational companies from Europe and elsewhere are capturing the precious resources of the global South for profit.
These resources are then often exported at the expense of local communities.
Unfair trade policies are forcing open economies to big business, and then forcing the poor to export rather than produce food to feed their own communities.
At the World Forum for Food Sovereignty, around 500 farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, women's groups and rural workers met to challenge corporate-driven food and agricultural policies dictated by rich nations.
Friends of the Earth will be taking part in discussions to develop a plan of action in Europe and internationally with other trade campaigners to promote GM-free, locally produced food that offers rural people a living wage and preserves the environment.
This is part and parcel of resisting unfair trade deals and demanding trade justice for rural communities worldwide.
© Friends of the Earth International
