PHM-Exch> Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2012

[Claudio Schuftan]

*Press release *


 *Right to Food and Nutrition Watch* *2012*

*WHO DECIDES ABOUT GLOBAL FOOD AND NUTRITION? *

*Strategies to Regain Control*


 *Contact:*

Léa Winter

*Right to Food and Nutrition Watch* Coordinator, Geneva

*winter at fian.org*

+41 22 328 03 41 / +41 77 429 26 30


 *Occupy the Food System! *


 *Civil society organizations call for a turnaround in global
decision-making on food and nutrition *


 *Geneva, September 25, 2012* - Civil society representatives launching the
fifth annual report on the right to food and nutrition state that it is
impossible to combat the causes of hunger while keeping existing power
relations untouched. "Food and power are related. It is almost impossible
to find one person among the powerful in society and politics worldwide,
who does not have enough to eat," said Huguette Akplogan-Dossa, the
Regional Coordinator of the African Network on the Right to Food
(ANoRF)."The tendency is for exclusion from economic and political
decision-making
to go hand in hand with incidence of hunger and malnutrition."


 The global report *Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2012*, with the title
"Who Decides About Global Food and Nutrition? – Strategies to Regain
Control," gives a multitude of examples of the severe violations of the
right to food and nutrition that the current food system is provoking: from
forced evictions and land grabbing by companies or corrupted members of
governments, as illustrated by the articles on Mexico and on the Arab
Spring, to inappropriate food supply programs or speculative investments in
agrofuels, described in the articles on Bangladesh, Paraguay and the
Philippines. "Those who protest because they have been deprived of their
land and cannot feed their family from their work are often arrested and
victims of violence. This is unacceptable," said Gerald Staberock,
Secretary General of the World Organisation against Torture (OMCT).


 "We can no longer accept chronic hunger or food riots being portrayed as
consequences of natural disasters or anonymous market failures," stated
Lalji Desai from the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples and
Nomadic Pastoralists (WAMIP) based in India. "The terrible living
conditions for hundreds of millions of people actually are caused by the
loss of control over their food and nutrition, and that’s why we struggle
for our right to self-determination and food sovereignty."


 The *Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2012 *focuses on exposing who is
really in control of decision and policy-making when it comes to food and
nutrition. "Far too often, agribusinesses and nutrition companies use their
weight and influence to increase their profit margins, and to manipulate
the rules to their interests and convenience, without regard for the best
interests of small-scale food producers and the survival of their
communities - let alone the moral and legal requirements of the human right
to food," observed Peter Prove, Executive Director of the Ecumenical
Advocacy Alliance (EAA).


 In reaction, social movements and other expressions of civil society have
engaged in strategies to regain people's control over food and nutrition.
"With the reform of the Committee on World Food Security, an innovative way
of inclusive governance has been established. It has been a breakthrough
for those civil society groups that traditionally have been excluded from
decision making processes on all levels," said Flavio Valente, Secretary
General of FIAN International. "The time has come to occupy political space
and fight for the primacy of human rights."


 ###

*For more information, and to download the report: http://www.rtfn-watch.org
*

 Published in English, Spanish and French in September 2012

*Published by*: Brot für die Welt, FIAN International and Interchurch
Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) in partnership with the
African Network on the Right to Food (ANoRF), International Centre
Crossroad (Crocevia), DanChurchAid (DCA), Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance
(EAA), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), International Indian Treaty
Council (IITC), Observatori DESC - Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
People's Health Movement (PHM), Inter-American Platform for Human Rights,
Democracy and Development (PIDHDD), US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA),
World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), and World Organisation
against Torture (OMCT).
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