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From MISNANov. 16, 2009
While the prestigious absences at the summit of the FAO (Food
and Agriculture Organisation) that opens today in Rome are already drawing
controversy, at the parallel counter-summit, the Civil Society Forum, “all the
stars are present”, as one of the organizers Gustavo Duch Guillot said. Over 500
delegates of the civil societies of the entire world - from Saul, in
representation of the indigenous communities of Latin America, to Mamaya of an
artisanal fishing cooperative of Guinea Conakry, Agripia from Tanzania (who
tells of expulsions of the Masai from their ancestral land to make space for
international multinationals in search of land) – are gathered since Friday in
Rome in a bid to “discuss today to ensure a change tomorrow”, in the words of
Yeko Etienne Sede of the Coalition of farmers organisations of Congo Brazaville.
The works of the FAO summit will be opened today by Pope Benedict XVI and United
Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and will proceed until Wednesday November
18 with a series of roundtables and interventions of Presidents and Heads of
government; a final declaration drawn up in the past days should already be
approved tomorrow, which based on a draft in circulation contains a series of
declarations of intent and commitments for “urgent measures to eradicate hunger
in the world”. A text that has already drawn strong criticism from many NGO’s
(Non-Governmental Organizations) and associations of the sector that say it
doesn’t contain precise numbers or commitments toward achieving the mutual goal
of defeating hunger and malnutrition.
According to experts, both of the FAO and organizations and associations,
massive investments in the rural and agricultural sectors are necessary to
confront the problem of malnutrition. Aid from the West to the World’s South was
quantified in $44-billion a year, which should however be accompanied by a more
or less equivalent sum through local public investments. Investments that, the
experts emphasize, would consent the same “green revolution” that in the 70’s
and 80’s lifted many Asian and Latin American nations from food crises.
Small farmers and other small food producers count 1.5-billion in the world and produce 75% of the world food demand
Though while the economic demand today represents a fifth of what in the past
decades allowed a reduction in malnutrition in some areas of the world, today
what appears lacking is a political will. Many editorialists and commentators in
the past days emphasized the absence at today’s summit of Presidents of the
richer western economies (from the US to Germany, UK and Germany), defining the
summit a “flop” even before it opened. In the view of the components of the
alternative Forum of the Civil Society, a radical change of perspective is
necessary: putting in contrast the local with the global, the small with the
transnational.
Discussions of the Civil Society Forum of the past days have clearly emphasized
that the only viable solution to the global food crisis can be achieved through
small food producers; a certainty that the participants of the ‘counter-summit’
will present tomorrow to the ‘official’ FAO summit, where a manifestation and
press conference were organized.
“Small farmers and other small food producers count 1.5-billion in the world and
produce 75% of the world food demand. We can reach 100% of the demand through
sustainable agriculture and breeding farms on a reduced scale”, says a
statement, reiterating that “contrary to what is said, agricultural production
on a vast scale is sufficient to feed all”.
Based on figures in circulation, 80% of the 1-billion people affected by hunger
and malnutrition are in fact small agricultural producers and inhabitants of
rural areas, who with appropriate public policies and funding would rapidly be
able to feed themselves and others. The participants of the Civil Society Forum
in Rome are also convinced, as Nettie Weibe of the ‘Via Campesina’ said
yesterday, that local agriculture and markets can also “cool down” the planet.
“Just and appropriate policies in support of family agriculture, such as those
favoring genuine agricultural reforms that distribute land to small farmers
instead of creating new farm estates in the hands of multinationals, would bring
a lot more benefits to the environment and climate change than any kind of
accord that emerges from the upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen”, said Weibe.
In a recent interview, Jean Ziegler, vice-president of the UN Human Rights
Commission and former Special Rapporteur on the right to food, referring to the
vast part of humanity suffering from hunger stated: “It is barbarity and absurd,
given that the world agriculture is able to feed 12-billion people, double in
respect to our number, providing us over 2,000 calories a day”. “On any African
market you will find French, Greek or Spanish vegetables, fruit or meat at half
price in respect to local products, while the Senegalese farmer who works 12
hours a day cant make ends meet”, added the UN official. (mz/pmb)
