IPC Meeting Sheds Light on Efforts to Protect Natural Resources

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 Food Security versus Food Sovereignty

  By Razan Zuaiter

 

 The annual conference of the International Planning Committee, a global   network of CSOs and social movements was held in Rome last week to work out the annual plan of action relating to food sovereignty issues.  

 

The principle of food sovereignty is distinguished from that of food security in that it promotes development of alternative production, distribution and consumption methods that serve the interests of small farmers and marginalized food producers, and do not depend on the terms of trade and market economy liberalization as approaches to food security. 

 

The principle of food security is restricted to ensuring availability of adequate quantities of food to people without going deep to touch on the right of peoples to sovereignty over their natural resources and their right to decide what crops to grow for their local and national markets.  Furthermore, the principle does not touch on the rights of farmers, food producers or indigenous land owners. It only seeks to promote macro agriculture that depends on growing a specific crop with the aim of exporting it to foreign markets. Such an agricultural method can seldom be environmentally sustainable or socially equitable.

 

What I have observed as the most significant in the meeting was the development of methods by Latin American countries and others in Asia such as India, in their struggle to maintain their rights for sovereignty over their natural resources through organized efforts conducted by social movements representing them.

 

Social movements represent those organized efforts made by groups of people engaged in limited activities and who hold mutual ideas and use a discourse aimed at bringing about a change in the society. Some social movements defend the rights and interests of farmers, fisher folk, and indigenous people who get marginalized by current agricultural policies which tend to overlook their right to autonomy in managing their resources and in obtaining adequate food of good quality that is safe and suit their tastes and cultures.

 

Such unfair policies stand as the main reason for the intensivemigration of people from rural areas to cities, as well as the poverty and famine in countries rich with natural resources such as Africa and other vast areas in Asia and Latin America.

 

Although I have been elected as a focal point of West Asia region in the Committee and have been trying every year to put our region's priorities on top of the Committee's program, and succeeded so far in setting up a working group focusing on the issue of food sovereignty in times of wars and occupations, yet the weak representation of Arab food producers sectors is making my mission extremely difficult. The more organized and widely represented movements are, the more they get a chance to place their prioritieshigh on the agenda of any program.

Arab and Islamic peoples are no less equal than others in rejecting submission and putting up resistance, and it seems to me that they are the only ones at present where their resistance fighters are shedding blood in the struggle against hegemonic forces whether it American or Zionist. However, their struggle to protect their natural resources has not been organized within frameworks and movements that might guarantee their real participation with other peoples to impose the principle of food sovereignty.

 

Organizing and unifying efforts to counter exploitation, corruption and injustice are of extreme importance to our peoples in order for them to have a place in the global struggle for justice and equality. Social movements may not be the name, but such efforts must be institutionalized, so that they get presented as a full partner to global movements and at the same time act to prevent feelings of frustration from building upand eventually leading to extremism and explosion.

 

This should not rule out efforts by networks and civil society groups working for cohesion with their communities, yet, most of them fall in the trap of control and foreign financing which stand as two major obstacles to successful efforts aimed at making a change.

 

Another obstacle that generally hampers joint global efforts is the attempt of European activists to control their colleagues in the south of the globe just as their governments do, which in fact underscores the need for south-south alliances to face up to double standards and to achieve equality and justice among peoples.

Addustour

Nov. 26^th,2007