WUNRN
"We, more than 100 organizations
- coming from 5 continents -
participating at Forum Terra Preta[1][3],
held in parallel with the FAO Summit,
propose a different, sustainable way of addressing persisting ecological and
food crises and climate change and forge solutions that strengthen our capacities,
valorize women's
centrality in food production, protect our ecologies, and
reclaim our communities, societies and
economies. We reject the corporate
industrial and energy-intensive model of production and consumption that
is the basis of continuing crises. We affirm that the paradigm of Peoples' Food
Sovereignty forms the guiding framework for our future actions and the survival
of humanity. Our analyses and positions
are already articulated in numerous declarations and calls for action.[2][4]"
Terra Preta*: Forum on the Food Crisis, Climate Change, Agrofuels and Food Sovereignty
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY MAKE THE DIFFERENCE
1-4 June, 2008
Rome
Now is the Time for Food Sovereignty
PLATFORM FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION
FORUM TERRA PRETA
Rome, June 4, 2008
The serious and urgent food and climate
crises are being used by political and economic elites as opportunities to
entrench corporate control of world agriculture and the ecological
commons. At a time when chronic hunger,
dispossession of food providers and workers, commodity and land speculation,
and global warming are on the rise, governments, multilateral agencies and
financial institutions are offering proposals that will only deepen these
crises through more dangerous versions of policies that originally triggered
the current situation. Actions by some
governments and top UN leadership at the High Level Conference on World Food
Security, Climate Change and Bio-Energy (the FAO Summit) constitute an assault
on small scale food providers[3][1]
(among whom women are in the forefront) and the natural commons.
At a similar food and energy crisis in
1974, political and economic elites fragmented existing international
institutions at the time, thereby
disempowering peoples and governments to respond with knowledge and practices
appropriate to local contexts. World Bank-IMF designed structural adjustment
programs laid the conditions for recurring food crises through liberalization
policies that undermined local and national capacity for food self-sufficiency
and appropriate policies.
Since then, food crises have been
exploited by agribusiness companies, local and global elites to concentrate
control over farming, fisheries, land and territory, water, forests, seeds, breeds,
transportation, distribution and energy sources. The rapidly emerging and
cumulative climate crisis is being exploited by the same elites through market
transactions such as carbon trading and emission offsets, and profitable
techno-fixes such as agro-fuels and patented technologies, including synthetic
biology. Some multilateral agencies are
creating policy conditions to enable corporate conglomerations across energy,
agribusiness, bio-technology and automotive industries.
Today, the corporate sector is far more powerful than 30
years go and controls a large part of global food and energy systems. As it stands now, the UN High Level Task Force on the Food Crisis will facilitate further
convergence of the most powerful actors from private finance, technology and
business sectors to extract profits in the name of crisis management. Wisdom of proven sustainable small-scale food
provision, and the findings of the IAASTD[4][2] that
call for a significant move away from research on chemically-dependent agriculture
towards more agroecological, non-proprietary practices, are being deliberately
ignored.
We, more than 100
organizations - coming from 5
continents - participating at Forum
Terra Preta[5][3], held
in parallel with the FAO Summit, propose a different, sustainable way of
addressing persisting ecological and food crises and climate change and forge
solutions that strengthen our capacities, valorize women's centrality in food
production, protect our ecologies, and reclaim
our communities, societies and economies. We reject the corporate industrial and energy-intensive model of
production and consumption that is the basis of continuing crises. We affirm
that the paradigm of Peoples' Food Sovereignty forms the guiding framework for
our future actions and the survival of humanity. Our analyses and positions are already
articulated in numerous declarations and calls for action.[6][4]
We
commit to the following actions:
· Affirm agricultural
workers' rights under ILO Convention 118;
·
Oppose
all institutions, policies, corporations and the underlying paradigm that
threaten the rights of access to land and water among small scale food
providers, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, youth and the rights of
workers;
· Resist the
commodification, privatization and speculation of the natural commons;
· Promote and
protect the rights of women recognizing their critical contribution as food
providers and strongly support the right to access land for youth.
· Educational work
with local populations, schools and policy makers;
· Engagement at the
international level with supportive institutions and instruments (for example,
the voluntary guidelines on the Right to Food and the office of the High
Commission on Human Rights, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, the Commission on Sustainable
Development, the IAASTD, etc.)
Our
immediate tasks are to:
l Demand that governments pursue justice
for the victims of the food emergency, by bringing to account, through
criminal proceedings, corporations and institutions (including governments)
whose actions, profiteering from agricultural inputs and products, have denied
communities their right to food.
l
Set up a
Commission on Food Sovereignty, under the auspices of the United Nations, constituted by
representatives of governments and organisations of fisherfolk, peasant and
small-scale farmers, pastoralists and Indigenous Peoples, to identify, document
and advance collective strategies for solving the food and climate crises.
l
We
will expand our abilities to build
collective knowledge, analysis, and our capacity to make change and
organize ourselves to monitor the outcomes of this FAO Summit.
Small-scale food producers are feeding
the planet and we demand respect and
support to continue. Only Food Sovereignty can offer long-term,
sustainable, equitable and just solutions to the urgent food and climate
crises.
THERE WILL BE NO SOLUTION TO THE CLIMATE AND FOOD CRISES
WITHOUT US!
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* Terra Preta (“black soil” in Portuguese) is
the incredibly fertile soil created by Indigenous Peoples in central
[3][1] These include women and
men, peasant and family farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk, forest-dwellers,
Indigenous Peoples, agricultural workers and migrants, and other food providers
on every continent.
[4][2] International Assessment of
Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development
[5][3] Terra Preta is
organized by and represents social movements, Indigenous Peoples' organizations
and civil society organizations, supported by the International Planning
Committee for Food Sovereignty.
[6][4] See for example, Declaration
of Nyeleni 27 February 2007 and No More Failures-as-Usual!; www.foodsovereignty.org