UNFSS-the UN Food Systems Summit, where corporations stood alongside governments and UN agencies-is preceded by a disruptive echo, #NotinOurNames.
Civil society, farmers and consumers from all parts of the planet are meeting virtually at the pre-summit in Rome, July 26-28, 2021, to challenge this initiative in its very premise.
We in turn express lively opposition to the interference of the private sector-and its Davos circus, the
World Economic Failure
– on food security policies. (#SDG2). All the more so since international sector policies are already being effectively pursued in FAO and CFS(Committee on World Food Security).
Big Ag and Big Food should simply apply FAO, CFS, OECD guidelines on responsible management of investments in agriculture, as well as land, forests and watersheds. Not to mention the labor rights enshrined, only in words, by theInternational Labor Organization (ILO).
UNFSS, the first protests
Hundreds of organizations have started protesting the UNFSS(United Nations Food Safety Summit) as early as March 2020. After UN Secretary-General António Guterres indicated:
– the World Economic Forum (WEF), which brings together in Davos a thousand owners and top executives of financial and industrial giants, sometimes cloaked in ‘philanthropy,’ (1) among the summit’s star partners,
– former Rwandan Minister of Agriculture Agnes Kalibata, former chair of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (created in 2006 by the foundations and Bill & Melinda Gates, Rockefeller), as the UN spokesperson at the summit.
UNFSS, the views of the special rapporteurs to the UN.
The three successive special rapporteurs for the right to food at the UN-Olivier De Schutter (2008-2014), Hilal Elver (2014-2020), and Michael Fakhri (current)-have expressed fierce criticism of the UNFSS initiative. Which:
– is pitted against a democratic and efficient international body in which all FAO member states participate, its Committee on World Food Safety (CFS), whose rules should be enforced rather than ignored according to the convenience of the private sector,
– does not guarantee the participation of representatives of local and indigenous communities, nor of peasant agriculture on which more than 70 percent of the global food supply depends. Neither that of the workers, nor that of those who suffer food deprivation and those who strive to offer support,
– It does not even mention agroecology, which FAO (2019) has indicated as the paradigm to follow for the ecological transition of agrifood supply chains at the planetary level. (2) Privileging instead the global agribusiness and financial giants, whose models are instead the cause of the crisis face,
Hunger and malnutrition, obesity and related diseases
‘Global food systems have beenfailing most populations for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse:
– 265 million people are threatened by famine, a 50 percent increase from last year,
– 700 million suffer from chronic hunger and
– 2 billion more people suffer from malnutrition, with obesity and food-associated diseases on the rise in all regions of the planet‘ (3).
UNFSS, what dialogue?
‘Why are proposals to phase out pesticides, redistribute land ownership, and hold corporations accountable for their environmental and labor abuses not on the table? There is no point in referring to an open and inclusive dialogue if some perspectives are excluded and the agenda has been set from the beginning by actors representing the interests of the corporations.
In all evidence, the UNFSS has sidelined democratic and human rights-based organizations and made Corporation representatives among the main solvers of the food problems that the corporations themselves have ironically created and perpetuated’ (Sofia Monsalve, FIAN International, secretary general). (3)
UNFSS, #NotinOurNames.
#NotinOurNames Global food systems need to be transformed significantly, as noted, to contribute to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in UN Agenda 2030. But social justice, human rights, and the livelihood of farmers and ranchers are the premise and not a possible ‘side effect’ of dystopian scenarios.
Member states of UN, FAO, WHO have the primary duty to ensure that every human being has the availability of healthy, safe and nutritionally balanced food such as Big Food stubbornly fails to offer and indeed boycotts. (4) In addition to drinking water whose right is even denied, in the name of profit, by those same corporations.
To participate in the popular mobilization in antithesis to UNFSS, you can follow the program and updates on the website https://www.foodsystems4people.org
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Million Belay, Bridget Mugambe. Bill Gates Should Stop Telling Africans What Kind of Agriculture Africans Need. 6.7.21. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bill-gates-should-stop-telling-africans-what-kind-of-agriculture-africans-need1/?amp=true
(2) Michael Fakhri, Hilal Elver and Olivier De Schutter. The UN Food Systems Summit: How Not to Respond to the Urgency of Reform. InterPressService. 22.3.21. http://www.ipsnews.net/2021/03/un-food-systems-summit-not-respond-urgency-reform/
(3) FIAN International. UNFSS: Not Our Summit. People worldwide gear up to challenge, oppose corporate-controlled UN food summit. 15.7.21.
https://www.fian.org/en/press-release/article/unfss-not-our-summit-2813
(4) Marta Strinati, Dario Dongo. Nutrition and health, here’s how Big Food thwarts WHO. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 3.9.20. https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/nutrizione-e-salute-ecco-come-big-food-ostacola-l-oms
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
