'Food sovereignty': a step forward in the realisation of the right to food.

• Author: Goulet, Richard

Contents 1. Introduction 2. Food Sovereignty--Context, Origins and Development of the Concept 2.1 Structural Causes of Hunger 2.2 Response to Neo-Liberalism 2.3 History and Development of the Concept 3. Food Sovereignty and State Obligations 3.1 International Human Rights Obligations of States 3.2 How useful is the concept of food sovereignty? 4. Food Sovereignty and Non-state Actors 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Impact of non-state actors 4.3 Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Actors 5. Food Sovereignty and Gender 5.1 Introduction 5.2 What is a Gender Perspective? 5.3 The Importance of Adopting a Gender Perspective 5.4 Gender and food sovereignty 6 Conclusion Endnotes References 1. Introduction

The problem of hunger constitutes one of the most daunting human rights challenges facing the global community. Its dimensions are staggering and the problem is getting worse despite continued efforts by the international community to address it.

The extent and gravity of the problem is outlined by the 2005 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR):

In its 2004 report, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports that hunger has increased to 852 million gravely undernourished children, women and men, compared to 842 million last year, despite already warning of a 'setback in the war against hunger' in 2003. It is an outrage that more than 6 million small children are killed by hunger-related diseases every year, in a world that is wealthier than ever before and that already produces enough food to feed the world's population. (1) Recent estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2007 puts the number of hungry people at 923 million, an additional 75 million added since the last estimates done for the 2003-2005 period. (2) This ever increasing number must be considered in light of the World's ability to feed itself. According to the FAO, despite a 70 percent population increase in the last 30 years, world agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today which is 'enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9)'. (3)

The increase in hunger is most pronounced in Africa. A recent study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) concluded 'that chronic food insecurity in Africa has been increasing since 1970, with the number of malnourished people in sub-Saharan Africa soaring from 88 million to 200 million in 1999-2001' (4), approximately one quarter of the total population of 794 million. (5)

In order to tackle the problem of hunger, it is important to understand two of its important dimensions. Firstly, hunger resides largely in rural areas of developing countries. According to the FAO, 96% of those facing hunger and malnutrition live in developing countries and 76% live in rural area (6), prompting it to conclude that 'the fight to eliminate hunger and reach other MDGs [Millennium Development Goals] will be won or lost in the rural areas where the vast majority of the world's hungry lives' (7).

Secondly, there is an important gender dimension to hunger. Despite the fact that women are responsible for half the world's food production and most of the food production in developing countries (60 to 80%), they are the ones who suffer most from poverty and hunger. According to a recent report by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD),

it is reasonable to assume that women constitute a disproportionate share of the world's poor given their constrained access to capital and land, their lower labour market status, and their disproportionate responsibility for the provision of unpaid domestic and care work. (8)

The preceding identifies some of the important dimensions of the problem of hunger and suggests that current policy prescriptions have failed to effectively address this problem and reverse its worsening trend. As a result, new and innovative perspectives and approaches are urgently needed.

Recently, a new and promising concept, food sovereignty, has emerged which challenges current approaches to solving the problem of hunger. In this paper we will assess the usefulness of this concept to determine whether it is helpful in bringing about new solutions to the problem of world hunger and to make the main players in the food system more accountable. In doing so, we will focus on three areas which are crucial in realising the right to food.

Firstly, we will look at the state as the bearer of the primary responsibility for ensuring the realization of the right to food under existing international human rights law. Can the concept of food sovereignty help make the state become better able and more accountable in fulfilling its responsibility for realising the right to food of those who live within its borders?

Secondly, the increased dominance of non-state actors in the food system and the concurrent loss of sovereignty of states obliges us to look at ways in which this emerging group can be made more accountable for their actions when they have a negative impact on food security. To what extent can the concept of food sovereignty be used to make non-state actors more accountable and to participate in resolving the problem of hunger? Can it help to shape emerging developments in human rights law which would attribute human rights obligations to these actors? Can food sovereignty policy proposals influence non-state actors in other ways that could contribute to the alleviation of hunger?

Thirdly, it is important to look at food sovereignty from a gender perspective to assess whether it can address the issues of importance to women given their unique role in the food system and the fact that they suffer disproportionately from hunger. Does the concept of food sovereignty help bring a gender perspective to our understanding and interpretation of the right to food and help provide effective solutions?

Before looking at these questions, however, it is important to outline the origins and development of the concept of food sovereignty and identify the principles on which it is based and the policy prescriptions it proposes.

2. Food Sovereignty--Context, Origins and Development of the Concept

   Food Sovereignty evolved as a response by Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organisation (CSOs) to the failure of the current food system to effectively tackle the problem of hunger as described below.

   2.1 Structural Causes of Hunger

   Although this paper does not aim to provide a detailed discussion of the structural causes of poverty and hunger, it is nevertheless important to provide a general overview of how proponents of food sovereignty characterise these problems and how they seek to address them. A number of authors such as Windfuhr and Jonsen, Mowbray and Hauter have identified the international economic system and the policies under which it operates as one of the main factors contributing to world hunger and food insecurity especially in developing countries.

   Mowbray points to three characteristics of the international economic system which are worth noting when considering the effectiveness of a rights based approach to hunger and the potential benefit of incorporating the concept of food sovereignty. Firstly, the inequities produced in the international economic system and its contribution to hunger 'are the result of deep, structural problems' inherent in this system and have developed over a long period of time. (9) Secondly, this system is not exclusively controlled by states and is increasingly influenced by non-state actors who 'are coming to play a greater and greater role in the operation of the system, while states and governments are correspondingly losing control over both the international system and their own economies.' (10) Thirdly, the effects of the system 'are often the result of individual actions by particular actors, but of interactions between these actors in a sort of diffuse 'web' of economic influence' which Mowbray terms as a 'network effect'. (11)

   Given the nature of the international economic system and the current state of international human rights law, how effective can a rights-based approach being tackling the problem of world hunger? Can the concept of food sovereignty contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of this approach? We will attempt to answer these questions further below. However, it is first worth noting examples of the way in which the system operates.

   Since the mid-1980s, structural adjustment policies (SAPs) have been implemented in most developing countries by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forcing these states to open their agricultural market to cheap imports and encouraging them to produce products for export for which they have a 'comparative advantage'. (12) According to this theory, 'countries benefit most by producing goods in which they have the least disadvantage compared to other countries' (13). These policies also require that states restructure their fiscal and social policies in ways which lessen the states' presence in the economy and their ability to deliver effective social programs.

   Similar neo-liberal policies have been implemented under the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AoA). Trade rules have been agreed to which require developing countries to open up their markets to foreign agricultural products which mostly originate from developed countries. This exposes their domestic agricultural sectors to competition from these heavily subsidized exports with the negative consequences described below.

   While developing countries have opened up their markets during the last fifteen years, their smallholder farmers still have to compete with subsidized exports from industrialized countries. Because poor countries are not able to pay subsidies to...