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Weekly UpdatesNine hundred seventy-five million people are hungry in the world today, up from 852 million in 2003-2005, and 820 million in 1996. Previous policies have failed. The world food crisis, characterized by sudden increases of prices of agricultural commodities on the international markets which peaked in June 2008, took states and the international community by surprise. The crisis had devastating human consequences, with particularly severe impacts on women and children because of inequalities within households and the specific nutritional needs of children for their physical and mental development. For many families, particularly in developing countries, the sharp increases we have witnessed made food unaffordable, leading them to cut back on expenses in education or health, to switch to less varied diets, or to have fewer meals. But the crisis reaches much further, and it is much deeper, than the question of prices alone would suggest. The crisis illustrated the unsustainability of a global food system which may be good at producing large amounts of food, but that is neither socially nor environmentally sustainable: while the incomes of small scale farmers in developing countries are below subsistence levels, often leaving them no other option but to leave their fields and seek employment in cities, the current methods of agricultural production deplete soils, produce large amounts of greenhouse gases, and use vast quantities of water, threatening food security in the long term, and making the repetition of crises such as the one we"ve seen unavoidable if we do not act decisively.
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The global food crisis has shed light on the fragility of our food system. This system has proven unable to resist in the face of shocks such as a peak in the prices of oil, a sudden shift in demand, for example as a result of the diversion of food crops for the production of fuel, or speculative behavior on the commodities markets. As a result, international agencies, governments, and the private sector, have all recognized the need to invest more in agriculture. Largely due to the structural decline of prices of agricultural commodities since the second oil shock of 1979, itself the result of the OECD member states dumping cheap food on the international markets, this sector has been neglected in both public budgets and official development assistance since the 1980s, and it has failed to attract private investors. This is changing: this is one benevolent result of the crisis of 2007-2008.
Yet, in this context, there is a real risk that we mistake opportunities for solutions. Producing more food shall not serve to combat hunger and malnutrition if the poor are unable to buy the food which is available on the markets. Low prices are not a solution if this perpetuates the addiction of many developing countries to cheap food, leading them to sacrifice their long-term interest in developing the capacity to feed themselves against their short-term interest in buying processed foods from abroad at prices lower than if they were produced at home. And neither low prices and larger volumes produced are an answer for the 500 million households in developing countries, comprising over 2.1 billion individuals, who depend on smallscale farming for their livelihoods. And it is within the ranks of those farmers that we find the majority of those who are hungry.
Unless the right to food is placed at the very center of the efforts of the international community to address the structural causes which have led to the global food crisis, we will repeat our past mistakes. We will produce more out of fear of producing too little. But we will forget to ask the decisive questions which, because of their political nature, governments all too often do not want to hear: whose incomes will rise as a result of production increasing? Will the poorest be able to afford the food which is available on the markets? Are safety nets in place, shielding the poorest from the impacts of high prices? Are stabilizing measures in place, insuring farmers against to low prices? are initiatives being taken to narrow the gap between farm prices and prices paid by the consumers, which has so significantly increased over the last few years? Do victims of violations of the right to food have remedies to challenge the actions of governments and their omissions, which cause such violations?
A "Third Track"
Producing enough food is of course essential. Population growth, shifting diets, climate change, and increased competition between crops for food, feed, and fuel, all challenge our ability in the future to meet the growing demands of the planet. But that is only part of the equation. It is equally important to ensure that the right to food be guaranteed to all. The right to adequate food is not simply about being fed. It is about being guaranteed the right to feed oneself, which requires that each household either has the means to produce its own food, or has a sufficient purchasing power to buy the food which it needs. The implication for states is that they should identify those who are hungry or malnourished, so that support schemes are targeted effectively, and that no household in need is left out. As recommended under the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Voluntary Guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to food, which the 187 member states of the FAO General Council have agreed to in 2004, states should also put in place national strategies clearly allocating responsibilities across different branches of government, setting benchmarks and imposing timeframes, and empowering independent institutions, including courts, to enhance accountability.
The idea is gaining ground that the right to food, as an enforceable human right, should be at the center of our efforts to reform the food system. The FAO now considers adding governance and the right to food as a third track in their efforts to combat hunger, in addition to providing emergency help in times of crisis and to promoting investment in agriculture. The right to food was also central to the January 2009 High-Level Meeting on Food Security for All: closing remarks to this conference, which sought to assess the progress made seven months after the 2008 Rome High-Level Conference on World Food Security, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pleaded for inclusion of the right to food in the work of the High-Level Task Force on the global food crisis "as a basis for analysis, action and accountability."
There is a risk, however, that we end up reducing this "third track" to improved governance or to the removal of institutional obstacles to the implementation of strategies to achieve food security which would risk failing, for instance, because of corruption at the local level or because of an inability of the central government to impose its will on autonomous provinces. This would be a serious mistake for two reasons.
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First, it devalues the notion of the right to food as a human right. The right to food means that victims must have a right to recourse mechanisms; that governments must be held accountable if they adopt policies which violate that right; and that courts are empowered to protect this right. It is not merely about good governance. It is about empowerment and accountability. It is about participation of those directly affected in the design and implementation of the policies that affect them.
Second, in the current efforts to address the global food crisis, the right to food should not simply be a "third track" supplementing the two other tracks. Instead, it should constitute an overarching principle: it should guide our efforts, whether these relate to short-term support measures (the first track) or to rural development and support to agriculture (the second track). In responding to the global food crisis, it is easy to move from the symptom--prices which have suddenly peaked, as a result of a tension between supply and demand, high oil prices, and speculation--to the medicine--produce more, and remove as soon as possible all supply-side constraints. But once we define the objective as the realization of the right to food, we are led to frame the nature of the challenge before us very differently.
Focusing on the Most Vulnerable
An analysis of the global food crisis grounded in the right to food would start by identifying the vulnerable. These fall in three main categories: small scale farmers and other self-employed food producers such as pastoralists, fisherfolk, and persons living from the products of the forest; landless agricultural workers; and the urban poor. Considerable emphasis has been placed, since the Spring of 2008, on the need to support smallholders. This is understandable: poverty remains an essentially rural phenomenon, and it is among the small scale farmers that we find the majority of the hungry. Comparatively less attention is devoted to the urban poor, although all acknowledge the need to establish robust social protection schemes: indeed, the 1.2 billion slumdwellers are among the worst affected by high prices of food, since they buy all the food they consume. By contrast, very little has been said about agricultural laborers, though the ILO estimates that the waged work force in agriculture is made up of 700 million women and men producing the food we eat but who are often unable to afford it: 20 percent of the hungry are landless laborers, and this number may be even larger if we consider that many small rural producers are in fact dependent on a seasonal or temporary wage for basic survival.
A rights-based approach to the global food crisis would require that we pay equal attention to all these categories, and that we ensure that their entitlements are adequately protected: since hunger is a result, not of too little food being produced, but of marginalization and disempowerment of the poorest, who lack the purchasing power they need to procure the food that is available, guaranteeing such a protection should be a top priority. This implies, for instance, asking how the relevant ILO conventions could be better implemented in the rural areas--which all too often labor inspectorates are unable to monitor effectively--and how those working on farms, often without any formal employment contract, can be guaranteed a living wage, and adequate health and safety conditions of work.
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