realising peasant rights: claiming food sovereignty

Final Draft June 2015

Realising Peasant Rights: Advocacy for Food Sovereignty

The international community pledges to fulfil its obligation to realise Economic, Social, Cultural, Civil and Political Rights universally by acting both individually and collectively. Recent years have seen a particular emphasis upon the Right to Food through food security within states. Social movements around the world have reacted by seeking food sovereignty of people, attained through securing fundamental rights of peasants and rural workers. Appalled at the destruction caused by industrial farming to the ecology (and hence rights) of land and water, social movements call for a respectful use of ecosystems. Their recommendations are therefore for comprehensive agrarian restructuring which includes the adoption of agroecology. This note examines the situation in Pakistan to conclude that such recommendations are very relevant to Pakistan. To assist PFF in advocacy the note also elaborates the position of social movements. The note is rounded off by examining the UN’s recommendations for actions to achieve the Right to Food, which can be used to strengthen national advocacy e.g. in participatory preparation of country food security policies.

The author Aly Alp-Ercelan thanks colleagues at PFF, particularly Muhammad Ali Shah and Jamil Junejo for encouragement and advice. The untimely death of Tahira Shah has denied the opportunity for benefiting from her comments. Testifying to her respect for Rights of Nature, she drowned on her way to a rally for Keeping Rivers Free.

I am asking all of you here,If you have ever wondered,If the land is actually ours,

And not of he who has more?I am asking if, about the land,You have never wondered,

That if that hands that work it are ours,Then is it not ours, and should it not be given to us?Let's cut down the fences! Let's cut down the fences!Because the land is mine, yours, and his and hers,

It is of Pedro, María, Juan and José.A desalambrar, Daniel Viglietti (1968)

“The protest song A desalambrar has for decades been the anthem of landless peasants in Latin America cutting down the fences and occupying the lands of landlords. Yet an Argentinean agrarian activist recently commented that ‘A desalambrar (cut down the fences) is now the slogan of the investment consortia who obtain rental concessions based on evicting peasants to plant large-scale monocultures’. Her comment is illustrative of the state of the debate on individual versus communal property rights, and touches at the heart of a debate about land titling that took place at Bukit Tinggi.”

Realising Peasant Rights: Advocacy for Food Sovereignty Final Draft June 2015

Introduction

Land, oceans, rivers, forests and all of nature are much more than a means of production; they are the very basis of life, culture and identity, and fulfill crucial social, cultural, spiritual and environmental functions. La Via Campesina

PFF’s work with fisherfolk, specially those residing inland, has brought encounters with other peasants in the same communities. Relief and rehabilitation work done by PFF has particularly thrust upon PFF the bleakness of most peasant lives, specially acute among sharecroppers. Consequently PFF decided to weave in peasants along with continuing its work with fisherfolk.

Several complementarities are specially persuasive to this decision. First, a large number of fisherfolk in one season can become farmers in another season. Second, organised peasants can add to the strength of fisherfolk in resistance against oppression and advocacy for change. Third, land and water ecosystems are interlinked; what the (larger) number of peasants do (or don’t do) impacts seriously upon fisherfolk livelihoods.

There are additional dimensions of interdependence, including the following. The loss of rights, including that to food and social protection in general, often affects peasants simultaneously. Collective action for equity by fishers will become more powerful when joined by other poor peasants, significantly so when farmers are considered socially superior to fishers. This is particularly true when resisting locally powerful land owners. Ecological interactions are paramount – which crops are grown and how grown affects both the quantity and quality of water available to fishers.

This note is an overview, invited by PFF to assist in formulating an advocacy agenda specific to farmers and farm workers, including pastoral (livestock-based) livelihoods. It may be specially relevant amidst global efforts (led by La Via Campesina) to have the UN agree to a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other Rural Workers.

Since PFF’s principles embrace both equity and ecology, the approach of the paper is instrumental – what should be PFF guidance to peasants? and what demands be made upon a state which has no Policy on Food Security? What should be the basis of solidarity with other organisations focused upon land and water justice?

PFF leadership views the sad state of peasants as due to structural inequity in access to natural resources, including share of labour in output. PFF sees a second, grave problem in degradation and destruction of land productivity. Another way of putting it would be that PFF struggles for sustainable social protection as universal citizenship rights, in which vulnerability of peasant livelihoods is minimised by adequate access to land and water, where eco-sensible farming is equally critical to avoiding and mitigating vulnerability.

PFF therefore aims to formulate systematic plans for mobilisation and organisation of peasants. Its goal appears to be food sovereignty, similar to that for fisherfolk. This would require comprehensive agrarian restructuring, made sustainable through the renewal and protection of ecosystems.

The latter would compel drastic change in farming systems – as the adoption of agroecology by one and all farms. Another significant objective would be to wean peasants away from private towards communal ownership, with the local community deciding upon who would be among users of redistributed farm land; what it would be used for; and how it would be used.

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This note is therefore cast as two queries: does PFF read the situation correctly? Is PFF right in focusing upon eco-centred agrarian restructuring for achieving food sovereignty in rural Pakistan? These queries are examined in the following manner.

First, an overview of the peasant situation in Pakistan, that concludes by calling for comprehensive land reforms. Second, the demand for agrarian restructuring to include community control and adoption of agroecology to conserve natural resources and maximise peoples food security. Third, reflections of social movements, followed by advice from solidarity supporters.

The concluding section presents UN initiatives on achieving the Right to Food, commencing with observations of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. FAO is discussed next, followed by a few other UN agencies. The UN’s position can be quite useful in lobbying in a state that listens more often and more seriously to external advice as compared to that given by citizens. Specially worth summary are the UN-FAO Guidelines on the Right to Food and its elaboration in the Guidelines on Responsible Governance on Tenure. This note is completed by an appendix containing materials to complement the main text.

1. Urgency of Land Redistribution

all farms

owner farms

tenant farms

livestock holders

non-agriculture

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Agrarian Structure in Sindh 2010

farmed acresfamilies

million

Source: pbs.org.pk

Impoverished Peasants. We begin with recalling the bleak lives for the vast majority of landless and near landless peasant households. The most vicious consequence is debt bondage for generation after generation as the price of survival. It is not simply unfree labour of man, woman and child; indignity and abuse also accompany debt bondage for many families,

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specially so for sharecroppers in Sindh and brickers in Panjab. This is annually documented by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, with more extensive but irregular reporting by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research, and by the ILO. Why don’t bonded labour flee? But flee to what when alternate livelihoods are limited by availability? When alternate shelter is not easily available to the unemployed and unaffordable to the underemployed?

Hunger and malnutrition, the National Nutrition Survey tells us, continues to afflict many millions of rural families. Too poor to eat adequately, workers become sick and then rendered even less capable of work even if available. Treating ill-health often means less food can be purchased. Children suffer inordinately – highly probable death before the age of five; survivors stunted both physically and mentally. Escaping poverty as adults remains more hope than reality – very little quantity and quality of education comes the way of boys and even less for girls. Acquiring well-paid skills as crafts usually means the dismal fate of child labour.

agriculture

crafts

unskilled

all occupations

2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000

Rural Monthly Earnings per Worker 2013-14

sindhpakistan

Source: pbs. org. pk

What is responsible for these rural outcomes? Obviously very low and irregular incomes, whose level reflects both asset deprivation as well as exploitation through low returns, specially of labour. The mass persistence of income poverty and unfairly bad outcomes clearly points to the very low levels of social protection provided by the state despite its knowledge of ‘market failure.’ Is it because the country is resource-poor in some sense? Certainly not if we measure socially available resources by annual national income per capita – around $1,500 in nominal value and over twice in normalised purchasing power. The problem is severe inequality of incomes: after elites unfairly take their ‘rightful’ grabs, what’s left over is much too little for the masses.

Along with most serious observers, PFF believes that mass impoverishment, exclusion and deprivation is socially generated i.e. are outcomes of specific economic and political structures

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created and maintained by the state. Hence public action generally, and collective action by PFF in particular must aim to change these structures, of which the most crucial for peasants are inequitable and unfair access to natural resources. This goal can be described as that of food sovereignty; it is to this that we turn to as the next section. Before we do this, additional observations are worth discussion.

If land and water is inequitably distributed, what about the possibility of, and the returns from, alternative or supplementary employment? At one extreme is the possibility of migration to a nearby town or city. But the chances of securing even an insecure job are not much higher and apparently higher wages have to be discounted for higher costs of living. Where would the family live while searching for work?

The most recent official income estimates (from the Household Integrated Economic Survey 2013-14) is revealing in our core thesis: extensive landlessness is present without offsetting nonfarm employment. Averaged across the country, the poorest 10% of rural families would earn household monthly income of less than Rs 16,500 per household. Of this, less than Rs 4500 would come from crops and livestock. Underlying these facts are low earnings among the poorest workers in alternatives to farming e.g. less than Rs 7,000 from wage labour; much less than even Rs 2,000 from self-employment.

The paucity of these earnings is brought into sharp relief by noting (a) that the income is from more than one worker; and (b) the national minimum unskilled wage notified by government, at Rs 12,000 per month of full time work in a 6 day week of 8 hours per day (or its equivalent on a daily basis). A decent income threshold would imply even more severe shortfalls.

Obviously inequality is the cause – both in asset levels and in returns from labour. The top 10% of rural families (which are unlikely to include the very rich) grabbed above 30% of all income, leaving less than 15% for the bottom 10%. Inequality in agriculture income was wider than in other income.

Redistribution of Land. It is tragic that farm land available to feed all of the country fails to eradicate hunger and malnutrition at home. Economic and social policies of the state have clearly failed in making the state fulfil its most elementary obligation for the universal right to food.

Sensible observers of rural Pakistan would agree that the core factor in persisting rural impoverishment is landlessness in particular and exclusion from social wealth in general. One may nevertheless be asked if the situation could be tackled equally well through implementing a ‘social protection floor’ – by guaranteed nonfarm employment, cheap food shops, cash grants, etc. Our analysis is that all of these measures will be required but the state should begin and go as far as possible with land redistribution. There are several reasons. One, that participatory democracy cannot flourish where land and hence power is very unequally distributed. Two, secure assets are the prerequisite for secure social protection. Three, local community control is essential to implement fundamental changes in farming, necessary for respect to ecosystems.

Hence we review the situation of access to land, with two objectives: underscoring the millions of landless persons that can be helped by allocating much public land and private land held by the very largest landowners. Data from the Agriculture Census 2010 are useful in this regard. Country data are discussed next; the graph above illustrates some aspects for Sindh

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In the absence of large amounts of public land with open access, an illustration of landlessness as vulnerability should begin with the most basic exclusion -- from ownership. The Census [Table 13] records slightly less than 8.5 million persons with legal title to some land (good or bad; presumably excluding homestead land). These landowners are unlikely to cover more than as many million families, and hence suggesting that two-thirds of families owned no agricultural land [Table 8].

A more modest picture of exclusion from land ownership arises by referring only to agriculture households (in livestock and crop farming) -- the Census [Table 8] implies around 4 million families who were not land owners. On the other hand, marginal land ownership can still be thought of as almost exclusion; such near landlessness accounts for about the same number with less than 2.5 acres of land.[Table 13]

The consequence of landlessness, and the ‘incentive’ to maintain land inequity, is obviously a large pool of hungry (but not footloose) labour available to be exploited by large landowners as tenants and field labour. How many of the landless do manage to get access to land and on what terms? The Census [Table 1] reports less than a million tenant (operated) farms, and one may assume roughly the same number as families.

Would very small tenant farms really escape vulnerability of the wholly landless? The Census [Table 1] reports well over half of the tenant farms in Pakistan as having a farm holding of less than 5 acres. We should also be seriously bothered by exploitative sharecropping. In which case, we take note that the major portion of the remaining tenant farm land is operated under sharecropping [Table1]. This fact qualifies even further the optimism around a million or so landless families benefiting as tenants.

Earlier, we spoke of debt bondage as the price imposed for survival. Its potential magnitude in agriculture is indicated by the number of tenant farms reporting agricultural loans taken from “friends and relatives” as almost 90,000 farms. It is often reported that institutional credit, including commission agents, is taken by landlords in the name of tenants. If so then indebtedness would embrace around 150,000 tenant families. We have no data on consumption loans, but these could burden very large numbers of tenants whose incomes are too low to tide them over between seasons or permit large outlays on health etc.

The impressions from land data can be summarised as follows. Because land reforms were cosmetic or thwarted, there remains much inequality in land, which has to be an important part of the explanation for mass hunger and malnutrition in rural Pakistan. Huge numbers of rural families have no access to farm land. Among landowners, a handful of owners have much of the land with the result that there are many near-landless. Tenancy mitigates landlessness but only for a relatively small number and only somewhat -- many are open to economic and other violence because of being sharecroppers with small holdings.

Building Food Sovereignty: Transformation, Transition or Reforms?

Food sovereignty is based on the right of peoples and countries to define their own agricultural and food policy and has 6 interlinked and inseparable components. 1. a focus on food for people: food sovereignty puts the right to sufficient, healthy and culturally-appropriate food for all individuals, peoples and communities at the center of food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries policies and rejects the proposition that food is just another commodity; 2. the valuing of food providers: food sovereignty values and supports the contributions, and respects the rights, of women and men who grow, harvest and process food and rejects those policies, actions and programmes that

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undervalue them and threaten their livelihoods; 3. localizes food systems: food sovereignty puts food providers and food consumers at the center of decision-making on food issues; protects food providers from the dumping of food in local markets; protects consumers from poor quality and unhealthy food, including food tainted with transgenic organisms; and rejects governance structures that depend on inequitable international trade and give power to corporations; 4. puts control locally: food sovereignty places control over territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock and fish populations on local food providers and respects their rights to use and share them in socially and environmentally sustainable ways; it promotes positive interaction between food providers in different territories and from different sectors that helps resolve conflicts; and rejects the privatization of natural resources through laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes; 5. builds knowledge and skills: food sovereignty builds on the skills and local knowledge of food providers and their local organizations that conserve, develop and manage localized food production and harvesting systems, developing appropriate research systems to support this, and rejects technologies that undermine these; 6. works with nature: food sovereignty uses the contributions of nature in diverse, low external input agroecological production and harvesting methods that maximize the contribution of ecosystems and improve resilience, and rejects methods that harm ecosystem functions, that depend on energy-intensive monocultures and livestock factories and other industrialised production methods.

Food sovereignty is thus a concept that is an clear alternative to the concept of food security. Food security says nothing about the inequitable structures and policies that have destroyed livelihoods and the environment, and thus produced food insecurity. Food sovereignty cannot be isolated from the prevailing social and economic conditions, which means that food sovereignty cannot be just about trying to reconfigure the existing social conditions and relations of capitalism: it requires transcending the social conditions and relations of capitalism and developing a post-capitalist agrarian – and non-agrarian – alternative.

Food sovereignty is an objective which must be sought, by popular mobilization and struggle in opposition to the policies and institutions that are hostile to the interests of peasants. Hence campaigns against land grabbing, transgenic organisms, biofuels, the violation of the human rights of peasants, international food trade and aid governance, and the poor living standards of rural workers, and in support of agrarian reform, gender justice, improved terms and conditions of rural employment, action to mitigate climate change, indigenous rights, indigenous knowledge, improved rural nutrition, seed sharing and conservation, fisherfolk rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Commission draft declaration on the human rights of peasants.

Some negotiate and collaborate with state institutions and international development organizations for policy changes but has realized little by way of results.

The starting point in constructing a pathway to food sovereignty must be pro-poor gender-responsive redistributive agrarian reform. Successful reform requires restricting the market imperative – most importantly, restricting land markets. A critical part of meeting the livelihood challenges is to facilitate the deepening and widening of agroecological farming practices.

Agrarian citizenship recognizes nature's role in the continuing political, economic, and cultural evolution of a broadly-defined and evolving agrarian society, being predicated upon transcending the metabolic rift between humans and nature. It is agrarian sovereignty that would allow agrarian and non-agrarian citizens to fully claim their individual and collective rights by transcending politically-focused notions of democracy and establishing notions of democracy rooted in democratic economies, ecology and the need for harmony between humans and nature.

Haroon Akram-Lodhi tni.org

Agrarian Restructuring

Community Control. In reaction to persistent mass hunger globally, and then to huge spikes in food prices by speculators, social movements concluded that the universal Right to Food could not be realised in most of the South without agrarian restructuring. These movements began calling for peoples food sovereignty to replace state-centred and market oriented food security.

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The impulse to do so was straightforward. Global food production exceeded by many times the reasonable needs of world population, which meant that there is no resource impediment to justify massive numbers of hungry people across the globe. The problem of hunger then had to be situated in inequitable access to food.

The volatility of food prices some years ago accentuated the intensity and incidence of hunger. States were unable to stem the deteriorating situation. Or they were unwilling to forego obscene levels of profits from speculative trading in food and food-as-fuel crops such as maize. The obvious reaction was that the state and international community were part of the problem rather than an active player in the solution. Hence autonomy of peoples access to food was essential, expressed as the goal of food sovereignty.

Since direct access to food by consumers was desirable, the obstacle to this objective was obviously the absence of access to adequate resources for producing the food. When aggregate resources are sufficient, the only explanation could lie in maldistribution of resources between the hungry and obese and hence misuse, all of which created and sustained mass hunger.

The solution lay in comprehensive and urgent redistribution of crop land, with food for local consumption as the only crop grown as long as hunger and malnutrition were not eliminated. Similarly, brakes had to be applied to land and water being converted to nonfarm use. Equally important was to sustain the productivity of land and water by fundamental changes in the way that food is grown, a change that would also reduce vulnerability of food production to climatic variations. Farmers had to be encouraged to cooperate in food production and availability rather than compete for profits in the use of natural resources. This idea of a commons required local community regulation rather than land markets for individual private ownership. All of these together are taken to be elements of food sovereignty.

The situation in Pakistan calls for embracing food sovereignty. Sceptics may ask that we consider alternatives to land redistribution, agroecology and cooperatives for realising the right to food. These alternatives or as package could be guaranteed nonfarm employment, cheap food shops, cash grants etc. Our position is that all of these will be required but as complementary to agrarian reforms because not all of the rural landless can become or may want to be farmers. If agrarian reforms don’t take place then democracy cannot take root, and adequate food production cannot be done in ways sensitive to ecosystem integrity.

One may also ask in rejoinder for convincing reasons to preserve the inequity in land distribution that leads to debt bondage, child labour, oppression of women, support to religious bigotry and so on.

Adopting Agroecology. The goal of food sovereignty requires communities to give serious attention to ecosystems -- not just instrumentally for sustaining prosperity of people but also as moral respect for the rights of nature. In this regard, two issues are fundamental: what is to be grown and how is it to be grown?

The choice of crops is perhaps easier to address. Since the reason for land reforms is enabling secure access to food, it is food crops (in the right combination) that must be privileged over other crops as long as hunger and malnutrition prevail for any member of the managing community.

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When options are present as they usually are, then food crops using less water are to be preferred – so that more freshwater is available for other livelihoods e.g of fishers and for other ecosystems such as forests even if not used for livelihoods. An additional considerable advantage of reducing water use is that of reducing burdens imposed by drainage upon ‘downstream’ ecosystems. The crucial importance of reducing water use and drainage upstream cannot be overemphasised for the ecological health of the Indus delta, and perhaps everywhere in the overall Indus Basin system.

How should food be grown? This is partly answered by preference for lower water use crops, for it means that chemical based agriculture is to be discouraged. Pesticides have to be replaced by appropriate natural remedies, i.e. a more varied farm than typical in large-scale commercial and industrial agriculture. Additional advice comes from the objective of growing food: to reduce vulnerability of food supplies and to reduce malnutrition through various types of foods.

It is now well understood that monocropping must be avoided to prevent economic and ecological disasters. Attention to water ecosystems will also call for revisions to reliance upon the usual irrigation systems, and consequently upon farm level mechanisation both directly as in reducing ground water extraction, and indirectly as in water-conserving ploughing. Let Rivers Free is a momentous demand!

Observers of agroecology also stress the need to expand the variety of plants to reduce economic vulnerability and increase land productivity. Trees that bear edible fruits can be an example, but of course not as dedicated orchards.

Even though not always, agroecology may result in expanding demand for labour e.g. when manual weeding replaces chemicals. This can be of considerable significance in communities where not all of the landless can be provided farm land.

2. International Reflections

Empowering Peasants. La Via Campesina is leading social movements in this very important initiative of having the UN adopt a Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and other Rural Workers (which include all occupations in agriculture). It is then useful to begin with observations and demands around this central issue. One of the most recent statements was the result of the World Social Forum in 2015 (in Tunis). An earlier international meeting was explicitly directed towards the demand for a UN Declaration.

Water & Land: Same Plight, Same Fight

Sharing our ideas led to acknowledgement of the essential linkage between our struggles, given the inextricable nature of land and water grabbing. To date, more than 200 million hectares of land have been grabbed globally by private firms, governments, elites and speculators. Land grabbing always goes hand-in-hand with water grabbing, and takes different forms: cases of unsustainable water-consuming farming, through the privatization and management of water utilities (stealing this vital resource from those who are unable to pay for it), contamination of aquifers caused by unregulated mining, the change of river courses and waterways through the construction of dams and the resulting eviction of communities, the militarization of access to water points, the dispossession of pastoralists and fisher communities of their livelihoods through practices such as coastal sand mining.

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The scarcity underpinning the water, land and food crises is not a given; it is a political, geo-strategic and financial construct. Equal distribution of land and water, and gender equality are central to our vision of food sovereignty, based on agroecology, local food systems, biodiversity, control of our seeds, and respect for natural water cycles. Our solidarity, grounded in our commitment as activists, is built upon principle and conviction that water, land and seeds are Commons, and not commodities. Land & water management policies should promote the achievement of social justice, gender equality, public health and environmental justice.

We denounce the World Bank’s “business” climate ranking and biodiversity offsetting systems, that are drafted solely to support speculation and foster land and water grabbing, while completely neglecting human rights and social and environmental standards.

We call upon international governmental organizations, States and Local Authorities to: > Recognize the indivisibility of human rights and their international obligations towards their realization. >Implement adequate policies of agrarian reform, land reform, genuine land restitution, equitable redistribution and sustainable management of land, water and other natural resources. > Recognize, respect and protect the collective customary rights regulating the access, security and governance of land and water, our Commons. > Adopt and implement a Binding Treaty to prevent and prosecute crimes committed by transnational corporations and other business enterprises. viacampesina.org

Accept the Rights of Peasants

Almost half of the people in the world are peasants. Even in the high‐tech world, people eat food produced by peasants. Small‐scale agriculture is not just an economic activity; it means life for many people. The security of the population depends on the well‐being of peasants and sustainable agriculture. To protect human life it is important to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of the peasants. In reality, the ongoing violations of peasants' rights threaten human life.

Millions of peasants have been forced to leave their farmland because of land grabs facilitated by national policies and/or the military. Land is taken away from peasants for the development of large industrial or infrastructure projects, extracting industries like mining, tourist resorts, special economic zones, supermarkets and plantations for cash crops. As a result, land is increasingly concentrated in a few hands. As they lose their land, communities also lose their forms of self‐government, sovereignty and cultural identity.

As a result of these violations of peasants' rights, today millions of peasants live in hunger and suffer malnutrition. This is not because there is not enough food in the world, but because food resources are dominated by transnational corporations. Peasants are forced to produce for export instead of producing food for their communities. The crisis in the agricultural sector causes migration and the massive displacement and disappearance of peasants and indigenous people.

The policies of neo‐liberalism worsen the violations of Peasants' Rights. The violations of peasants' rights are on the rise because of the implementation of neoliberal policies promoted by the World Trade Organisation, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), other institutions and many governments in the North as well as in the South. The WTO and FTAs force the opening of markets and prevent countries from protecting and supporting their domestic agriculture. They push for the deregulation in the agriculture sector. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has implemented structural adjustment programs (SAPs) leading to massive cuts in subsidies for agriculture and social services. Countries have been forced to privatize state companies and to dismantle support mechanisms in the agricultural sector. National and international policies directly or indirectly give priority to transnational corporations or food production and trade. TNCs also practice biopiracy and destroy genetic resources and biodiversity cultivated by peasants.

The capitalist logic of accumulation has dismantled peasant agriculture. The global food crisis in 2008 precipitated and exacerbated by policies and transnational corporations (which unilaterally act according to their own self‐interest) clearly shows the failure in promoting, respecting, protecting and fulfilling the rights of peasants. This affects all people in the world, in developed and developing countries. While peasants work hard to ensure the sustainability of seeds and food, the violation of the rights of peasants damages the world’s capability to feed itself.

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The struggle of the Peasants is fully applicable to the framework of international human rights which includes instruments, and thematic mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, that address the right to food, housing rights, access to water, right to health, human rights defenders, indigenous peoples, racism and racial discrimination, women’s rights. These international instruments of the UN do not completely cover nor prevent human rights violations, especially the rights of the peasants. We see some limitations in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as an instrument to protect peasants' right. Also, the Charter of the Peasant produced by the UN in 1978, was not able to protect peasants from international liberalization policies. The other international conventions, which also deal with peasants' rights, cannot be implemented either. These conventions include: ILO Convention 169, Clause 8‐J Convention on Biodiversity, Point 14.60 Agenda 21, and Cartagena Protocol.

The UN Human Rights Council gave the mandate to this intergovernmental working group to negotiate, finalize, and submit to the Council a draft UN declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. The mandate calls for existing human rights to be clarified and consolidated with a view to promoting and protecting the human rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas.

We believe that the Declaration should extend universal rights to peasants and other people working in rural areas thus filling existing normative gaps in protection. It should also be forward looking to deal with emerging gaps and thus end discriminatory practices affecting peasants and other people working in rural areas. We call on States to unite in order to recognize and further guarantee the realization of the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. All states and involved UN agencies need to keep working on how to best promote and protect small and medium food producers and rural populations.

This work involves a main thrust for anti-discriminatory measures, as visibly mentioned in the draft declaration for rural women, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, fishers and rural workers. We believe with these measures, peasants and other people working in rural areas will be more secure, and be able to work hard to produce adequate food and nutrition for humanity.

For peasants and other people working in rural areas, the relationship with Mother Earth, her territories and waters is the physical, cultural and spiritual basis for our existence. We are required to maintain this relationship with Mother Earth for the survival of our future generations. We gladly assume our role as her guardians.

We emphasize the importance of including the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 September 2007, pertinent ILO Conventions, and the work of the Committee on World Food Security on the right to food as sources for the Declaration. We urge that States and the UN system to live up to their obligations and to continue participating in a good faith and proactive manner to guarantee a democratic debate in line with the UN charter. viacampesina.org

Coordinated from Europe, FIAN is an international alliance that straddles inquiry, documentation and activism. It has spearheaded formulation (and now acts as secretariat) of the Global Network for the Right to Food & Nutrition. Coalition members include the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (of which PFF has been the secretariat). PFF is now a partner in the Right to Food & Nutrition Watch Consortium. Negotiations are going on at the UN for the post-MDG Agenda, in which FIAN is an active participant in the struggle to place human rights at the center of development agendas. We begin with its ambitious call for accountability, followed by an earlier statement of analysis and advocacy. FIAN has coordinated global analyses of the Right to Food initiatives of the UN; its pessimistic evaluation provides useful considerations for advocacy with the FAO.

Post-2015 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Human rights (HR) and inclusive governance must remain central elements of any substantial post-2015 agenda. The recognition of HR primacy and its practical implementation, together with the principles of accountability and coherence, must be seen as indispensable and non-negotiable cornerstones.

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Inclusive governance is the logical consequence of a human rights approach: it is the rights holders who must be heard, whose voices, critiques, proposals, expertise are the most important for policy debates and decisions.

The objective and main implications for post 2015 food and nutrition policy must consequently be formulated from a human rights perspective. Its main objective could be: The full realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition. This right guarantees people’s informed participation in the decision making and elaboration of public policies assuring an economically, politically, socially, and ecologically sustainable supply of adequate and nutritious food within the frameworks of food and of people’s sovereignty; it also guarantees the enjoyment of regular access to food for all while respecting both cultural traditions and the principle of non-discrimination.

The main implication of this will be: Ending impunity of human rights violations through enforcing compliance of obligations, accountability and coherence, ensuring that states, as duty bearers, are held accountable for their general and specific obligations under international human rights law, including the Maastricht Principles on extraterritorial obligations. Specific obligations call on states to respect, protect, and fulfill (facilitate, promote and provide), implying that governments must make all of their policies, such as agricultural, food, trade, economic, environment, social, energy and others, coherent with the realization of human rights.fian.org

Resistance & Alternatives

Economic inequality and gender forms of discrimination are a threat to the realization of most human rights, including the right to food and nutrition. Rights holders are the most important actors when it comes to the design and implementation of policies that affect livelihoods. It is not possible to realize human rights without their application in processes of policy design, implementation and evaluation.

There is a disturbing trend—the monopolization and commoditization of public goods, such as land and seeds. The trend of land and natural resource grabbing, established in Africa, is now advancing in Europe, most rapidly in the East. Foreign investors must be held to extraterritorial obligations in the communities they invest in.

The full and meaningful acceptance and democratic application of the FAO’s Tenure Guidelines can play a major role in contributing to the strengthening of these efforts to support small-scale agriculture and promote food sovereignty. Central to these efforts is the demand for plurality in the management of seeds -- adapted to local needs and specificities, and managed by farmers and communities themselves. Public mobilization is required to halt the ongoing threats to the cultural and biological diversity.

The new Right to Food Bill in India does not address the fundamental issues concerning hunger on the sub-continent. Food aid to Nepal has only insignificantly and temporarily benefited communities; deepened the problem by sidetracking the attention of policy-makers, donor agencies and development workers from structural reforms.

An increasing number of food banks in affluent countries has paradoxically led to a series of human rights concerns. The response to hunger should be disparity reduction rather than merely poverty alleviation. States should guarantee adequate levels of social security and reverse policies that promote the expansion of the low-wage labor market.

When forced to leave their homes, people suffer directly from the consequences of social exclusion and lose the conditions that enable them to realize other human rights such as the right to adequate food.

Food sovereignty is based on fundamental human rights, the right to self-determination, the rights to land, territory and other natural resources. The realization of these rights is promoted by alternative policies that rely on the agro-ecological approach and on rural-urban networks that support community agriculture and the vision of food and people’s sovereignty.

There is a clear need to articulate feasible and culturally acceptable alternatives to dominant policies in the areas of agriculture, food and nutrition. These policy alternatives are rooted in people’s knowledge and their experiences gained through daily struggles to press for policies that address discrimination and violence against women with respect to violations of their right to adequate food and nutrition include extensive education on human rights, access to affordable and

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accessible recourse and remedy mechanisms, anti-discrimination education programs for women and men, and a zero tolerance approach to sexual violence.

Non-negotiable cornerstones of a new development model must include the reaffirmation of the primacy of human rights and its practical implementation; clear lines of human rights accountability; and firm targets for disparity reductions worldwide. Fian.org

Right to Food: Gains, Concerns & Struggles

Progress. The self-determination of people and the prohibition of depriving people of their means of subsistence are an integral part of Article 1 of both ICESCR and ICCPR. The Right to Food remains the most violated human right in the world. Impunity is the consequence of failed accountability systems. The Right to Food Guidelines of 2004 is a major global instrument for the obligations it places on states, the role rights holders have, and the need for a holistic view of food systems, based on the indivisibility of human rights. The majority of countries has not implemented the Guidelines due to the accumulation of political will that opposes implementation. Our major challenge is the need to effectively act on the indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights can hardly be overestimated.

Challenges. One of the challenges ahead is strengthening the autonomous self-organization of the right-holders, in particular peasant farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolks, landless, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples, urban poor, consumers, women and youth. Effectively addressing the links between on the one hand women’s, girls’ and children’s rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights, and on the other the human right to adequate food and nutrition, is fundamental. In addition to the classical contradiction between powerful trade regimes and the relatively weak human rights regime. The corporate sector is entering into almost all spheres of public policy related to health, food, nutrition and agriculture. The right to adequate food is put at genuine risk and human rights coherence and accountability are likely to be further weakened by actors who aggressively impose their economic and financial interests, and increasingly capture public spaces, including the UN. Investments are rewarding large agribusiness corporations. Economic incentives are not rewarding those who contribute to preserving the ecosystems. The democratic challenge is to ensure the participation of peasants in all decision making processes that directly or indirectly affect their lives and food resources: nothing without their prior, informed and free consent. Adequate food, needs to be directly linked with those who struggle for workers’ rights within the food sovereignty frameworkFian.org

3. UN Initiatives

Courts, parliamentarians and national human rights institutions will not move unless you move first. I do not know whether you need them, but I certainly know that they need you as a source of inspiration, of knowledge and support. Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

There are as many kinds of international advice to alleviate it as there are ‘studies’ of impoverishment. But to eradicate poverty and keep it extinct there only two distinct international approaches.

The prescriptions that Pakistan has accepted, for numerous decades, are given by international financial institutions – notably the World Bank – devoted to neoliberalism. This is to depend upon private enterprises, without discrimination against size or even be they

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multinational corporations, to maximise economic growth with trickle down effects advanced through ‘safety nets’ then, now recast as ‘social protection floors.’ In this ideology, the larger the agricultural enterprise with strong links to global consumerism the more successful will peasants be in shedding poverty, if not today then certainly tomorrow. The unacceptably frightening results of this ideology are apparent in the dismal and worsening situation of rural Sindh in particular and Pakistan in general.

Alternative visions exist for eradicating rural poverty. These are historical but returning to the fore in dealing with inequity, specially under the deepening and broadening vulnerabilities caused by the ecological recklessness of industrial capitalism. The UN began to emphasise the unqualified Right to Food, including dignity in enabling it, as the core aspect of the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Since collective voice is part of dignity and of decisions about livelihoods generally, some commentators emphasise that the Convention on Civic and Political Rights is not to be ignored in attaining the Right to Food.

PFF can strategically use UN visions and advice to strengthen advocacy with the state, and to support resistance against neoliberal solutions to hunger proposed by other international organisations such as the World Bank. We present a review of ideas surrounding the Right to Food, in which two ‘practice’ documents are of special interest – the FAO guidelines for realising the right to food, and the subsequent advice contained in the guidelines for governance of tenure.

Special Rapporteur for Food. After the international community accepted the universality of the Right to Food, the UN created a special monitor for the Commission of Human Rights. The recent passage of the Optional Protocol for ESCR has amplified the importance of the Rapporteur for advocating the implementation of rights through international support. We review some documents, including the most recent report by the new Rapporteur (Hilal Enver). An interview of the former Rapporteur (Schutter) by FIAN deserves special attention. These rapporteurs argue for national as well international justiciability of human rights, now called extra-territorial jurisdiction or obligations.

Special Rapporteur: A Decade of Right to Food Guidelines

It is usually independent experts with extensive experience who clarify the normative content of economic, social and cultural rights. In contrast, the legitimacy of the Right to Food Guidelines is very unique because they were negotiated by governments. Consequently, governments should not be allowed to ignore a text they themselves have negotiated, and approved by consensus.National Achievements. One dimension relates to institutions and procedures, for example, the development of a national strategy (in line with Guideline 3), the establishment of institutions for intersectoral coordination (Guideline 5) or the establishment of participatory mechanisms to effectively ensure the right to participation and consultation, etc. The most prominent achievements have probably been reached in this block. Progress has been most significant in Latin America. This is the result of combined efforts by various actors, including a network of parliamentarians.

Accountability? There are more and more courts using the right to food in adjudication. The goal was to send the message that simply because a right is subject to progressive realization in some dimensions, it does not mean it is acceptable for a state to remain passive. What must be done is to adopt an action plan with clear timelines for the implementation of each action to be taken, clear indicators to measure progress, and a clear allocation of responsibilities. In this way, no single part of government can avoid having to account for failing to take the measures it is expected to take.

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That idea is a very powerful one. And in countries that have adopted such national strategies, it has acquired some degree of impact. Again however, the implementation of this idea is very uneven from region to region. Even in Latin America, where many countries have adopted a framework law on the RtAF, and have for the most part adopted national strategies, it is not clear whether there is always independent monitoring of the implementation of these strategies. It is also unclear whether there are any sanctions associated with non-compliance for the timelines that are set.

Shortcomings. Guideline 19 was probably less effective than the gradual invocation of the extraterritorial dimension of human rights. It seems to me that the CESCR has not referred to this Guideline when addressing extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) in states’ reports. Instead, it has argued that it would be inconsistent to allow a state to ignore the human rights impacts of its policies or decisions outside of its jurisdiction while insisting that it pays attention to this within its jurisdiction. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), it should be recalled, does not include a reference to “jurisdiction” or territory: it imposes duties on States parties across all their actions or omissions. Significant progress has been made on understanding the implications of extraterritorial human rights obligations.

Further Reflections . Today, the problems that stem from the lack of a food policy, from the environmental impact of agro-industrial food production, from impoverished populations being unable to eat healthily, are problems that are increasingly recognized as relevant to countries in the affluent part of the world, including the OECD countries. We have agricultural policies of course, and we have health policies and environmental policies. But we do not have the integrated “systems” approach that food policies require. This is something to reflect upon. I believe that the Guidelines are largely also applicable to the North.

Food Democracy. Reforms are very difficult to achieve without the food system being more accountable and democratic in the way it operates. There are many limitations in mainstream food systems. First, investments are rewarding large agribusiness corporations and not supporting local food systems. Second, economic incentives are rewarding the most efficient producers, rather than those who contribute to preserving the ecosystems. Third, our tastes and eating habits have changed to processed foods—more convenient, easy to prepare, and suited to our rushed lifestyles, even though they may be less healthy. Finally, there are major actors who are able to block change as a result of the dominant position they have acquired in the food and political systems. That is why food democracy is really the key to achieving more sustainable food systems. The democratization of the food systems is a necessary condition for effecting change.

Food Sovereignty. The concept of food sovereignty seems to have changed significantly over the past fifteen years—or even less than that. Now food sovereignty is increasingly invoked by larger constituencies than those who first coined the concept—small-scale farmers under the umbrella of La Vía Campesina—including NGOs and urban populations. It is imperative that we rebuild local food systems. There is now a consensus that there has been a very strong imbalance in the way that food systems have developed in the past, with an overemphasis on large-scale global food chains and international trade. But as I stressed above, people need to own the food systems on which they depend, to exercise democracy in the food systems. These new ways in which food sovereignty is invoked are quite recent, yet both meanings are indispensable to the realization of the right to food.Fian.org

Special Rapporteur: Transformative Potential of the Right to Food

Change can be achieved. Actions should be launched at three levels to democratize food security policies, thus weakening existing lock-ins and allowing these policies to shape the new model that he calls for. At the local level, the key to transition is to rebuild local food systems, thus decentralizing food systems and making them more flexible. At the national level, in addition to support for locally-led innovations, multisectoral strategies should be deployed. Such strategies should trigger a process in which progress is made towards supporting a reinvestment in local food

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production, focused in particular on small-scale food producers. At the international level, greater coordination should be achieved between actions launched at the multilateral, regional and national levels, with a view to rewarding and supporting domestic efforts towards the realization of the right to food rather than obstructing them.

Transformative strategies must be adopted, with a view to guaranteeing access to adequate food for all by simultaneously supporting small-scale food producers’ ability to produce food sustainably, improving employment opportunities in all sectors and strengthening social protection. For such strategies to succeed, the careful sequencing of actions matters, requiring strong cross-sectoral coordination.

National strategies grounded in the right to food should be conceived as participatory processes, co-designed by all relevant stakeholders, including in particular the groups most affected by hunger and malnutrition – smallholder producers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, indigenous people, the urban poor, migrants and agricultural workers. Implementation be supported by independent monitoring in the hands of national human rights institutions or, perhaps preferably, food security and nutrition councils.

We must address the political economy of food systems – in other terms, the question of who decides, on the basis of what information, and under which accountability mechanisms. Ochr.org

Special Rapporteur: Global Justice for The Right to Food

The Optional Protocol grants individuals, or groups of individuals under the jurisdiction of a State party, the right to submit communications about alleged violations of any economic, social or cultural right to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Optional Protocol requires that authors of communications must be under the jurisdiction of the State party responsible for the violation, and that the State must have ratified both the Covenant and the Optional Protocol. However, the Covenant indicates no restriction to territorial jurisdiction and it will remain to be seen whether the cases to be examined under the Optional Protocol concentrate principally on the territorial link. Victims of violations now have a means of making effective appeals through an international mechanism, once they have exhausted the grievance mechanisms within their own countries, or if there is an excessive delay in processing their claims through national procedures. The Optional Protocol also provides for interim measures for victims in exceptional circumstances in order to prevent irreparable damage to victims. While the Covenant does not have a mechanism to enforce decisions, findings and decisions by the Committee can increase awareness and scrutiny of specific violations at the international level.

Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal. In recent years, the human rights violations perpetrated by private actors, including those committed by TNCs, have been subject to several Permanent Peoples’ Tribunals. Of particular relevance to the right to food are the tribunals on: Agrochemical Transnational Corporations (2001), Neoliberal Policies and European Transnationals in Latin America and the Caribbean (2008), the Role of Transnationals Corporations in Columbia (2006–2008), and Global Corporations and Human Wrongs (2000). Permanent Peoples’ Tribunals are only beneficial in raising public awareness of human rights abuses that otherwise cannot be heard. They offer no legal remedy, but are important politically.

Conclusion and Recommendations. All human rights are indivisible, and should be protected as such. Economic, social and cultural rights are necessary conditions for the stability of the democratic order, and economic power must be subject to democratic control. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States: (a) For those that have not already done so, ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as a matter of priority; (b) Ensure recognition of the justiciability of the right to food by judicial and quasi-judicial bodies at the national, regional and international levels; (c) Ensure renewed political commitment to the progressive realization of the right to adequate food by adopting policies, constitutional principles and framework laws that provides an appropriate institutional structure; and sectoral legislation addressing various sectors that impact significantly on levels of food security in this regard; (d) Provide mechanisms that offer adequate, effective and timely remedies in cases of violations of the right to food, in particular to groups such as communities living in remote rural areas, communities living in situations of extreme poverty, persons with disabilities and indigenous

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communities, either through collective or public interest remedies; (e) Ensure the empowerment of women by guaranteeing their basic right to access adequate food and take steps to implement gender-mainstreaming in relation to domestic policies on agricultural, property and inheritance rights; (f) Ensure that everyone, without discrimination, is afforded access to social protection as a means of offering economic, social, and cultural rights; (g) Cooperate with civil society organizations to organize training programmes for rights holders and duty bearers in order to operationalize the justiciability of the right to food; (h) Develop awareness-raising campaigns to ensure that rights holders have access to information pertaining to the right to food and the obligations pertaining thereto; (i) Ensure policy coherence when implementing national food strategies, paying particular attention to the correlation between trade and investment policies, and economic development plans; (j) Develop the necessary legal structure in order to protect resources directly related to the right to access adequate and nutritious food, such as water sources, access to land and seed production; (k) Enable further clarification on States’ extraterritorial obligations in relation to non-regulatory means; identify best practices regarding cooperation between States; and adopt within the Human Rights Council a resolution to draw attention to the Maastricht Principles; (l) Consider requesting an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice to determine the legal obligations relating to the extraterritorial implementation of the right to food.Ochr.org

Silent Revolution or Original Promise

The mainstream view has long been that there exists no general international legal obligation imposed on States to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction outside their national territory in order to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights. This is changing. The UN human rights treaty bodies have accepted that States cannot ignore the fact that they may influence situations outside their borders, even in the absence of territorial control, and that with this power comes responsibility. Specifically in regard to corporations, this committee has further stated that ‘States Parties should also take steps to prevent human rights contraventions abroad by its corporations.

The recognition of States’ extraterritorial human rights obligations, and their gradual codification in soft law instruments, fits within a broader attempt to ensure that economic globalization contributes to human development, the eradication of poverty, and the realization of all human rights. International organisations, whose establishment has played such a major part of the process of economic globalization, are increasingly developing mechanisms to ensure accountability towards human rights. Transnational corporations are aware that they are now expected to respect human rights, and to ensure that they have a positive impact on their realization. Furthermore, the Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Trade and Investment Agreements fill a gap for greater coherence between the conclusion of trade and investment agreements on the one hand, and human rights obligations on the other.escr-net.org

Rights-based Food Security

The rights-based approach is far from being merely a theory or an ideal. It is utterly practical: the non-realization of human rights is not only a frequent result of poverty but also one of its major causes, which means that working to realize these rights is vital for combating poverty. Food security is a function not only of production and market access, but also of the environment created by economic and political institutions at all levels. These institutions can facilitate or obstruct people’s access to essential livelihood assets. Understanding governance structures and institutional contexts is crucial for addressing food security as a policy issue that cuts across several sectors and has multiple dimensions. The allocation of the land is a political choice. In this regard, it has to be said that a lot of people were kicked out of their land [in Brazil] because of the political choice to dedicate the land to other production, e.g. for biofuels production. The macro political decisions have an enormous importance for the fulfilment of the right to food. If we do not get coherence of these macro political decisions we will not be able to fight hunger in the world.

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fao.org

FAO Initiatives. To accelerate implementation, and as a framework for monitoring, the FAO was entrusted with preparing Guidelines for realising the right to food. These guidelines were approved by almost all states, and have been in existence for around a decade. Upon realisation that structural obstacles were impeding the attainment of the right, the FAO issued Guidelines for Tenure; and for Small Scale Fisheries. This section elaborates these documents and presents commentaries; while leaving the Fisheries document asides for a separate note by PFF.

Global Commitment, Obligation, Action

The RtF Guidelines of 2004 were a global reaffirmation of the importance of human rights and a vehicle for a deepened commitment to it. But the goal of realizing the right to food of everyone is not accomplished yet. The number of undernourished and malnourished individuals, including 162 million stunted children clearly tells us that more has to be done.

All too often, however, political interest and investment in addressing hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition are of a short-term nature. They aim to address only immediate needs, while too little emphasis is given to alleviating the underlying causes that keep a large portion of the population in many countries in a vicious circle of chronic deprivation.

Important as constitutional provisions are, other legal interventions are also necessary for promoting practical implementation and to ensure concrete and concerted action for the realization of the right to food. Overcoming the structural causes of hunger and malnutrition will require promoting coherence of all appropriate national and international policies with the right to food, convergent policies, strategies and programmes that give urgent priority to meeting both the long-term needs and emergency requests for food security and nutrition.

In many cases, large scale investments in land, e.g. for the production of energy crops and/or food for export markets may harm the interests and livelihoods of local smallholders and communities. Competition over land is increasing thus entailing the risks of compromising the rural population’s right to adequate food.

The right to adequate food goes beyond kilocalories. Every individual should have permanent access to a healthy, nutritious and culturally acceptable food. Parallel action should also be taken in health, education and sanitary infrastructure in addition to improving food security.

Moving from legal and political recognition of the importance of access to resources, to decisive action on the ground, is still challenging. The VGGT represent a great hope for securing tenure rights of rural communities, thereby protecting their livelihood and their human right to food.

The overriding principle must be that every action at global, regional or sub-regional level has meaning only if it leads to effective and sustainable change on the ground. Helping those whose right to food has not been met should be our one and only yardstick.

fao.org

FAO proudly claims (in its Land Tenure Journal 2015) that VGGT is “the first ever (internationally) negotiated document that sets the scene on how tenure rights to land, fisheries and forests should be handled. It an engagement towards changing the rules of the game and working towards more transparent and accountable tenure structures and administration.” For the required changes “to happen, awareness on tenure governance should be raised; capacities to prepare, implement and enforce policies and laws should be developed; and mechanisms for monitoring should be improved.” These are all actions relevant for PFF efforts to integrate small farmers and landless rural workers into its vision and actions of a social movement.

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Secure Tenure for Right to Food

The Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure (VGGT) promote responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests. Their overarching goals are to achieve food security for all and support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. The Guidelines place tenure rights in the context of human rights. There is currently no international consensus that a tenure right is a human right. However, tenure rights, which provide access to land, fisheries and forests, are important for the realization of human rights, such as the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being, including food and housing (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 11). The governance of tenure may affect the enjoyment of various human rights.

The Guidelines do not explicitly address water and other natural resources, such as mineral rights. However, responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests is inextricably linked with access to and management of other natural resources, such as water and minerals.

Founding Principles. States should: RECOGNIZE AND RESPECT all legitimate tenure rights and the people who hold them; SAFEGUARD legitimate tenure rights against threats; PROMOTE AND FACILITATE the enjoyment of legitimate tenure rights; PROVIDE access to justice when tenure rights are infringed upon; PREVENT tenure disputes, violent conflicts and opportunities for corruption; Non-state actors (including business enterprises) have a responsibility to respect human rights and legitimate tenure rights.

Principles of Implementation include: • human dignity • non-discrimination • equity and justice • gender equality • holistic and sustainable approaches • consultation and participation • rule of law • transparency • accountability • continuous improvement

The eradication of hunger and poverty, and the sustainable use of the environment, depend in large measure on how people, communities and others gain access to land, fisheries and forests. Access to natural resources is defined and regulated by tenure systems. The governance of tenure is a crucial element in determining if and how people, communities and others are able to acquire rights, and associated duties, to use and control land, fisheries and forests. Responsible Governance makes access to land, fisheries and forests more equitable; protects against arbitrary loss of tenure rights, including through forced evictions; helps ensure no one is subject to discrimination under laws, policies and practice; leads to more transparent and participatory decision-making; simplifies the administration of tenure to make it effective for all.

Tenure rights to land, fisheries and forests are often interlinked. The livelihoods of many of the rural poor are diversified and are dependent on access to various natural resources (e.g. combining crop agriculture and livestock grazing with fishing and gathering of forest products).

One of the principles the Guidelines are founded on is gender equality. Improving gender equality is important as women often have fewer and weaker tenure rights to land, fisheries and forests. This inequality is due to a number of factors, including biases in formal law, in customs, and in the division of labour in society and households.

Climate Change and Emergencies. In all cases, States should strive to prepare and implement strategies and actions in consultation with and participation of people who may be displaced. The provision of an alternative place to settle should not jeopardize the livelihoods of others.fao.org

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Conclusions

There are a series of issues surrounding action for food sovereignty. Among those that PFF will have to discuss with members, old and new, there are challenges posed in the Journal of Peasant Studies.

What are the origins of the concept of ‘food sovereignty’? How does it relate to more conventional notions of ‘food security’? What characterized the context in which food sovereignty emerged as a demand of social movements?

How does long-distance or foreign trade fit into the food sovereignty paradigm, if at all? Is it possible to incorporate the millions of small farmers that produce commodities for export into a food sovereignty model and, if so, under what terms?

What role as a mobilizing concept can food sovereignty play in helping food-deficit nations move towards greater food self-sufficiency? And is this always possible or desirable?

The FAO estimates that urban agriculture helps to feed up to 800 million city dwellers – mostly in the poorest quintile. From 30 to 70 percent of urban families in poor countries engage in urban agriculture, so there is no question that it makes a significant contribution to the aggregate food supply. What do the growing material and strategic importance of urban agriculture mean for the construction of food sovereignty? How can food sovereignty help bridge the land, resource, market and policy struggles of rural and urban producers?

What will be required to administer food sovereignty and who will do it? Who is the sovereign in food sovereignty? What kinds of limitations or regulations on particular kinds of production or trade, if any, does food sovereignty imply?

How much pluralism is acceptable in a food-sovereign society with respect to models of agricultural production, commerce and consumption? What are the obstacles to scaling up agroecology as a strategy of resistance to industrial agriculture and to centring agroecology as a normative farming style in the future? While individual farmers adopt complex farming styles that include industrial and agroecological practices, the political food sovereignty movement (e.g. La Vía Campesina and transnational, national and regional food sovereignty alliances) has largely adopted agroecology as a normative form of production. How will the centring/decentring of agroecology/industrial practices affect farming styles? What mode of production is under construction with agroecology and food sovereignty?

What kinds of (land) property relations might characterize a food-sovereign society? What combinations of cooperative or collective practices and individual ones are likely to be most effective?

How does food sovereignty address the complex agrarian transitions to modern food systems? How might it serve to stabilize livelihoods and labour flow to build in greater social resilience? What are the roles and realities of food workers, consumers and people in general in the construction of food sovereignty?

If food sovereignty is founded on ‘rights’, how does it relate to the many other rights-oriented food movements that do not necessarily embrace the food sovereignty framework?

What difference does food sovereignty make within broader political-economic

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transformations? What impacts and implications does food sovereignty hold for transitions to a post-petroleum, post-growth and/or post-capitalist society?

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realising peasant rights: claiming food sovereignty

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