"FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: towards democracy in localized food systems" by Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén, FIAN. ITDG Publishing - working paper. 64pp. 2005.

This paper provides a comprehensive history, overview and analysis of the Food Sovereignty Policy Framework. Links to many key statements and documents produced over the past decade.

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PREFACE

Food Sovereignty: towards democracy in localized food systems

ITDG commissioned this paper by FIAN as a contribution to the discourse on Food Sovereignty, the rapidly developing food and agriculture policy framework. In a world plagued simultaneously and perversely by hunger and obesity, rational policies are overdue for governing the way food is grown, processed and traded, and how the benefits of the world's food systems are shared.

Most food in the world is grown, collected and harvested by more than a billion small-scale farmers, pastoralists and artisanal fisherfolk. This food is mainly sold, processed, resold and consumed locally, thereby providing the foundation of peoples' nutrition, incomes and economies across the world. At a time when halving world poverty and eradicating hunger are at the forefront of the international development agenda, reinforcing the diversity and vibrancy of local food systems should also be at the forefront of the international policy agenda. Yet, the rules that govern food and agriculture at all levels - local, national and international - are designed a priori to facilitate not local, but international trade. This reduces diversity and concentrates the wealth of the world's food economies in the hands of ever fewer multinational corporations, while the majority of the world's small-scale food producers, processors, local traders and consumers including, crucially, the poor and malnourished, are marginalised.

In this paper, Michael Windfuhr shows how the Food Sovereignty policy framework addresses this dilemma. The policy framework starts by placing the perspective and needs of the majority at the heart of the global food policy agenda and embraces not only the control of production and markets, but also the Right to Food, peoples' access to and control over land, water and genetic resources, and the use of environmentally-sustainable approaches to production. What emerges is a persuasive and highly political argument for refocusing the control of food production and consumption within democratic processes rooted in localised food systems.

Now, when there is intense debate about how the world will halve poverty and eradicate hunger, the policies that govern the way food is produced, consumed and distributed, how it is processed and traded, and who controls the food chain, need to be looked at comprehensively. This timely paper points a way forward and invites a more focused consideration of the principles behind what is fast becoming recognised as the most important food and agriculture policy consensus for the 21st century.

Patrick Mulvany

Senior Policy Adviser

ITDG

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Food Sovereignty: towards democracy in localized food systems

The development of ideas for the new Food Sovereignty policy framework is pro-
gressing rapidly. It has become a focus of interest not only for farmers' organiza-
tions, but also for fisherfolk, pastoralists and indigenous peoples' organizations as
well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations
(CSOs). Behind the development of the concept of Food Sovereignty lies a global
social network of NGOs, CSOs and social movements and many conferences,
forums and declarations. Via Campesina, the global farmers' movement, developed
the concept in the early 1990s, with the objective of encouraging NGOs and CSOs
to discuss and promote alternatives to neo-liberal policies for achieving food secu-
rity. Since the concept was launched to the general public at the World Food
Summit in 1996 an ever-growing number of NGOs, CSOs and social movements
have made policy statements on Food Sovereignty directed at a broad array of insti-
tutions. (For a summary of the development of the concept of Food Sovereignty see
the appendix.)


The current problems of hunger and malnutrition, as well as rural poverty,
have become a priority challenge for international policy. Even though the
problems have received some attention at the international level, for example
with the adoption of the Rome Declaration of the World Food Summit in 1996
calling for the number of the hungry to be halved by 2015, the incorporation
of this in the first Millennium Development Goal, and the overall orientation of
some bi- and multilateral aid policies intended to achieve this goal, traditional
approaches have failed to address the problems adequately. The latest FAO fig-
ures show that the positive trends in the reduction of the number of the hun-
gry and malnourished people that were reported for the first half of the 1990s
have reversed: between 1995 and 2005 the number of chronically hungry in
developing countries increased at a rate of almost 5 million per year ­ from 800
million to 852 million.


Food Sovereignty focuses attention on the international `framework' (World
Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, etc.) and the inter-
national causes of hunger and malnutrition. It focuses too on national policies that
can be oriented towards reducing rural poverty and eliminating hunger and mal-
nutrition. The right to adequate food is a legal reference instrument and provides
legal standards for all measures and policies undertaken by each state to secure
access to adequate food for everybody. It requires that the framework operates
properly and that states implement their obligations under the right to adequate
food and other human rights.


Current mainstream answers to the problems causing malnutrition are failing
and adherence to a set of central ideas or principles, based around an ever-greater
concentration on trade-based food security, is inadequate to tackle the problems.
Additional analysis and a search for new, innovative solutions are needed. The
World Food Summit Plan of Action contained commitments for nation states,
but follow-up has been weak and does not tackle the contradictions between different
elements of its action plan.


Strategies to reduce hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty require a new focus
on rural development and rural areas. For the next four decades, it is estimated that
the majority of the world's poor population will continue to live in rural areas.
Food Sovereignty policies are a necessary and important contribution to current
debate by concentrating attention on the perspectives of those who face hunger
and malnutrition.


This principle is common to all the different interpretations of Food Sovereignty:
they start their analyses from the perspective of those facing hunger and rural
poverty. The debate on the different instruments and their potential has only rela-
tively recently started among the different civil society actors. It is a dynamic
debate that needs further support and enrichment from civil society and scientific
contributions, because giving credible and effective answers to the overall problem
is not an easy task. The further development of the Food Sovereignty framework
would probably be enhanced if it were possible to implement several of the ideas
in parallel. Some initiatives have already started, for example some co-ordination
of views is being achieved through the IPC for Food Sovereignty in Rome. For the
time being, though, the most important outcome could be to enrich the debate
and discuss the relevance of different potential policy changes. Each NGO, CSO or
social movement should then decide which strategic element it can support.


At present, one cannot distil a fully-fledged `Food Sovereignty model' in the
sense of a ready-made set of policies already available for national and global gov-
ernance of rural and agricultural policies. Even though many key elements of such
a new policy proposal have already been identified and formulated, the overall
concept and strategy needs further improvement and clarification, as this paper
shows. The use of terminology and definitions, particularly the rights-based lan-
guage, also needs to be more precise. Several issues have not been addressed prop-
erly, such as the situation of the urban poor and their access to food. These are
areas in which further debate is needed. The framework has not yet been finalized:
it is still being formed.


The purpose of this paper is to show how the Food Sovereignty policy framework
has developed and what the basic assumptions and underlying analyses are. It analy-
ses how the framework relates to the current problems in rural and agricultural poli-
cies and discusses possible policy constraints to adoption of the Food Sovereignty
policy framework. It ends with an encouragement to take the approach seriously
and an invitation to join the discussion on the further development of the Food
Sovereignty policy framework.
Food Sovereignty is the new policy framework being proposed by social move-
ments all over the world for the governance of food and agriculture, because it
addresses the core problems of hunger and poverty in a new and innovative way.
It deserves serious consideration.

Literature and references (Updated links Sept 2005)

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY: Towards democracy in localized food systems
Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén
FIAN-International

Published by ITDG Publishing
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First published in 2005
ISBN 1-85339-608-7

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Contents

Food Sovereignty:
towards democracy in localized food systems

DOWNLOAD FULL DOCUMENT AS PDF WITH EMBEDDED LINKS

FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY © ITDG Publishing 2005

Preface


Acknowledgements


Acronyms


About the Authors and FIAN


Executive summary


Introduction


Context: Poverty, hunger and malnutrition


Core elements of Food Sovereignty


Comparison of Food Sovereignty with food security and the Right to Food


Potential for Food Sovereignty policies to eradicate poverty and hunger
and to provide sustainable livelihoods


Analysis of constraints to the adoption and implementation of Food
Sovereignty policies


Extent of recognition of Food Sovereignty by governments,
intergovernmental organizations, civil society organizations and social
movements


Current relevance of Food Sovereignty


Endnotes


Appendix: Food Sovereignty: Historical overview of the development of the concept

      (includes Table 3 'Overview of core documents' with weblinks)


Literature and references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to all those who lent their gen-
erous support and advice throughout the writing of this paper. First and foremost,
to ITDG for commissioning, proof-reading and the lay-out of this paper and, in
particular, to Chris Emerson for editing various drafts. Special thanks also go to
Patrick Mulvany for his invaluable feedback, constructive comments and great
patience.

We would also like specially to thank La Vía Campesina and the IPC, the Inter-
national NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, for the fruitful
exchange of ideas that provided important inputs into the present publication.
Finally, a warm thank you as well to all the others who contributed in different
ways to this paper.

Michael Windfuhr
Jennie Jonsén

Acronyms

Introduction
The concept of Food Sovereignty has been developing rapidly since it was first pro-
posed a decade ago. It is becoming a reference point for discourse on food issues,
particularly among social movements around the world. It is no longer discussed
by farmers' organizations alone, it is also increasingly referred to by pastoralist,
fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples' organizations and by associated NGOs and
CSOs, and is starting to be recognized by some United Nations' agencies. It is there-
fore an appropriate time to analyse the different interpretations of and suggestions
for implementing the framework in order to understand its potential.
The term `Food Sovereignty' has been used increasingly since the mid-1990s. It
is an umbrella term for particular approaches to tackling the problems of hunger
and malnutrition, as well as promoting rural development, environmental
integrity and sustainable livelihoods. This approach is being developed and dis-
cussed as a counter-proposal to the mainstream development paradigm built on
liberalized international agricultural trade, trade-based food security, and industrial
agriculture and food production by well-resourced producers. Food Sovereignty has
become the new policy framework for challenging current trends in rural develop-
ment and food and agricultural policies that do not respect or support the interests
and needs of smallholder farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk (1) and the environment.

While there is no universally agreed definition for the term `Food Sovereignty',
an increasing number of documents have offered interpretations. One of the most
commonly used is from the People's Food Sovereignty Network (2002):

Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to pro-
tect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sus-
tainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self
reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their markets; and to provide local fish-
eries-based communities the priority in managing the use of and the rights to aquatic
resources. Food Sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather it promotes the formula-
tion of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to food and to safe,
healthy and ecologically sustainable production.

Many NGOs, CSOs and farmers' organizations and their social movements use
this definition in their policy documents and have contributed to the development
of the framework.

Discussion of Food Sovereignty policies is spreading beyond these organizations
and movements. Intergovernmental organizations such as the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have started to investigate
the content and scope of the Food Sovereignty policy framework and the first aca-
demic articles are now being published. Some political parties have also incorpo-
rated it into their agendas (for example the annual P7 Summit in 2001, organized
by the Greens/ European Free Alliance, recognized Food Sovereignty as an alterna-
tive to existing trade polices).

Context: Poverty, hunger and malnutrition
According to FAO figures, more than 850 million people currently face hunger and
malnutrition. Some 815 million of them live in economically developing coun-
tries, 76% in rural areas (FAO, 2004a, pp.6­10). All available data and studies show
that the number of hungry and malnourished people has increased in the last
decade, even though enough food is produced globally to satisfy the needs of the
world's population. Hunger and malnutrition today are not caused by food short-
age, or scarcity: hunger is an issue of access to food, to an adequate income, or to
productive resources that allow poor people to either produce or buy enough food.
The inequitable distribution of food, land, and other productive resources are the
main causes of hunger and malnutrition.

The World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 committed governments to halving the
number of hungry people by 2015.(2) This goal was later integrated into the first
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) set by the General Assembly of the United
Nations in 2000. At the World Food Summit: five years later (WFS:fyl) in June 2002 (3)
it was clear that this goal would not be achieved unless substantial policy changes
were made. FAO itself argued in the final declaration that the situation was caused
by a `lack of political will' to implement policies that would reduce hunger and by
the lack of investment.(4) NGOs/CSOs and social movements said in the concluding
statement of the parallel `Forum for Food Sovereignty' that not only was the polit-
ical will to combat hunger lacking but also that at the same time too much politi-
cal will is used to promote policies that actually exacerbate hunger. It is clear that
strategies to overcome or reduce hunger, malnutrition and rural poverty need to
both promote new policies as well as challenge the national and international
policy environment that hinders access to productive resources or to an income
sufficient to feed oneself for so many people worldwide.

Regular reviews of the status of hunger and malnutrition are provided in United
Nations reports presented by the Millennium Project. To recommend how to
implement the first MDG on poverty and hunger and, specifically, to halve the
number of hungry and malnourished people by 2015, a group of experts was set up
by the UN Secretary General.(5) This `Hunger Task Force' developed a typology of the
hungry worldwide (see Table 1). Current estimates are that more than 75% of the
world's poorest people live in rural areas and depend mainly or partly on agriculture
for their livelihoods.

Half the world's hungry people are smallholder farmers who live off a limited
area of land, without adequate access to productive resources. Two-thirds of them
live on marginal lands in environmentally difficult conditions, such as hillsides or
areas threatened by drought or other natural disasters, including flooding, mud
slides, etc. They have historically been forced onto marginal lands or have been
allowed access to landholdings that are intentionally too small to achieve self-suf-
ficiency. Moreover, 22% of the hungry are landless families, who often survive
from income earned under precarious working conditions as labourers. Another
8% are part of the fishing, hunting and herding communities. Secure access to pro-
ductive resources ­ land, water, and agricultural inputs such as seeds and livestock
breeds, etc. ­ are therefore key to improving the situation of these families. These
inequalities are exacerbated by the fact that the driving force of food and agricul-
tural policies of many countries, in both the industrialized North and the global
South, has been industrial agriculture and livestock production and commercial
fisheries, and not the needs of smallholder farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk to
have secure access to the productive resources they require. All definitions of Food
Sovereignty reflect this challenge and highlight the importance of improving
resource access rights as well as equitable trade policies and sustainable production
practices, and establishing the Right to Food.
There are still a number of myths and assumptions about why hunger and mal-
nutrition exist in a world of plenty, many of which refer to natural disasters and
conflict. Environmental factors such as unreliable rain or storms and drought
are often thought to be the main reasons behind famine and hunger, along with
complex political situations such as conflicts and civil war. According to the
Millennium Project, around 60 million people are currently affected by civil strife
and insecure political conditions.

Even though these explanations are indeed relevant, they address the symptoms
that occur in situations where people are poor and vulnerable rather than the
underlying causes. The reason why poor people are the most affected by natural
disasters is due to their lack of reserves, power, and possibilities, and their lack of
control over resources.

Table 1

A typology of hunger

Cutting across the above groups:
Vulnerable individuals
Vulnerable pregnant and nursing women and their
infants, pre-school children, chronically ill or disabled,
several hundred million
Victims of extreme events
About 60 million

HIV-related food insecurity
Number of food-insecure households with adults or
children infected by HIV
About 150 million.

Source: UNDP (2003a, p.15)

It is important to note that several authors warn that the current relative overpro-
duction of food, although distribution is inequitable, is a temporarily fortunate sit-
uation that may change in the future. There are three sets of opinions about the
causes of declining future food availability per capita. Some refer to the expected
increase in world population (Population Reference Bureau, 2003). Others high-
light the growing demand for food, particularly in successful developing countries,
where increasing wealth leads to a changing diet towards more animal products
raised on grain.(6) A third set focuses on the anticipated escalation in the degrada-
tion of agricultural lands, grazing and fishery resources. Degradation can be caused
by urbanization and increased infrastructure, the loss of fertile soils through soil
erosion, salinization, contamination, and so on. The availability of irrigation water
will decrease, fishing grounds are overexploited and grazing land is often vulnera-
ble to desertification. Additionally, the expected negative impact of climate change
must be taken into consideration. (For a good overview of the relationship between
climate change and agriculture see FAO (2003b, p.357­72).)

Limitations of technical solutions
The standard answers given concerning these challenges are normally technical.
Suggested solutions are often to increase productivity and the yield per hectare
through the use of modern plant varieties. This is a typical answer presented by, for
example, seed companies and their researchers to justify work on industrial pro-
duction systems. While it may not be wrong to seek options to improve produc-
tivity per area of land, it is becoming increasingly recognized that it is the
marginalized communities, rather than the already intensively cultivated agricul-
tural land, that need more attention. Moreover, further intensification in more
favourable areas is reaching its limits, for example due to the increasing shortage
of water and therefore irrigation possibilities, or through increasing environmental
problems, such as salinization, that the current intensive industrialized production
is already causing. Jules Pretty argues that it is sustainable and agroecological agri-
culture involving millions of smallholder farmers across the world that could yield
considerable increases and help restore water reserves ­ it is only industrialized
agriculture that has reached the limits of sustainable expansion (Pretty, 2001).

Combating the processes of land degradation and the pressures from population
growth are issues that hardly get any support from either national or international
policies. Today it is increasingly recognized that those marginalized smallholder
farmer groups which have never received sufficient attention or research support
could easily increase their yields ­ often three- or fourfold ­ in a different policy
environment.(7) This potential for increasing yields depends on different factors,
such as the type of agricultural system (organic or non-organic), environmental
conditions for agriculture, and the respective ecosystems.

Long-term solutions for achieving higher yields, which can be secured sustain-
ably, are the most important. They will require agroecological solutions that will
increase productivity on marginal soils, but also convert damaging industrial
production systems. Miguel Altieri (2002) noted that, `Throughout the developing
world, resource-poor farmers (about 1.4 billion people) located in risk-prone, marginal
environments, remain untouched by modern agricultural technology'.
Altieri (2002, p.1) states that a new approach to natural resource management
must be developed so that new systems can be tailored and adapted in a site-
specific way to the highly variable and diverse farm conditions typical of resource-
poor farmers. Agroecology provides the scientific basis to address production in a
biodiverse agroecosystem able to support itself. The latest advances in agroecolog-
ical research need to promote natural resource management that is compatible
with the needs and aspirations of smallholder farmers. `Obviously, a relevant research
agenda setting should involve the full participation of farmers with other institutions
serving a facilitating role. The implementation of the agenda will also imply major
institutional and policy changes.'

Policy constraints
But the problems cannot just be tackled at the technical level. The situation of
the rural poor has been aggravated by the fact that rural areas are neglected in
national and international policymaking. For a long time the policy focus was on
investments in industry and urban infrastructure and budget allocations for rural
areas were reduced substantially ­ often by more than 50% (FAO, 2002a). The same
happened with bi- and multilateral aid budgets.(8) Support for rural development
and agricultural production was judged as outmoded and has been reduced by
more than half since the beginning of the 1990s. Recently international organiza-
tions have begun to recognize that the policy shift away from rural development
policies was too radical and the policies are now being reversed. A decade of offi-
cial work on poverty reduction without major results has lead to the realization
that policies aiming at effective poverty reduction have to address the needs of peo-
ple in rural areas (see IFAD, 2001). The FAO is also arguing that the hope of the
1990s, that poverty reduction will automatically lead to a decrease in the number
of hungry and malnourished, can no longer be justified. In fact, recognition of the
opposite argument ­ that hunger needs to be tackled first in order to address the
problems of poverty ­ is gaining ground.
In many developing countries agriculture is taxed and support services are poorly
equipped. Agricultural research is directed mainly towards commercial crops. But
other negative conditions such as insecure land titles and problems of access to
resources such as credit or capital, etc. often prevail. The result is that even if small-
holders do have access to some land, they have to endure poor conditions, and lack
both technical and economic support and adequate economic frameworks.
Governments seldom pay enough attention to these sectors and do not fulfil their
human rights obligations to these groups.
International policy also has an important impact on marginal rural smallholder
farmers' communities and those of pastoralists and fisherfolk. As international
polices set binding conditions for national policies, it is the combination of
national and international policies that together play a crucial role:

Structural adjustment policies have been implemented in most developing
countries since the middle of the 1980s. These policies were built around
what the World Bank referred to as the `trade-based food security' policy pack-
age. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been
influential in urging countries to open up their agricultural markets to cheap
imports. Based on the old economic recommendation to produce products in
which countries have a comparative advantage, the policy advice has often
been to increase imports of `cheap' staple foods from the world market and
exports of commodities such as grains, oil crops and sugar, or to increase pro-
duction of agricultural export crops in order to finance other imports. The
newly developed instruments of the World Bank and the IMF, namely the
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), which aim to direct policy processes
for highly indebted countries, seldom take agriculture and rural development
properly on board (see SLE, 2002).

Trade policies became binding for many countries when the World Trade
Organization (WTO) was created in 1995. The trade rules agreed in the agri-
cultural package (Agreement on Agriculture ­ AoA) were not significantly dif-
ferent from the policy recommendations given previously by the World Bank
and the IMF. The difference was that the rules for trade now became fixed in a
binding international agreement which member countries had to obey, since
they could otherwise face penalties or sanctions through the dispute settlement
procedure. Moreover, trade policy rules are becoming increasingly important
since they set not only the terms for tariffs, but also stringent conditions and
regulations for national policies. From food safety regulations to intellectual
property protection, from agricultural subsidies to price support for basic staple
foods, the WTO regulations are deeply affecting national policy frameworks.

Market distortions
One of the bigger problems linked to the WTO AoA is the imbalance in the level
of liberalization obligations for different groups of countries. While developing
countries have opened up their markets during the last fifteen years, their small-
holder farmers still have to compete with subsidized exports from industrialized
countries. Because poor countries are not able to pay subsidies to their farmers and
are forced to remove trade barriers, almost no agricultural policy instruments pre-
vail in these countries. At the same time industrialized countries are still paying
subsidies to their farm sector, even though the bulk of them do not reach small-
holder farmers, but rather go to agribusinesses and the grain trading companies.
The amount of subsidies provided, particularly export subsidies, enable developed
countries to sell their products at lower prices than the cost of production, some-
times in both food exporting and importing countries. In fact world market prices
are depressed for most staple food products. This forces poor farmers into
unfavourable competitive situations. In India, for example, imports of dairy sur-
pluses subsidized by the EU have had a negative impact on local, family-based
dairy production. Likewise, the export of industrial pork from the US to the
Caribbean has destroyed the local Caribbean market.(9) Food aid can also be misused
as a form of export subsidy. As a result local smallholder and family farms are dis-
appearing as their products are not able to compete on the global market, nor are
they able to feed their communities. This can even be found within the EU where,
for example, 17,000 farmers and farmworkers left the land in the UK in the 12
months up to June 2003 (FARM, 2004), and currently across the EU one farm is lost
every minute.

The liberal response to these market distortions is to liberalize more comprehen-
sively. Would a further reduction in subsidy levels in industrialized countries
improve the situation for producers in developing countries? Yes it could, but
unfortunately not to the extent that would be helpful for many of the marginal-
ized smallholder farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk facing hunger and malnutri-
tion. It would be particularly helpful for larger-scale competitive producers in
developing countries as they could get better market opportunities, especially for
exports, and developing countries might penetrate markets which are currently
occupied by developed countries.
Other problems which make it difficult for marginalized producers to make use
of the opportunities created by international markets, are:

The situation is still far from a reality in which one can expect an end to
the existing market distortion. The current status of the WTO agricultural
negotiations shows some progress but it is slow. In the framework agreement
reached at the beginning of August 2004 it was agreed that export subsidies
should be phased out. No implementation date was agreed, however. At the
same time there are only small signs of progress concerning indirect forms of
dumping through internal subsidies. Overall support to agriculture in the
North remains at the same level as it has been for many years, while the forms
of subsidization are becoming a bit less trade distorting. Solutions under dis-
cussion may still allow the extensive use of subsidies in the future. Policies of
support for poor smallholder farmers in developing countries will therefore
need to seriously consider defensive measures in order to respond to these
price-distorting subsidies.

The opening up of agricultural markets for food imports puts many small
and medium producers in developing countries in direct competition with
competitors on the world market. In most of the poorer developing countries,
producers with little access to factors of production such as support structures,
credit, land and water, or seeds, livestock breeds and fertilizers (particularly
smallholder farmers in Africa, mainly women) are often competing with subsi-
dized large-scale farmers from industrialized countries. The OECD reports that
farmers in industrialized countries do not have natural comparative advan-
tages, but often acquire them. Their ability to produce more competitively is
grounded in their history of support through subsidies, while smallholder farm-
ers in developing countries have often been taxed. As an example, the North
American Free Trade Agreement forces traditional corn producers in Mexico ­
who normally cultivate 4 hectares of land ­ to compete with 1,000-hectare
subsidized farms in the US.

The pressure on prices is fostered by a growing international food processing
industry, which has a predominant interest in the cheap supply of inputs.
Commodity trading companies try to out-source internationally at as low a cost
as possible. Open market arrangements are therefore favourable for the inter-
national food processing industry and less so for local food processing units or
farm-based activities. Concentration and internationalization in the food
industry is increasing and putting intense pressure on primary producers to
produce at a low cost.

Industrialization of agriculture
Furthermore, the industrialization of agriculture has resulted in the consolidation
of agricultural land and assets in the hands of big landowners, agribusinesses, and
other large commercial entities. Whereas the most fertile and extensive areas of
land remain in the hands of a decreasing number of producers, in many countries
smallholders are being excluded and forced onto unproductive land. Moreover,
reduced resources and increased poverty forces smallholders in many places to cul-
tivate the land more intensively, and to abandon more environmentally sustain-
able agricultural methods. However, it would be wrong to conclude that it is
smallholders that constitute the main threat to the environment. Obviously small-
holder farmers, pastoralists and fisherfolk can cause environmental problems such
as soil erosion. But at the same time they have been the main custodians of the
environment for millennia. The diversity of sustainable uses of land, soil, water,
forest, and genetic resources such as seeds and livestock breeds are the result of the
careful work and knowledge of many generations of rural and indigenous peoples.
The main environmental threats in global agricultural production come from the
industrialization of production, often in more favourable areas. The overuse of
water resources, the loss of soil through erosion and salinization, the loss of agri-
cultural biodiversity through the simplification of production and the destruction
of agroecosystems, intensive animal production, and over-fishing are all results of
the open world market and the low prices for all major commodities, which piles
on enormous pressure to produce as cheaply as possible.(10)

Corporate control
Large-scale industrial trans-national corporations (TNCs) are also exerting increased
control over different parts of the food system, its markets, and worldwide food
production.(11) The input sectors of the food production industry are undergoing rapid
concentration. Many traditional seed-producing companies have been bought by
agrochemical companies or oil-companies. Intellectual property rights (IPR) systems
are promoted that provide monopoly privileges over what was once common prop-
erty and thus facilitate the control over genetic material and life forms such as seeds
and livestock breeds. These systems not only prevent the free exchange of these
seeds and livestock breeds, but also allow corporations to expropriate farmers'
knowledge of food production and prevent farmers from sharing this.
Today TNCs own whole sequences of genes in, for example, soya. This means
that they are able to control more and more of the production cycle and force farm-
ers to buy licenses in order to continue farming. Intellectual property rights agree-
ments are another obstacle to the spread of knowledge and technology among
smallholder farmers and to their access to seeds and livestock breeds. The WTO's
Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)
requires all members of the WTO to implement plant variety protection legislation,
through patents or other IPR systems, at the same level as the most developed
countries. Historically a nation's patent legislation system is gradually imple-
mented in line with the country's industrialization and development of science
and technology. The fact that developing counties lack the resources to establish a
patent system as advanced as the rich counties is clearly reflected in the distribu-
tion of the patent applications on plant and animal resources. Whereas more than
90% of genetic resources for food and agriculture are from biotopes in the South,
corporations in developed countries claim 98% of the patents on genes and living
organisms.

This process of concentration is also visible in other input sectors for agriculture,
such as the production of pesticides, as well as in the food trade and the food pro-
cessing industry. All global transactions in cereals and soybeans are controlled by a
few companies. The same is true for other important international crops, such as
tropical export crops like bananas, pineapples, coffee, cocoa, etc. The strongest
pressure on prices comes from international food processing industries (see, for
example, UK Food Group, 2003).

In reality it is not just at the input end of agriculture that corporate dominance
prevails. Over the last two decades TNCs have increased their market domination
of the processing and retailing of food. Smallholder farmers who are able to pro-
duce enough to trade are now facing an ever-harder struggle to exert any influence
not only over the farm inputs they need, but also over the farmgate price for their
produce and the terms and conditions of its trade (see Christian Aid, 2003). New
approaches that empower farmers and re-localize food systems are needed. In
Europe, where the TNC dominance of food retailing has been an issue for some
time, there are already a number of farmer-based initiatives including farmers' mar-
kets, Fairtrade, farm retail outlets and vegetable box schemes that help to `localize'
food systems and empower smallholder farmers (see, for example, Sustain, 2003).

Conclusion
In conclusion, people facing hunger and malnutrition are, to a large extent, small-
holders, landless workers, pastoralists or fisherfolk, often situated in marginal and
vulnerable ecological environments. Moreover, they are often neglected by both
national and international policies. Without proper support they cannot compete
with increasingly subsidized industrialized agriculture. For many of them market
liberalization has resulted in damaging and often unfair competition with farmers
or commercial entities that have `acquired' comparative advantages through
decades of direct and indirect subsidies. The situation often results in smallholders
being forced off their land and moving to even more marginal areas or migrating
to the shantytowns around cities.
Without addressing the structural causes of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, a
fruitful and thorough discussion about how to reduce poverty cannot be under-
taken. In meeting these challenges it will be necessary to address these causes, most
of which are directly related to a system where local development, social and envi-
ronmental goals ­ particularly with respect to marginalized smallholder farmers,
pastoralists and fisherfolk ­ are not adequately taken into consideration. For the
majority of the rural poor, changes are needed, to end the failure of national and
international policies to increase the ability of countries and communities to
define their own agricultural, pastoral, fisheries, and food polices which are eco-
logically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their circumstances.
These are key areas for policy reform.

Core elements of Food Sovereignty
Behind the development of the Food Sovereignty framework policy lies a global
network of non-governmental and civil society organizations and social move-
ments, and a number of conferences, forums and declarations which have resulted
in several significant statements on `Food Sovereignty' (see the appendix for a
detailed history of the use of the term).
The Food Sovereignty policy framework includes a set of principles that protect
the policy space for peoples and countries to define their agricultural and food poli-
cies, and their models of production and food consumption patterns. For many
groups the right to produce and the right to food are mutually linked since most
of the hungry and malnourished in the world are smallholders and landless farm-
ers. During the World Food Summit, Via Campesina presented a set of require-
ments that would offer an alternative to the world trade policies and realize the
human right to food. In the statement, `Food Sovereignty: A Future without
Hunger' (1996), it declared that `Food Sovereignty is a precondition to genuine food
security', and the right to food can therefore be seen as the tool to achieve it.
From this initial platform two more concrete policy proposals were launched by
the NGOs/CSOs and social movements during the World Food Summit in 1996.
In the final document of the parallel forum, `Profit for few or food for all', civil
society organizations demanded the development of two new international legal
instruments:

1. A Code of Conduct on the Right to Adequate Food; and
2. A Global Convention on Food Security.(12)

While the first instrument has been followed up since 1996, the second was
ignored for several years. Since 2001, however, a number of important events have
taken place in which the Food Sovereignty policy framework was discussed and
developed further.
The discussion about a Global Convention was revitalized in Havana in September
2001, where it was discussed under the term `Food Sovereignty' rather than food
security. This resulted from discussions during the World Social Forum at Porto
Alegre, in January 2001, where the organization of a World Forum on Food Sover-
eignty (WFFS) was agreed for September 2001, a project on which many organiza-
tions across the world had been working for a long time. This Forum was held over
one week in Cuba and brought together nearly 400 people representing some 60
countries and more than 200 organizations. The Cuban National Association of
Small Farmers convened the Forum along with a group of international movements,
networks, organizations and people committed to smallholder farmers and indige-
nous agriculture, pastoralism, artisanal fisheries, sustainable food systems and the
peoples' right to feed themselves. Their statements were gathered in the `Final
Declaration of the World Forum on Food Sovereignty'. (See the `Literature and
references' section of this paper for details of where to find all these texts.)

In August 2002 the Asian Regional Consultation of NGOs/CSOs gathered in
Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting resulted in the statement `End hunger! Fight for
the right to live!', signed by over 80 NGOs from 14 Asian countries.
Parallel to the WFS:fyl, in Rome, 2002, the second Forum for Food Sovereignty
was held, representing some 700 NGOs, CSOs and social movements. This parallel
forum was co-ordinated by an International NGO/CSO Planning Committee
(IPC).(13) As a result of the parallel forum the statement, `Food Sovereignty: A right
for all', was published (NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty, 2002). The
campaign for Food Sovereignty continued at the World Summit for Sustainable
Development in the end of August in the same year.
In November 2002, the `International Forum on Food Sovereignty and an
Agro-Ecological Fair' took place in Bucaramanga, Colombia, organized by, among
others, Friends of the Earth, Colombia.
For the WTO meeting in Cancun in September 2003, another statement, `Our
world is not for sale. Priority to Peoples' Food Sovereignty. WTO out of Food and
Agriculture' was written by the People's Food Sovereignty Network. This network is
a loose global coalition of smallholder farmer organizations and NGOs working on
food and agriculture issues and to a great extent it consists of the same organizations
as the IPC.
In 2004 Asian NGOs, CSOs and social movements organized the People's Caravan
for Food Sovereignty that travelled through 13 countries across South Asia,
South-East Asia, East Asia and three countries in Europe. and culminated in a week
of events in Nepal with the Prime Minister of Nepal, Mr Sher Bahadur Deuba,
inaugurating the final event.
When it comes to trade policy objectives to achieve Food Sovereignty, NGOs,
CSOs and social movements have been remarkably united in their approach. Con-
sidering the statements and declarations as well as the additional literature pre-
sented, it is indeed possible to outline a framework of policies that have broad
support. Even though NGOs, CSOs and social movements agree on the overall
framework of policies to achieve Food Sovereignty, however different groups have
emphasized different issues within this framework. The policy framework to
achieve Food Sovereignty is indeed highly comprehensive and flexible. For many
groups the right to produce and the right to food are mutually linked since most
of the hungry and malnourished in the world are smallholders and landless
farmers. The definition based on these considerations that was made by the IPC in
2002 was:
`Food Sovereignty 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 cultural appropriate food and to food-producing
resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.'(14)

The text was later amended in a meeting of the IPC in October 2004 to correct the
original text. The first sentence now reads: `Food Sovereignty is the right of indi-
viduals, communities, peoples and countries to define. . .' The amendment of the
text to include `individuals' was made to highlight that the right to food that is rec-
ognized in the second sentence is a human right, which is also an individual right.
The individual right component was not excluded by intention. This amendment
will overcome the criticism by human rights groups of the original formulation,
which could have been read as not incorporating the right to adequate food of the
individual. The clarification is helpful to highlight the relationship between the
right to food and Food Sovereignty.

The change made in October 2004 was already taken up by the Asian civil society
that published a draft of a `Peoples' Convention on Food Sovereignty' that was
released in July 2004.(15) The second paragraph of the preamble says:
`By this Convention, Food Sovereignty becomes the right of people and communities to
decide and implement their agricultural and food policies and strategies for sustainable
production and distribution of food. It is the right to adequate, safe, nutritional and cul-
turally appropriate food and to produce food sustainably and ecologically. It is the right
to access of productive resources such as land, water, seeds and biodiversity for
sustainable utilization.'

This text reflects that the right to food as a fundamental human right is also an
individual right, given claims for respect of human dignity by the nation state. Still
the text merges rights that are already recognized in binding international law such
as the right to adequate food, with rights that so far do not exist formally, such as
the `right to produce food sustainably and ecologically'. The second use of the
rights language is a political one. The two levels of rights language must be differ-
entiated in order not to lower the standards of recognition that the right to
adequate food has already reached in international law.
Between the definitions presented here, one can find only marginal differences.
However, the IPC definition incorporates even more elements than the former Via
Campesina definition, which shows that the framework is becoming more
comprehensive. Most definitions of Food Sovereignty now include the following
elements:
priority of local agricultural production to feed people locally;
access of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and landless people to
land, water, seeds and livestock breeds and credit. Hence the need for land
reform; for the fight against GMOs and patents on seeds, livestock breeds and
genes; for free access to seeds and livestock breeds by smallholder farmers and
pastoralists and for safeguarding water as a public good to be distributed equi-
tably and sustainably used; and for secure access to fishing grounds by artisanal
fisherfolk;
the right to food;
the right of smallholder farmers to produce food and a recognition of Farmers
Rights;
the right of consumers to decide what they consume, and how and by whom
it is produced;
the right of countries to protect themselves from under-priced agricultural and
food imports;
the need for agricultural prices to be linked to production costs and to stop all
forms of dumping. Countries or unions of states are entitled to impose taxes on
excessively cheap imports, if they commit themselves to using sustainable pro-
duction methods and if they control production in their internal markets to
avoid structural surpluses (supply management);
the populations' participation in agricultural policy decision-making;
the recognition of the rights of women farmers who play a major role in
agricultural production in general and in food production in particular;
agroecology as a way not only to produce food but also to achieve sustainable
livelihoods, living landscapes and environmental integrity.

While this set of elements can be found in nearly all definitions of Food Sovereignty
the specific combination of factors as well as the actual focus vary in different
definitions. The Forum on Food Sovereignty in 2002 debated the elements of
Food Sovereignty and subsequently these were summarised by the IPC for Food
Sovereignty into four priority areas for action:

1. Right to Food
To promote the adoption of a rights-based approach to food and agricultural
policies that will lead to an end to violations of the right to adequate food and
will reduce, and progressively eliminate, hunger and malnutrition, which is
now recognized as an individual's right.
The right to adequate food is foremost a right of each person to safe, nutri-
tious and culturally acceptable food. To fully implement the right to adequate
food all people need to have physical and economic access to sufficient quan-
tities of safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food and food-producing
resources, including access to land, water, and seeds.

2. Access to Productive Resources
To promote continued access of smallholder farmers, pastoralists, fisherfolk
and indigenous peoples to, and the equitable sharing of benefits from, the sus-
tainable use of their land, waters, genetic and other natural resources used for
food and agricultural production. A genuine agrarian reform is necessary
which gives landless and farming people ­ especially women ­ ownership and
control of the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples.
In the case of genetic resources, this access is seen by civil society organiza-
tions as continued access unrestricted by intellectual property rights to seeds
and livestock breeds and wider agricultural biodiversity; and that the integrity
of these genetic resources is not compromised by the spread of GMOs and
genetic engineering technologies.

3. Mainstream Agroecological Production
To promote family and community-based agroecological models of food pro-
duction, in practice and through policy, research and development, in order
to help ensure peoples' food security, especially those who are vulnerable to
hunger and malnutrition, through the sustainable management of local
agroecosystems to produce food for predominately local markets.
Altieri (1995) defines agroecology as: `. . .the application of ecological con-
cepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosys-
tems. . .' and continues `. . .agroecology. . . is the discipline that provides the
basic ecological principles for how to study, design and manage agroecosystems
that are both productive and natural resource conserving, and that are also cul-
turally sensitive, socially just and economically viable. Agroecology goes
beyond a one-dimensional view of agroecosystems to embrace an understand-
ing of ecological and social levels of co-evolution, structure and function. . .
Agroecology is the holistic study of agroecosystems, including all environmen-
tal and human elements.'

The agroecological approach to agricultural production is increasingly rec-
ognized and promoted among NGOs and CSOs as an effective response to the
pressing need for food and livelihood security, mainly but not exclusively, for
family and community farmers worldwide and especially those living in com-
plex, diverse and risk-prone environments with limited available resources.
Several comprehensive studies have been published in recent years (Pretty and
Koohafkan, 2002; Scialabba and Hattam, 2002, pp.135 and 144; FAO, 2002b).
A study published by the FAO and others before the World Summit in Sus-
tainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in 2002 reports yield increases
averaging 94% with best results attaining 600% (Pretty and Koohafkan, 2002).

4. Trade and Local Markets
To promote equitable trade policies which enable communities and countries
vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition to produce sufficient quantities of safe
and secure food supplies and which militate against the negative effects of
subsidized exports, food dumping, artificially low prices and other similar
elements characterizing the current model of agricultural trade.
The above four priority areas for action are broadly subscribed to by all proponents
of Food Sovereignty and are often referred to as the four `pillars' or `principles' of
Food Sovereignty. Differences of interpretation appear when it comes to the meas-
ures needed to implement or realize the principles and achieve Food Sovereignty.
The opinion of many NGOs, CSOs and Social Movements has been that all issues
related to the agriculture and food needs of the majority should be removed from
the WTO and that new governance processes outside the current trading system
should be developed. Some, for example the US National Farmers Union, call for a
separate treaty altogether.

Although such differences of interpretation exist, discussions relating to the
Food Sovereignty policy framework within civil society are converging. This is not
surprising, as the concept of Food Sovereignty emanated from a political discourse
focusing on the self-determination of local communities and allowing self-defined
ways to seek solutions to local problems. While food security is more of a techni-
cal concept, and the right to food a legal one, Food Sovereignty is essentially a
political concept. Even though Food Sovereignty has gained some recognition out-
side civil society groups and social movements, and the policies to achieve it have
become more clearly defined, the question remains how advocates of Food
Sovereignty could elaborate proposals that would achieve it. The comprehensive
nature of the concept of Food Sovereignty implies that a strategy to achieve it will
have to be highly complex.
Out of the statements and declarations that have developed over time, it is
possible to distinguish at least six concrete policy proposals to achieve Food
Sovereignty. (The potential relationships between the different instruments will be
discussed in following sections of this paper.)

A Code of Conduct on the human Right to Food to govern the activities of
those involved in achieving the right to food, including national and interna-
tional institutions as well as private actors, such as transnational corporations.
Since the World Food Summit:five years later the FAO and its members have
developed a set of voluntary guidelines for the progressive realization of the
right to adequate food. Civil society pressure to adopt a code of conduct was
influential in getting work started on voluntary guidelines in 2003. The volun-
tary guidelines were finally adopted by the FAO-Council in November, 2004.
(The text of the guidelines can be found on the FAO website (FAO, 2004b); civil
society comments on the guidelines can be found on the FIAN-International
website, www.fian.org.)

An International Convention on Food Sovereignty that replaces the current
Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and relevant clauses from other WTO
agreements. These include TRIPs, the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS), the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS), Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT), and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing
Measures (SCM). It would implement, within the international policy frame-
work, Food Sovereignty and the basic human rights of all peoples to safe and
healthy food, decent and full rural employment, labour rights and protection,
and a healthy, rich and diverse natural environment. It would also incorporate
trade rules on food and agricultural commodities. Such a convention has been
affirmed by several conferences, for example in Thailand in October, 2003 and
in the `Draft Peoples' Convention on Food Sovereignty', in July, 2004.

A World Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sovereignty estab-
lished to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of trade liber-
alization on Food Sovereignty and security, and develop proposals for change.
These would include the agreements and rules within the WTO and other
regional and international trade regimes, and the economic policies promoted
by international financial institutions (IFIs) and multilateral development
banks. Such a commission could be made up of and directed by representatives
from various social and cultural groups, peoples' movements, professional insti-
tutions, democratically elected representatives and appropriate multilateral
institutions.

A reformed and strengthened United Nations (UN), active and committed to
protecting the fundamental rights of all peoples, as being the appropriate forum
to develop and negotiate rules for sustainable production and fair trade. Several
major conventions and treaties have been developed by the United Nations or
their subsidiary bodies, such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetic
Resources for Food and Agriculture, developed under the FAO in harmony with
the Convention on Biological Diversity.

An independent dispute settlement mechanism integrated within an
International Court of Justice, especially to prevent dumping and, for example,
GMOs in food aid.

An international, legally binding treaty that defines the rights of smallholder
farmers to the assets, resources, and legal protections they need to be able to
exercise their right to produce. Such a treaty could be framed within the UN
Human Rights framework, and be linked to already existing relevant UN con-
ventions. La Via Campesina is currently discussing the idea to demand the
development of an `International Peasant Rights Convention'. A first draft has
been developed by the peasant organizations from Indonesia, which is
currently being discussed worldwide in the Via Campesina network.
All proposals would require far-reaching changes in the current regulation of inter-
national agricultural and trade policies, as the scope of major international insti-
tutions and treaties would have to be changed. Food Sovereignty is less a proposal
for a single policy change in one of the international regimes, more a framework
to change the broad range of agricultural policies worldwide. Under the umbrella
of the Food Sovereignty, several new institutional frameworks are possible. More-
over, it is not surprising that NGOs, CSOs and social movements' positions still
vary tremendously, since it is not an easy task to develop a new blueprint of insti-
tutions and conventions. Via Campesina described seven principles of Food Sover-
eignty: Food as a Basic Human Right; Agrarian Reform; Protecting Natural
Resources; Reorganizing Food Trade; Ending the Globalization of Hunger; Social
Peace; and Democratic control (see summary in Box 1 and full text in the appen-
dix on pp 45, 46). Also, the four pillars of Food Sovereignty already described fur-
ther summarize these issues.

Comparison of Food Sovereignty with food
security and the Right to Food
Apart from Food Sovereignty, two other terms have been used in the discourse on
the issue of persistent hunger and malnutrition and in the design of strategies for
its eradication: the right to adequate food and food security. It is important to clarify
whether the three terms represent different views of, and approaches to, the fight
against hunger, or whether they could be seen as complementary ways of describ-
ing and searching for solutions to hunger. A careful definition of each term is
required to understand whether, and how, the three policies could be used in a
complementary manner, or if they reflect contradictory analyses of the same
problems.

Right to Food
The oldest policy is the `Right to Food', which was recognized in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It is also included in the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1976.(16) The right to food is,
therefore, an integral component of human rights. Since it is in the category of a
human right rather than being a political concept, it has a different character to food
security and Food Sovereignty. All three policies were discussed at the NGO/CSO and
social movements' parallel events to the 1996 WFS and to the WFS:fyl in 2002.
As a human right, it implies that an individual can require the state and the com-
munities of states to respect, protect and fulfil their needs for appropriate access to
sufficient food of an acceptable quality. The right to food provides for individual
entitlements and related state obligations, which are to be enshrined in national
and international law.(17) In that sense the right to food empowers oppressed com-
munities and individuals against the state and other powerful actors. The norma-
tive content was described by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR) in its `General Comment No.12' (GC 12), as a follow up to the
`World Food Summit Plan of Action' that was demanding such a clarification from
member states. In GC 12 the right to adequate food is described as `the right of
every man, woman and child alone and in community with others to have physi-
cal and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement
in ways consistent with human dignity'. The definition used in GC 12 also high-
lights the requirement to ensure access to an income base for each individual either
through access to productive resources (land, water, seeds, livestock breeds, fish
stocks, etc.) or through work, or, if neither of these is possible, through AN adequate
social safety nets. Each of these terms is described in more detail in the text of GC
12. Not only must the food to which access is made possible be sufficient in quantity,
but the form of access itself has to have certain qualities: access must be possible by
participating in economic life using resources and other means of procurement.
Moreover, this form of access must be sustainable.
The state has to respect, protect and fulfil this standard for each person in its
jurisdiction. The crucial issue then is to determine the related state obligations to
make sure that laws and programmes exist through which people can make their
entitlement a reality. The obligations are best explained in GC 12.(18)

`The right to adequate food, like any other human right, imposes three types or levels of
obligations on state parties: the obligations to respect, protect and to fulfil. . . The obli-
gations to respect, as existing access to adequate food requires that state parties do not
take any measure resulting in preventing such access. The obligation to protect requires
measures by the state to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive [other]
individuals of their access to adequate food. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate) means
that states must pro-actively engage in activities with the intention to strengthen peo-
ple's access to, and utilisation of, resources and means to ensure their livelihood, includ-
ing food security. Finally, whenever an individual or group is unable to enjoy the right
to adequate food by the means at their disposal, states have the obligation to fulfil
(provide) that right directly.'

State parties also have external obligations with respect to individuals or groups
living in other countries.
While the principal obligation under Article 2 of the Covenant is to take steps to
achieve the full realization of the right to adequate food, GC 12 clarifies that (a) each
state has the `obligation to proceed as expeditiously as possible towards that goal',
and (b) `every state is obliged to ensure for everyone under its jurisdiction access to
the minimum essential food, . . . to ensure their freedom from hunger'. While only
states are parties to the Covenant and are thus ultimately accountable for compli-
ance with it, all members of society ­ individuals, families, local communities, non-
governmental organizations, and civil society organizations, as well as the private
sector ­ have responsibilities in the realization of the right to adequate food. The
state should provide an environment that facilitates implementation of these
responsibilities.
The work of setting the standards of interpretation of the right to food has been
promoted by NGOs such as FoodFirst Information Action Network (FIAN) since the
Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993. In 1996, delegates to the first World
Food Summit already showed an interest in promoting the issue of the right to
food inside FAO. Since then, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR) has held three expert consultations on the right to food, in 1997,
1998 and 2001, (one of which was co-hosted by the FAO). The results from these
consultations have influenced the development of GC 12. GC 12 was also influ-
enced by the parallel NGO/CSO process, which began during the parallel NGO
forum to the WFS in 1996. In their final declaration `Profit for Few or Food for All'
the NGOs/CSOs demanded the development of a Code of Conduct on the right to
adequate food. The drafting of this code was carried out by FIAN-International, the
Institute Jacques Maritain, and World Alliance for Nutrition and Human Rights
(WANAHR) in September, 1997. Other advances include the work of the UN Spe-
cial Rapporteur on the Right to Food, who was appointed by the UN Commission
on Human Rights in 2000, as well as various publications on the right to food pro-
duced by FAO. In the words of Pierre Spitz (2002), `these advances are spectacular
compared to the development of FAO's follow-up in other areas of the plan of action from
the WFS'.

The standard in interpretation of the right to adequate food that was achieved
by GC 12 and was recently supported unanimously in most elements by FAO mem-
bers. In November, 2004 the FAO council adopted the `Voluntary guidelines for the
progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food
security'. These voluntary guidelines (VG) have been developed following a deci-
sion of the World Food Summit: five years later to do so. The decision was influ-
enced by pressure from civil society organizations present at the parallel NGO/CSO
forum in June, 2002. The text agreed in the negotiating process adopts the stan-
dards of interpretation of the right to food that were developed during recent years
in the human rights system of the United Nations. While the political commit-
ment to implement the voluntary guidelines is quite weak in several formulations,
the VG have achieved a breakthrough in setting standards. Issues such as access
to land and water, safety nets, standards for the use of food aid, the prohibition
against using food as a weapon in conflicts, etc., are clearly spelt out. The text
could become a useful tool for civil society actors to challenge unwilling govern-
ments. The VG also addresses the responsibilities governments have concerning
international impacts of their own policies.

The right to adequate food has the advantage that it is based on existing inter-
national law. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
is part of the International Bill of Human Rights, and therefore at the core of inter-
national law. At the Vienna Conference on Human Rights (1993) states agreed on
the `primacy of human rights obligations' above all other obligations in interna-
tional law. It can therefore be a strong tool in defending oppressed communities
and deprived groups and individuals. When it comes to economic, social and cul-
tural rights, the current weaknesses emanate from the fact that judges and courts
in many countries still do not know enough about these rights. It is therefore only
recently that the right to food has begun to be used in court proceedings.(19) The def-
inition prepared by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
in GC 12, has already gained a lot of support from NGOs and CSOs, academia and
by many governments. Now with the Voluntary Guidelines most of the norms of
the GC 12 are formally accepted by FAO Members. Using the Voluntary Guidelines
now provides a new tool in the defence of the Right to Food that civil society
organizations can use in the coming years.

Food security
Food security is the most frequently used term of the three. Since the end of the
1970s, when the term began to be used on a regular basis, it has been reformulated
many times. For a long period there were as many definitions as users. The current
definition, agreed during the 1996 World Food Summit, is a broad one: `Food secu-
rity exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to safe and
nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and
healthy life'. This is both the vision and the definition of food security used in the
`World Food Summit Plan of Action' and on which the FAO-co-ordinated `Food
insecurity and vulnerability information mapping systems ­ FIVIMS' are based.(20)
However, food security is largely a definition of a goal rather than a programme
with specific policies. The implementation strategies required to achieve food secu-
rity may need to change over time, to address new threats or barriers to achieving
food security.

The term food security was developed in the context of the UN-specialized
agencies dealing with food and nutrition (see FAO, 1983a). It was then argued
that all countries with difficulties in national food supply should `potentially'
have sufficient access to basic food imports. Besides questions of trade policy,
such as the access by food-deficient countries to surplus products, the question of
the worldwide availability of surplus products and the storage of food reserves
were discussed under the umbrella of global food security. Early on it became
clear that in order to secure enough food supplies, measures at the national level
were also necessary. The `FAO Plan of Action for World Food Security' adopted
in 1979 by the Conference of the FAO, therefore introduced the term national
food security, which was used to describe ways of achieving a better national
distribution of food. Within the framework of `national food security' aspects
such as grain r