CLASS #12 - SUPPORTING FOOD SOVEREIGNTY. IN DEFENSE OF PEOPLE´S RIGHTS.

Language and Written Expression IV Teacher: Saubidet Oyhamburu Stella Maris Student: Perez Stefania Rocio October 2014.

Supporting food sovereignty.

         In defense of people´s rights

            Have you ever felt sick after having a meal? Most probably you did and the reasons may be plenty. However, it is certain that a great amount of the food we consume everyday has been genetically modified, which exposes people to a variety of illnesses and even to unknown health risks. In order to make a meaningful profit, multinational companies have been experimenting with lands and modifying food genetic material, exposing natural resources to several and irremediable damages, what lead people to hunger and poverty. These large private and also public corporations have been evicting people from their lands, what it is usually known as “land grabbing”. La Vía Campesina movement has been struggling against the companies which destroy nature and the health of people and has been supporting small-scale sustainable food production as a mean to encourage social justice and dignity through the adoption of food sovereignty values. You can join the action of LVC and acquire food sovereignty beliefs to work against corporations and their individualist beliefs.  

            La Via Campesina is the international, independent, pluralist movement, autonomous from any political, economic or other type of affiliation movement which assembles millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. In 1993, a group of farmers’ representatives from the four continents founded LVC in Mons, Belgium. At that time, agrarian policies and the agroindustry were becoming globalized and small agriculturalists needed to advance and struggle for the respect of their civil rights. This movement is built on a resilient sense of unity and solidarity between small and medium-scale agricultural farmers from the North and South. The main aim of the organization is to recognize food sovereignty and stop the destructive neoliberal process. It is based on the conviction that small farmers, including peasant fisher-folk, pastoralists and landless people, who combined almost half the world's people, are capable of producing food for their communities and feeding the world in a sustainable and healthy way. Thus, Food sovereignty stands for “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems”. It guarantees that the rights to make use of and regulate lands, territories, water, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are the responsibility of those who produce food and not of the corporate area. Food sovereignty has six principles: focus on food for people; value of food providers; localization of food systems; rejection of corporate control; building of knowledge and skills; and, work with nature. 

            One of the concerns of La Via Campesina involves the production of GM food. In the 1990s, genetically modified food rises along with the discussions for and against the alteration processes. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods resultant from organisms whose genetic material has been changed in a way that does not occur naturally, for example, through the introduction of a gene from a different organism. According to the companies responsible for these alterations, GM food is not harmful for people´s health and the main aim of modifying DNA is to improve the quality of the food, apart from defending lands traits and small farmers´ businesses. These corporations avoid the waste of goods thanks to GM food, what increases their incomes, enlarging the production with less material. However, the growth of arguments against genetically modified food appeared in the United Kingdom thanks to a scientist who was first hired to create a safety technique for GM food in Europe. Nevertheless, during the investigation, he discovered that rats had suffered from numerous physical changes – some precancerous – and he determined that the actual process of genetic modification headed these changes. As a support for this claim, around 2012, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) required all physicians to prescribe diets without genetically modified foods to all patients stating that “several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system”. For these, La Via Campesina focuses one of its values on the right to food which is healthy and ethnically suitable as a basic plea underlying food sovereignty.

           

Land grabbing: “describes the purchase or lease of large tracts of fertile land by public or private entities, a phenomenon that rose significantly following the 2007-2008 world food economic crisis”.

Another belief of food sovereignty regards the farmers who suffer from violence on the part of transnational corporations and governments, and emphasizes food providers’ right to live and work in dignity. Imagine that the property your family has worked for generations is abruptly stripped away from you, bought by prosperous corporations or governments to produce food or bio-fuels or simply as a lucrative investment for other people. You observe defenselessly as vast areas of land are cleared for monoculture crops and rivers are polluted with chemicals. This is a brief description of what people must undergo, particularly in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Oceania and Eastern Europe. The term ‘land grabbing’ is used to define the purchase or inhabitancy of enormous tracts of fertile land by public or private entities, frequently illegally; a phenomenon that rose considerably around the 2007-2008 world food economic crisis. Today “land grabbing” encompasses millions of hectares, comparable to an area as big as Spain, and it continues to expand inexorably. Apart from being affected by “land grabbing”, agricultural workers bear severe abuse and even bonded labour. The working conditions are risky and, often against law. People are exploited, obliged to work restlessly, being shouted and maltreated. La Via Campesina struggle claims for accurate working conditions, respect towards people´s rights to live in dignity and to decide whether their lands should be given to corporations, and also the proper treatment to land areas.

            People around the world contribute to this international movement joining the action. It is not only necessary to assist the movement with currency, but also it is essential that people take part by supporting the principles and joining the demonstrations, usually performed on the 8^th of March, in which La Via Campesina joints “women movements and social movements from around the world to demand equal rights for women”, especially farmer women. Also, the 17^th of April, to celebrate the International Day of Peasant's struggle, people organize hundreds of direct actions, cultural activities, conferences, film screenings, community debates and rallies. And the 10^th of September, the International Struggle Day against the WTO (World Trade Organization), to commemorate Mr. Lee Kun Hae, a Korean farmer who stabbed himself to death during a mass protest against the WTO in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. He was holding a banner saying “WTO Kills Farmers”. If your beliefs about food sovereignty are similar to the ones that inspire La Via Campesina, you can collaborate the movement by making contact with the representatives of your region, looking for available information in the web.

References

·         Ackerman, Jennifer. "Food: How Altered?" National Geographic. National Geographic Magazine. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/food-how-altered/

·         Ayres, Bill. "The Food Sovereignty Prize 2014: A Focus on People & Agroecology." Huff Post Green. Bill Ayres, 14 Oct. 2014. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ayres/the-food-sovereignty-priz_b_5976632.html

·         "Food, Genetically Modified." WHO; World Health Organization. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.who.int/topics/food_genetically_modified/en/

·         "Grassroots International." Grassroots International. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.grassrootsonline.org/

·         "Land Grabbing." Slow Food. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.slowfood.com/landgrabbing

·         Mercola, Joseph. "First Super Weeds, Now Super Insects -- Thanks to Monsanto." Nation of Change. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.nationofchange.org/first-super-weeds-now-super-insects-thanks-monsanto-1338362046

·         Murnaghan, Ian. "What Are Genetically Modified Foods?" Genetically Modified Foods. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.geneticallymodifiedfoods.co.uk/what-are-genetically-modified-foods.html

·         "Transforming Our Food System. The Movement for Food Sovereignty." World Development Movement. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.wdm.org.uk/sites/default/files/Food%20sovereignty%20briefing_10.12_WEB.pdf

·         "What Is Food Sovereignty?" USFSA » US Food Sovereignty Alliance. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/what-is-food-sovereignty/

·         "What Is Food Sovereignty?" World Development Movement. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-sovereignty

·         "What Is La Via Campesina?" La Via Campesina. International Peasant´s Movement. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/organisation-mainmenu-44/what-is-la-via-campesina-mainmenu-45

·         “Who we are”. Monsanto. Retrieved in October, 2014. Available at http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/our-commitments.aspx