PHM-Exch> Mobilization for World Food Day Oct 16

[Claudio Schuftan]

Call to Mobilize
For the Democratic Transformation of Food Systems Based on Human Rights
To Demand Food Systems for Democracy and Social, Ecological, Economic and
Cultural
Transformation!
Food Sovereignty Now!
We, small-scale food producers, peasants, workers, fishers, pastoralists,
Indigenous Peoples,
women, gender diverse peoples and young farmers, who fight for Food
Sovereignty, launch this
call to action. We will start our mobilizations on 16 October 2023, World
Food Day, and will
continue until we reach our Nyéléni Global Forum for food sovereignty in
2025 by joining hands
with all those confronting the system of transnational corporate power,
which threatens our peoples
and undermines our rights and livelihoods.
We recognize our global social, political, and ecological
inter-connectedness. We confront a period
of destabilization of institutions and social and ecological systems that
sustain and support the
livelihoods of the majority of the world’s communities. We join together in
rising up against right
wing and authoritarian forces that seek to dismantle democracy. We resist
patriarchy, racism, and
capitalism.
This is a critical moment for us to collectively grow our struggle for the
transformation of food
systems, based on justice and respect for peoples’ collective and
interdependent economic,
cultural, social, indigenous, and environmental rights, and all fundamental
rights. We must fight
for systems change to affirm care for people and the planet, based on
agroecology, food
sovereignty, and social, economic, gender and climate justice. Together
they advance the well-
being of all our peoples and the continuity of humanity and Mother Earth.
Why are we starting this call for action?
The world is in unprecedented turmoil, and we are all facing deeply rooted
and overlapping crises.
The “2023 Global Report on Food Crises” confirms that “258 million people
faced acute levels of
hunger in 2022, compared to 193 million in 2021 and 155 million in 2020”.1
Neoliberal policies and the promotion of industrial agriculture have failed
to eliminate hunger and
poverty in the world. The concentration of corporate wealth and power has,
in fact, made our food
and political systems less resilient to shocks and more prone to elite
capture. Similarly, these actors
are increasingly influencing international institutions, including UN
bodies and agencies, carrying
out “corporate capture” of the UN system to receive public policies and
regulations favorable only
to them. Through the direct influence of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and
other high-level
(non-governmental) political spaces, corporations have slowly succeeded in
transforming the
1 2023 Global Report on Food Crises: Joint Analysis for Better Decisions
(Rome: Food Security Information Network and
Global Network against Food Crises, 2023), pp. 7, 17,
https://www.fsinplatform.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/GRFC2023-hi-res.pdf
.
governance principles and practices of UN institutions, such as the Food
and Agriculture
Organization (FAO). The negative impacts are manifold, particularly in the
Global South, and
increasingly risk not only the vitality of rural communities globally, but
also the legitimacy and
mission of these public institutions.
Meanwhile, our organizations continue to promote healthy food production
through agroecology,
defending our territories against the grabbing and dispossession of land
and natural resources, and
continue to suffer the criminalization of our struggles, leading to the
physical disappearance and
murder of our leaders and leaders.
Food Sovereignty demands systems change
The Social Movement for Food Sovereignty started 27 years ago and has been
a dynamic part of
the transformation toward achieving gender, social, cultural,
environmental, and economic justice,
and achievement of peoples’ sovereignty. We have achieved greater political
recognition of the
critical role played by small-scale food producers in feeding the majority
of the world's population.
We have fought the neoliberal economic model that has led to increasing
precarity for small scale
producers and other workers, imposed unregulated and unfair free-trade
regimes, and commodified
life itself. We have won political recognition of the rights of our peoples
now enshrined in several
frameworks from the local to the international spheres. The time to advance
is now.
Since the beginning of our movement, we have expressed our opposition to
converting food into
a commodity. That is why we have fought to get the World Trade Organization
(WTO) out of
agriculture; we have opposed the ‘green revolution’ and large-scale
industrial agriculture
responsible for environmental degradation and a third of global carbon
emissions of greenhouse
gasses. We have been contributing to and strengthening the United Nations
multilateral system to
guarantee the human right to food, as well as the collective rights of
Indigenous Peoples and small-
scale food producers, in particular, the right to a life in dignity. We
have defended our lands and
territories and promoted agroecology under the paradigm of Food Sovereignty
as an alternative
pathway to eradicating hunger and cooling the planet. We have built our
power by bringing
together peoples’ movements - peasants, indigenous peoples, workers,
fisherfolk, pastoralists,
women and youth, forest peoples, consumers, environmental justice.
How will we mobilize?
We call on all communities and peoples acting in their territories against
corporate control and for
food sovereignty, climate justice, for solidarity and peace, for gender,
racial and economic justice
to join our mobilizations from October 16th, 2023, onwards.
We call all of you to join our global mobilizations that are decentralized
and rooted in the agendas
and realities of the different regions of the world.
Actions already announced:
• We will undertake specific protest actions during the World Food Forum of
FAO (16 to 20
October) to denounce the recent FAO's common priorities agenda, which has
established
an unprecedented open-door policy for the corporate sector, as evidenced by
the signing of
an agreement with CropLife International, and an industry-friendly
multi-stakeholder
approach.
• We will send letters to national governments (get samples from our
address) demanding support to protect FAO against
corporate influence and to new initiatives towards a democratic
transformation of food
systems based on food sovereignty and human rights.
• We will organize an IPC online briefing on Thursday, 12th of October to
present a statement
for World Food Day. get link from our address below
• We will organize a social media storm on Monday, 16 October. contact us
for more instructions
on how to get involved and share your local action with us!

p.benincasa at croceviaterra.it
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