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Farm Aid News & Views Nov/Dec 1996



FARM AID NEWS & VIEWS
November/December 1996
Volume 4, Number 11
__________________________________________
Headlines:
-  WORLD HUNGER ADDRESSED
-  WORLD HUNGER REMAINS WIDESPREAD
-  FOOD-DEFICIT COUNTRIES: THE CASE OF MEXICO
-  THE RIGHT TO FOOD
-  FOOD SUMMIT PLAN OF ACTION LACKS COMMITMENT TO 
RESOURCES
-  FAMILY FARMERS AT THE SUMMIT
-  U.S. AG SECRETARY GLICKMAN ADDRESSES SUMMIT
-  NGOs PROPOSE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
-  FARM AID ANNOUNCES 1996 GRANTS
__________________________________________
WORLD HUNGER ADDRESSED

One of the great global debates of the 21st century is 
whether or not food security is possible.  Can the world 
produce enough food to feed our growing population?  And 
is production really the problem, or is hunger the 
result of poor distribution of agricultural resources 
and food?  

A major global conference was held last month to try to 
address some of these very questions.  The United 
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held the 
World Food Summit in Rome November 11-17.  The World 
Food Summit had both an official summit, attended by 
government officials, and a forum of Non-Governmental 
Organizations (NGOs) representing farmers, consumers and 
public interest groups from around the world.      

There are many proposed solutions to hunger.  Some 
assert that the only way to avert a looming food crisis 
is to limit the population, following China's policy of 
limiting family size.  Others acclaim the "New Green 
Revolution," highly dependent on biotechnology, to 
increase production.  Efficiency, still others claim, 
through industrial agriculture and liberalized trade, is 
another way to ensure that production levels meet world 
demands.  NGOs attending the Summit stressed that 
industrialized farming, the de-regulation of trade and 
the rise of biotechnology are among the very causes of 
food insecurity and hunger.  These groups sustainable 
agriculture, strengthening local food production and a 
more equitable distribution of resources as solutions to 
feeding the world without depleting precious resources.    

This issue of Farm Aid News & Views will discuss the 
issues surrounding global hunger and some of the 
outcomes of the World Food Summit. 

WORLD HUNGER REMAINS WIDESPREAD

Approximately 800 million people are chronically 
undernourished, amounting to about 20 percent of the 
world's population.  Hunger is a problem that affects 
industrialized countries as well as developing 
countries.  In "Food Security and Nutrition," a report 
issued prior to the World Food Summit, the U.N. Food and 
Agriculture Organization (FAO) called on governments to 
assist in fighting poverty, citing the growing gap 
between rich and poor in developed countries.  "In the 
course of the 1980s and the 1990s, as the distribution 
of income in the industrialized countries of North 
America and Europe has become more uneven and as social 
welfare spending has been cut back in the face of rising 
unemployment, the need for food assistance among low-
income groups has grown," the FAO report said,  "Policy 
makers must recognize that poverty is a major cause of 
food insecurity and poor health ... and that 
malnutrition leads to losses in productivity and the 
misallocation of scarce resources." 

FOOD-DEFICIT COUNTRIES:  THE CASE OF MEXICO

Low-income food-deficit countries are those which import 
a significant percentage of their staple foods for their 
population.  These countries face the greatest food 
security challenges.  Mexico is one of those countries.  
Proponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement 
(NAFTA), passed in 1993, argued that Mexico could import 
the basic grains it needed to feed its people more 
cheaply than it could produce them locally.  World 
prices for basic grains subsequently jumped 
dramatically.  This price increase, coupled with the 
devaluation of the Mexican peso, has made it very 
difficult for Mexico to import the grains it needs.

This shift away from self-sufficiency in food production 
undermined Mexican family farmers and resulted in Mexico 
producing 2.5 million tons less corn in 1995 than in 
1994, forcing it to import the balance, at a higher 
price, from the United States.  As Mexican corn 
production decreases, its demand for imports increases;  
if the U.S. cannot fulfill Mexico's demand, widespread 
hunger results.  This desperation was demonstrated 
earlier this year when trains carrying basic grains were 
stopped and robbed by starving Mexican peasants.  
According to Mexico's National Nutrition Institute, in 
1995, 16 percent of Mexican children and 80 percent of 
all Chiapans are malnourished, and eighty children under 
the age of one die each day of malnutrition.  Many 
critics of NAFTA assert that these figures will only 
increase as long as free trade agricultural policies 
continue to exist. 

THE RIGHT TO FOOD

There are a number of international human rights 
agreements which support the universal right to be free 
from hunger.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 
states that "everyone has a right to a standard of 
living adequate for the health and well-being of himself 
and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and 
medical care and necessary social services ..."  To 
legally implement the Universal Declaration, countries 
signed an international treaty called the International 
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 
(CESCR), to which more than 130 countries are bound.  

However, countries have different interpretations of the 
implications of signing international agreements.  Some 
countries regard international agreements as national 
law, while others don't consider the agreements to be 
legally binding in any way.  As a result, the 
"fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger," 
as mandated by the CESCR, has historically been, and 
continues to be, ignored by many governments.

FIAN International, the FoodFirst Information & Action 
Network based in Germany, has been working to promote 
the right to food, especially land rights and the rights 
of rural workers.  FIAN put forth five main demands for 
the World Food Summit and beyond, which include a 
commitment to the right to food and its implementation, 
a code of conduct on the right to adequate food, 
priority for integrated agrarian reform, a documentation 
system for violations of the human right to food, and an 
international framework convention on global food 
security. 

FOOD SUMMIT PLAN OF ACTION LACKS COMMITMENT TO RESOURCES

World officials entered the World Food Summit with the 
immediate goal of reducing the number of undernourished 
people in the world, estimated at 840 million, to half 
the present level by 2015.  However, the Rome 
Declaration on World Food Security and the Summit Plan 
of Action, approved prior to the Summit by government 
negotiators, lacked a commitment to provide funds to 
carry out this objective.  "The Summit Plan of Action 
has all the right nouns, but none of the right verbs," 
says Pat Mooney of the Rural Advancement Foundation 
International (RAFI).  

"They are a blueprint for food security on the cheap," 
adds Marc Cohen of Washington, DC-based Bread for the 
World.  "The documents recognize that many low income, 
net food importing countries will require assistance, 
but do not pledge specific resources.  All references to 
domestic production and protecting farming communities 
that appeared in earlier drafts have now vanished, and 
the texts do not address the contradiction between trade 
liberalization and their call for strengthened 
sustainable agricultural development in developing 
countries."

"Especially weak is the commitment to progressive 
realization of the right to food," continued Cohen.  The 
United States government along with a few Western allies 
strongly opposed wording that could be interpreted as 
endorsing a new human right.  This was an effort to 
avoid legal challenges to national food policies.  Thus, 
while the Right to Food is a universal human right, the 
means to make this right  a reality were blocked by the 
U.S. 

Shortly after the close of the Summit, the Bread for the 
World Board of Directors passed a resolution concerning 
the U.S. government's position on the right to food:  
"[Statements released by the U.S. government] suggest 
that the current administration is retreating from our 
historical commitment to a Universal Right to Food... 
[T]he Board of Directors of Bread for the World 
expresses its deepest concern and moral outrage at these 
apparent changes in United States policy, and urges the 
administration to reaffirm U.S. commitment to a 
Universal Right to Food, and to take steps necessary to 
guarantee these rights at and throughout the world."

FAMILY FARMERS AT THE SUMMIT

Many people felt that the voices of family farmers were 
under represented at the World Food Summit.  Two 
international coalitions of family farmers held events 
during the Summit to emphasize the importance of farmer 
participation in the food security debate.  The National 
Farmers Union of the United States, along with family 
farm and cooperative organizations from Europe and Asia 
held the first-ever Family Farmers Summit and signed a  
declaration that points to the need for family farmers' 
involvement in shaping food security policies.

Via Campesina, a growing movement of farm workers, 
peasant, farm and Indigenous Peoples' organizations from 
all over the world, was also active at the World Food 
Summit.  According to a statement released at the 
Summit, "[We] know that food security cannot be achieved 
without taking full account of those who produce food.  
Any discussion that ignores our contribution will fail 
to eradicate poverty and hunger... We have the right to 
produce our own food in our own territory.  Food 
sovereignty is a precondition to genuine food security."

Larry Swartz of the Via Campesina member National Family 
Farm Coalition, says "The most under represented group 
at the World Food Summit, next to consumers, was 
farmers.  The perspectives of the farmers who were 
present can be understood in terms of polar opposite 
approaches to the problem of food security.  Those are 
that the technologically superior farmers of the North 
will produce ever-increasing amounts of food, which will 
be made available to the rest of the world through 
further liberalization of trade policies; or that the 
only real path to food security is food self-
sufficiency, or food sovereignty.  The fact that the 
moral and economic bankruptcy of the first position has 
not been widely revealed gives witness to the power and 
influence of the corporate pirates who promote and 
profit from it."

WOMEN WERE MINORITIES IN ROME

Ask many of the participants of the World Food Summit 
about under-represented groups and the answer will 
include not only farmers, but also consumers and women.  
While women make up a significant part of the world's 
food producers, they were a minority of Summit 
participants.  The NGO Forum highlighted the importance 
of women's involvement in food and hunger issues.  The 
entire day of November 15, 1996 was dedicated as Women's 
Day at the NGO Forum.  Speakers addressed topics ranging 
from empowering women and ensuring greater control of 
local food production, to the ill effects of 
industrialization of food production, biopiracy, over 
consumption, and globalized free trade.

The week before the NGO Forum began, Via Campesina and 
other groups hosted a Rural Women's Workshop which 
brought together thirty-five women food producers 
representing every region of the Earth to discuss, share 
and celebrate the importance of women in assuring food 
security. 

Denise O'Brien, an Iowa farmer and founding member of 
the Women, Food and Agriculture Working Group, says, 
"For years, women have been ignored as food producers.  
The Rural Women's Workshop set aside time and space for 
women to share concerns of their families, communities 
and nations." 

U.S. AG SECRETARY GLICKMAN 
ADDRESSES SUMMIT

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman addressed the 
World Food Summit on behalf of the United States on 
November 13.  Secretary Glickman represented the point 
of view of many industrialized countries that the main 
cause of world hunger is under-production.  Glickman  
stressed the need for increased food production and 
increased trade as key factors for overcoming world 
hunger.  Secretary Glickman stated that "We will 
strengthen our support for food security-related 
research and biotechnology.  ... Without biotechnology, 
we will be forced to exploit highly erodible farm and 
forest land.  This may meet our short-term needs, but in 
the end our legacy to future generations will be a 
barren earth."  

The importance of boosting food production through 
biotechnology and other means became a central piece of 
the Summit's Plan of Action.

NGOs PROPOSE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 

Determined to have their voice heard, Non-Governmental 
Organizations (NGOs) held their own forum parallel to 
the World Food Summit.  The NGO Forum, comprised of more 
than 1,200 environmental, farmer, sustainable 
agriculture and health organizations from some 80 
countries, issued a statement disagreeing with solutions 
to world hunger proposed by the U.S. and other 
governments.    The statement, entitled "Profit for Few 
Or Food for All," supported the basic human right to 
food, first and foremost.  

Family farmers and NGOs stressed that trade 
liberalization, biotechnology and chemically intensive 
agriculture are causes of food insecurity, not 
solutions.  Rather than relying on trade liberalization 
and increased production through biotechnology, the NGOs 
emphasized the need for more equal distribution of 
resources and farmer-led sustainable agriculture 
initiatives.  

The NGO statement outlines six key elements of an 
alternative model to achieve food security: 1. The 
capacity of family farmers, including indigenous 
peoples, women, and youth, along with local and regional 
food systems must be strengthened; 2. The concentration 
of wealth and power must be reversed and action taken to 
prevent further concentration; 3. Agriculture and food 
production systems that rely on non-renewable resources, 
which negatively affect the environment, must be changed 
toward a model based on agro-ecological principles; 4. 
National and local governments and States have the prime 
responsibility to ensure food security.  Their capacity 
to fulfill this role must be strengthened and mechanisms 
for ensuring accountability must be enhanced; 5. The 
participation of peoples' organizations and NGOs at all 
levels must be strengthened and deepened; 6. 
International law must guarantee the right to food, 
ensuring that food sovereignty takes precedence over 
macro-economic policies and trade liberalization.  

The Forum also called for a Code of Conduct to protect 
and ensure the Human Right to Food along with a Global 
Convention on Food Security to support governments in 
developing and implementing national food security plans 
and to create an international network of local, 
national, and regional food reserves.  

"We fully support the development of these binding 
instruments to ensure more equitable access to food," 
says Rudi Buntzel, delegate to the NGO Forum from the 
World Council of Churches.  "Why can't the governments 
advance these proposals themselves?  They seem to expect 
the NGOs to do their work for them."  According to Karen 
Lehman of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade 
Policy, "We need a global framework that makes food 
security, not trade, the highest priority."

"The Code of Conduct is a crucial tool for identifying 
factors responsible for the failure of implementation of 
the Right to Food and focuses on different actors 
responsible, such as the national and international 
institutions as well as other players like transnational 
corporations," says Michael Windfuhr, executive director 
of FIAN International.  

Representatives from Asia, Africa, North America, Latin 
America and Europe plan to refine the texts of the Code 
of Conduct and the Food Security Convention in the 
coming months.  "The Summit is over, but our work is 
just beginning," says Jeanot Minla Mfou'ou of APM 
Afrique-APM Africa, a network of African farm and 
agriculture policy organizations.  "Our governments may 
wish to forget they have been here, but we will not let 
them.  We will be back with our proposals and demand the 
implementation of the Right to Food."


FARM AID ANNOUNCES 1996 GRANTS

Farm Aid distributed $582,000 in grants in 1996 to help 
family farmers stay on their land.  These grants funded 
a variety of programs, including projects to provide 
legal and financial counseling to help farmers avoid 
foreclosure, provide support for farmer-led sustainable 
agriculture initiatives, support efforts to restrict the 
growth of factory farming, and build links between 
farmers and consumers.  Since 1985, Farm Aid has granted 
over $13 million to farm organizations, hotlines, and 
service agencies in 44 states.  For more information 
about Farm Aid grants, call Harry Smith at 617-354-2922. 

________________________________________
Farm Aid News is produced by the Institute for 
Agriculture and Trade Policy for Farm Aid.  Editors 
Harry Smith and Kate Hoff.  We encourage the 
reproduction of Farm Aid News & Views.  Comments and 
suggestions welcome. Farm Aid (617) 354-2922.  Fax: 
(617) 354-6992. Email: Farmaid1@aol.com.  For more 
information on agricultural publications contact IATP, 
(612) 870-0453. Fax: (612) 870-4846.  
Email:farmaid1@aol.com


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