People's Food Sovereignty Network Launched
Click
Here to Add Comment Subject:
People's Food Sovereignty Network Launched
Date:
Wed, 30 Oct 2002 10:06:21 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Joint Press Release - Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific
IBON Foundation
Press Release - Embargoed until November 1st, 2002
People's Food Sovereignty Network Launched
Network coalition formed to protect and promote peoples right to food sovereignty in response to devastating neo-liberal trade policies, globalisation and WTO (Agreement on Agriculture)
Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) together with the IBON Foundation, Philippines announce the formation of the "People's Food Sovereignty Network in Asia", on the occasion of PAN AP's 11th anniversary.
The Network will focus on agriculture, food and trade issues. It aims to support the call by grassroots organizations-namely peasant movements including farmers, fisherfolk, women, indigenous peoples, as well as agriculture workers-to advance demands for Food Sovereignty, with the support of the NGOs, citizen's movements and others.
"Food Sovereignty has become the clarion call of peasant movements' the world over in reaction to the threats that globalisation, trade liberalisation and the WTO pose to food security," explains Sarojeni V. Rengam, Executive Director of PAN AP. "It includes the right to food, the right to land and productive resources, sustainable agriculture, and the recognition of women's tremendous role in agriculture and advancement of women's rights. The network will forward all these rights, which are fundamental to peoples' rights!" she asserts.
"The World Trade Organization has become the main instrument in trade liberalization which is destroying food security and people's food sovereignty day by day especially in poor Third World countries. Because of this, peasant organizations worldwide and their staunch supporters have demanded that the WTO should be taken out of food and agriculture", states Antonio Tujan, Executive Director of the IBON Foundation. "Multilateral trade rules in food and agriculture must be made under the framework of food sovereignty. We will campaign even harder so that the 5th Ministerial of the WTO at Cancun, Mexico in September 2003 will not produce more window dressing that will only strengthen the Agreement on Agriculture while getting the New Round to expand the WTO started", he stressed.
Food Sovereignty was a major campaign of social and grassroots movements, and supportive NGOs like PAN AP and IBON, who gathered in Rome this past June for the World Food Summit. These groups had expressed disappointment in, and rejected, the official Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later. Instead, they had proposed the unifying concept of Food Sovereignty as a concrete way to truly end hunger.
"Food and agriculture production must be in the hands of local communities - the peasants and farmers. Food and agriculture should not be controlled by the WTO. The WTO benefits the transnational corporations who are only interested in making profits, and not feeding the hungry. Peasants Movements around the world will continue our struggle for land, food sovereignty and an end to the WTO!" states Henry Saragih of FSPI (Federation of Indonesian Peasant Organisations), and member of the International Coordinating Committee of Via Campesina (a Global Peasants Movement) for East and South East Asia.
"Food security is the right to adequate food for every citizen. It can only be realised in a system where food sovereignty is guaranteed. This requires strong and determined leadership from the mass movements and communities that have been marginalized and oppressed in the current capital-centred system. We will continue to strive for Food Sovereignty with agricultural workers and peasants-with women taking the lead!" comments Irene Fernandez of Tenaganita (Women's Force) on the Launch.
'Food Sovereignty' as articulated by Peoples Movements is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.
The food sovereignty concept was adopted at the NGO-CSO Forum, and the call on WTO out of agriculture reverberated in related mass actions, plenary sessions, workshops and other venues. Subsequently, the call for WTO out of Agriculture and for Food Sovereignty-particularly through a Convention on Food Sovereignty-was achieved at the NGO Forum for food sovereignty via a very strong UNITY Statement and Plan of Action. The statement was read out to the World Food Summit general Assembly, and a copy was officially handed over to the Director General, Jacques Deuf.
Additionally peasants groups undertook a postcard campaign demanding for "Food Sovereignty and Sustainability", "WTO out of Agriculture", and for the upholding of peasants rights to land and productive resources. Over 70,000 cards were handed over to the Director General of FAO. People's movements' representatives also reiterated these demands at the multistakeholder dialogues with governments.
In the build up to the World Food Summit and the WTO Ministerial in Qatar, PAN AP, IBON and the Global Peasants Movement La Via Campesina had organized a Strategy Workshop on Taking WTO Out of Agriculture in July 24-26 2001.
The Network will build on these previous efforts and successes, it will work to consolidate the gains made, and strengthen future efforts to foster and promote Food Sovereignty.
For further Information Contact:
Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific*,
P.O. Box: 1170, 10850,
Penang, Malaysia.
Tel: (604) 657 0271/ 6560381 Fax: (604) 657 7445.
E-mail: panap@panap.net
IBON Foundation Inc., 3/F SCC Bldg., 4427 Int. Old. Sta. Mesa Manila, the
Philippines.
Tel: +632 7132737/+632 713 2729. Fax: +632 716 0108 E-mail:
ibon@info.com.ph
*For enquiries (from the 30th. Of October to the 1st. of November, 2002), Ms. Sarojeni V. Rengam who will be attending the FAO Meeting in Rome may be contacted via the contact person at the address below :
Ms. Anna Castelli
IPC Secretariat - Rome
Via Angelo di Pietro, 21-00165
Rome, Italy
Tel : ++39.06.39377764/++39.06.39376518
Fax : ++39.06.39377758
Email : ngoforum.anna@libero.it
Background Information:
The call for Food Sovereignty comes at a time when globalisation and liberalisation of the agricultural sector has resulted in loss of farmers access to land, water, seeds and forests which has threatened peoples food security, health, livelihood and the environment.
Agreements under WTO particularly Agreement on Agriculture, Trade related Intellectual Property Rights, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreements and technical Barriers to Trade, allows the rich countries to export at prices below their cost of production whereby destroying food sovereignty in all regions. These trade agreements have increasingly created cartels and monopolies by transnational corporations controlling food production and distribution.
The dumping of subsidised food products at very low prices has destroyed peasant farming communities worldwide, leading to massive bankruptcy, accelerating landlessness, indebtedness, displacement and destitution, and migration. Further, consumers are also barraged by substandard, unhealthy and hazardous foods.
Results from PAN AP's 7 country case study project conducted by grassroots groups and NGO partners to assess the impacts of the AoA verified that agricultural trade liberalisation has harmed small farmers and impoverished the poor further, making them more food insecure.
During the initial stages of the GATT negotiations, proponents claimed that the AoA would provide greater access to world markets in agricultural products of all countries-by reducing tariffs and other trade barriers, farming subsidies an so on-the only exceptions being the food-importing least developed countries.
But as the 7 country case studies and additional research materials reveal, manipulation by food-exporting developed countries to retain high tariffs and subsidies has flooded developing countries with cheap food exports. Unable to face this unfair competition, small and subsistence farmers have suffered loss of income, increased bankruptcies from depressed prices and high costs of production, displacement and loss of land, and loss of livelihoods in agriculture.
The case studies were undertaken in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, India, and Pakistan in 2001. Complied in a resource book aptly entitled 'Empty Promises...Empty Stomachs - Impact of the Agreement on Agriculture and Trade Liberalization on Food Security', most of the studies focused on one crop of importance in their area e.g. rice, potato, cassava.
_________________________________
People's Caravan 2000
This information service is facilitated by PAN AP
Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific
P.O. Box 1170, 10850, Penang, Malaysia.
Tel: (604) 657 0271/ 656 0381 Fax (604) 657 7445
E-mail: pcaravan@tm.net.my /
panap@panap.net
Webpage:
www.poptel.org.uk/panap/caravan.htm
If you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, please email us at list@safe2use.com.