Newsletters Nyéléni in English

The international Nyéléni newsletter is the voice of the international movement for Food Sovereignty. Its main goal is to strengthen the grassroots of the movement, by providing accessible material on key issues and creating a space – for individuals and organisations involved in the struggle – to exchange their experiences and share information.

Newsletter no 13 – Editorial

Newsletter no 13 - Food sovereignty

Food sovereignty

Illustration: Anna Loveday-Brown

“Every struggle, in any part of the world for food sovereignty is our struggle.”
Nyéléni Declaration on Food Sovereignty

At the World Food Summit in 1996, La Via Campesina (LVC) launched a concept that both challenged the corporate dominated, market driven model of globalised food production and distribution, as well as offering a new paradigm to fight hunger and poverty by developing and strengthening local economies. Since then, food sovereignty has captured the imagination of people the world over – including many governments and multilateral institutions – and has become a global rallying cry for those committed to social, environmental, economic and political justice.

Food sovereignty is different from food security in both approach and politics. Food security does not distinguish where food comes from, or the conditions under which it is produced and distributed. National food security targets are often met by sourcing food produced under environmentally destructive and exploitative conditions, and supported by subsidies and policies that destroy local food producers but benefit agribusiness corporations.
Food sovereignty emphasizes ecologically appropriate production, distribution and consumption, social-economic justice and local food systems as ways to tackle hunger and poverty and guarantee sustainable food security for all peoples. It advocates trade and investment that serve the collective aspirations of society. It promotes community control of productive resources; agrarian reform and tenure security for small-scale producers; agro-ecology; biodiversity; local knowledge; the rights of peasants, women, indigenous peoples and workers; social protection and climate justice.

In 2001, delegates from peasant, fisher-folk, indigenous peoples, civil society, and academic organisations met in Havana at the World Forum on Food Sovereignty to elaborate the different elements of food sovereignty. From 2000 onwards, campaigners against the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture demanded public support for sustainable, family based food production and called for Priority to Peoples’ Food Sovereignty and WTO out of Food and Agriculture.
The International Forum on Food Sovereignty in 2007 in Mali was a defining milestone for food sovereignty and brought together more than 500 people from 80 countries to pool ideas, strategies and actions to strengthen the global movement for food sovereignty.

The Declaration of Nyéléni encapsulates the vision of the movement and asserts: Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation… Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal-fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability… Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.

Food sovereignty makes sense for people in both, rural and urban areas, and poor and wealthy countries. It is as much a space of resistance to neoliberalism, free market capitalism, destructive trade and investment, as a space to build democratic food and economic systems, and just and sustainable futures. Its transformative power has been acknowledged by the Special Rapporteurs to the Right to food, Jean Ziegler and Olivier de Schutter, and in key policy documents such as the IAASTD (International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development).

The majority of the world’s food is produced by over one billion small-scale food producers, many of who, tragically, are hungry themselves. We will not find lasting solutions to catastrophic climate change, environmental deterioration and economic shocks unless we amplify their voices and capacities.

The story of food sovereignty is a story of struggle and hope. This edition of the Nyéléni newsletter is dedicated to the struggles that help us to hope for a better world. Now more than ever is the time for food sovereignty.

Focus on the Global South

Icon

Food sovereignty, no 13

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 12 – Editorial

Newsletter no 12 - Migration and agriculture

Migration and agriculture

Illustration: “With or without papers, workers unite!” Titom

Food is essential to life and it is also an expression of our cultures and our societies. The dominant corporate food system takes away the vital and social value of food and reduces it to a commodity; in order to profit from all stages of its intensive production, processing and distribution and ultimately from food speculation in the financial markets.
This system pushes to separate people who consume food from the ones who produce it. While family food producers continue to feed more than 70% of the world population, the neoliberal system and its trade policies drive peasants, artisanal fishers, pastoralists and indigenous people out of the their territories and support the development of intensive monoculture farms and factory farms, food processing industries and retailers, based on the labour of food workers.

More and more, these food and farm workers are migrant people obliged to leave their country in order to escape poverty and hunger. More and more, due to racial migration policies and the militarization of borders migrant people risk their lives to cross frontiers undocumented. More and more undocumented migrants are persecuted and criminalized while simultaneously being exploited and even enslaved in the food production system, to which they are indispensable. The struggle against the current global food system is also a struggle to support the rights of migrant people. The struggle for food sovereignty is also a struggle to give people back the freedom to choose whether to stay or leave their communities and territories.

Icon

Migration and agriculture, no 12

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 11 – Editorial

Newsletter no 11 - Food and cities

Food and cities

“If natural food is expensive, it becomes luxury food and only rich people are able to afford it. […]
Natural food must be available locally at a reasonable price.” Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

Urban agriculture: Moving towards food sovereignty?
Nearly a quarter of the world’s fresh food is supplied by approximately one billion people who produce fruits and vegetables on urban and peri-urban farms and gardens. While most of this food is consumed by the producers themselves, a substantial part goes directly into urban markets at affordable prices. Given that over half of the world’s economically poor population now live in cities, and given the dangerous volatility of global food markets, this locally-produced food is becoming increasingly important to urban food security. While much of this urban production takes place in the Global South (e.g., Hanoi: 80% of fresh vegetables, Shanghai: 60% of vegetables, 100% of milk, 90% of eggs, 50% of pork and poultry; Dakar, 60% of vegetables, 65% poultry and 50% milk; Accra, 90% of fresh vegetables; Havana: 2438,7 hectares produce 25000 tons of food each year), increasingly, urban food production is taking root in Northern cities among underserved marginalised groups. In producing their own fresh food, urban communities
are improving their diet and their incomes. With the recurrent global food price crises, urban agriculture is increasing, as is processing and distribution, and the gradual shift toward local control over the food system.

Eric Holt-Gimenez, Food First

Icon

Food and cities, no 11

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 10 – Editorial

Newsletter no 10 - "Green" economy

“Green” economy

Illustration: Anna Loveday-Brown

This June in Rio de Janeiro the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 will be held, marking two decades since the Earth Summit. The “green” economy will be the main theme of discussion and debates at the Rio+20 summit, this concept represents a way of transforming the environmental crisis into a tool for capital accumulation – considering that in current times the capitalist system regards markets as the primary medium for responding to the global environmental crisis, and the green economy marks an attempt to make this system appear “sustainable”. The current edition of the Nyéléni newsletter opens and invites discussion on the green economy, adding various elements to the debate and providing alternatives. What is certainly clear is that international capital is organizing to appropriate territories, to transform nature into another form of merchandise, all the while increasing exploitation and privatization. The “green” economy elevates the principles of commerce and profit above any form
of social consideration, above even the reproduction of life itself. Our challenge is to continue building on our mobilization capacities in our territories, based on solidarity, internationalism and the integration of peoples to convert our struggles in realities.

Our principle tasks are to globalize hope, and to globalize resistance.

CLOC-VIA CAMPESINA

Icon

"Green" economy, no 10

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 9 – Editorial

Newsletter no 09 - Land grabbing

Land grabbing

Illustrations by Anna Loveday-Brown

“How firm we stand and plant our feet upon our land determines the strength of our children’s heartbeats.” Poolly Koutchak, Unalakleet, Alaska

This April the World Bank is organizing again its annual conference on land and poverty.
It is a big event gathering international bureaucracy, government representatives, mainstream academics, few big NGOs and the private sector. Under the title Land governance in a rapidly changing environment they will discuss, among other issues, how to deal with the governance challenges raised by large agricultural investments. In plain language, how to continue the appropriation of peoples’ lands and waters by private investors while pretending to help the poor. Also in April the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will hold a consultation process about the best use of natural resources for boosting living standards in developing countries. The IMF seeks to reassess its policy advice on the use of natural resources in development due to the growing importance of natural resources in many economies. Despite disastrous consequences, the International Financial Institutions (IFI) continue exercising a de facto ruling role in the international governance of land and natural resources. This role is profoundly illegitimate. A small group of rich countries defending the particular interests of business and finance together with their technocrats think they can decide over our lands and territories.

But this ruling role started to be challenged: Last 9 of March, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) completed the intergovernmental negotiations of the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Tenure of Land Fisheries and Forests in the context of National Food Security. With the successful completion of these negotiations after a participatory process lasting nearly three years, the CFS has shown that it has the capacity to convene multilateral negotiations with broad social participation to discuss and propose solutions to one of the most pressing problems of our time. The Guidelines contain valuable points that will provide backing to organisations in their struggle to ensure the care and use of natural resources in order to produce more nourishing food, so helping to eliminate hunger by addressing its root causes. The CFS is a new international space with more democratic rules that allows people’s organisations to challenge the IFI’s recipes and ruling. This is a first step to democratize the decision making processes related to food and agriculture at the international level.

April is also the month of the international peasant struggle. La Via Campesina has called on all of its members and allies, fisher-folk movements, agricultural workers organisations, environmental groups, women organisations and social justice movements to display massive popular resistance to land grabbing, to corporate control over land and natural resources and to defend small-scale, family based agriculture and food production as the most socially, economically and environmentally sustainable model of using resources and ensuring the right to food for all.

Let’s take action!

Sofia Monsalve, FIAN International

Icon

Land grabbing, no 9

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 8 – Editorial

Newsletter no 08 - Water

Water

The sound of water
At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water
Frog Haiku by Matsuo Bashô, Translated by Sam Hamill

Water for life, not for death!
Rallying cry of the International Movement of Dam Affected Peoples

Illustration, Anna Loveday-Brown

For centuries, in every part of the world, water has been a pivotal force of civilisation, culture and progress. Proximity to secure water sources has guided the itineraries of nomadic peoples and other travelers, and determined where communities and nations have established their settlements. Water has inspired poetry, music, art and literature, and has shaped the diets, cuisines and health of our families and societies. Like the air we breathe, water is the very essence of life and possibly for this reason, its use and governance are fraught with conflict and vested interests. Water has been dammed, diverted, piped, bottled, transported, contaminated, poisoned and purified, and through all these, it has been responsible as much for life, as for death. This issue of the Nyéléni newsletter describes the pressures and demands on our planet’s water sources, attempts to control access through privatisation and commodification, and the intensifying struggles by extraordinary people all over the world to defend their rights to water and to protect water from elite capture. Governments cannot be allowed to give corporations and wealthy classes preferential access to and control over water. It is imperative and urgent that we join forces to protect water as commons, as the shared, collective wealth of current and future generations.

Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South

Icon

Water, no 8

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 7 – Editorial

Newsletter no 07 - Fishery and climate change

Fishery and climate change

Illustration, Anna Loveday-Brow

Fishing for their futures – small scale fishing communities fighting for their way of life.

Developing countries are generally more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than more developed countries due to their low capacity to adapt to climate change and variability. Increasing global surface temperatures, rising sea levels, irregular changes in average annual precipitation and increases in the variability and intensity of extreme weather events pose a major threat to coastal and island communities, which are heavily dependent on fish resources for their wellbeing – communities in which poverty is widespread and few alternative livelihoods are available.

Amidst the destruction caused by a lack of responsible governance of the use of land and natural resources, small-scale fishing communities are fighting to claim back their fishing grounds as governments and land use planners are seizing the catastrophe as an opportunity to halt small-scale fishing activities in such areas and allocate the areas to the development of tourist infrastructures and other uses. Fishing is not only a source of employment, income and food for small-scale fishery; it is a way of life based on social and environmental harmony which strengthens communities and supports adaptation measures particularly for the most vulnerable, especially women.

Small-scale fishing communities can build and strengthen their capacity to adapt if they are supported, and not forced to leave their waters.

Margaret Nakato, Co-President of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters & Fish Workers

Icon

Fishery and climate change, no 7

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 6 – Editorial

Newsletter no 06 - Women and food sovereignty

Women and food sovereignty

Illustration, Anna Loveday-Brow

What is the necessary strategy to change the situation of women around the world?
Some feminists think that women’s distinctive characteristics, which are made invisible and/or considered inferior by a male chauvinistic and patriarchal society, should be recognized. Others claim that it is necessary to fight for wealth redistribution between men and women, thus overcoming the causes of inequality resulting from sexual division of labor and power. But many feminists have already realized that this is a false dilemma. In order to move forward it is necessary to coordinate the seemingly contradictory actions of recognition and distribution. The principle of Food Sovereignty increasingly recognizes women’s contribution in food production: from agriculture to preparing food for their families or school cafeterias and other community facilities.

It also contemplates the need to equally distribute land and the conditions of production between men and women. It is necessary to take a step forward and recognize the need to redistribute the work done by women to take care of the family – even preparing food- among all the members of the family living together. Rural and urban women and girls around the world work more hours than men, considering the number of hours dedicated to paid work and to housework taken together. They are the first ones to get up and the last ones to go to bed. Enjoying Food Sovereignty means changing both the food production and consumption model. This implies having time to cook, eat and share as well as having time for themselves. This change cannot be based on the increasing work of women. In order to have more time, we neither need fast-food nor canned food, but we do need public policies that support reproduction, such as food in schools and popular restaurants and… distributing work among all!

Miriam Nobre, Coordinator of the International Secretariat of the World March of Women

Icon

Women and food sovereignty, no 6

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 5 – Editorial

Newsletter no 05 - Nyéléni Europe

Nyéléni Europe

As we follow the road to Krems, we advance towards people’s food sovereignty.
In Europe, more than a thousand farms, along with the people who make them possible, dissapear every day. The loss of cultivated biodiversity continues to increase. The best lands are falling into the hands of financial capital, which is also speculating with food and as a result food crises are rocketing. The European population is increasingly suspicious of a food system that regularly puts their health at risk… These are some of the serious consequences of a global food system based on an unsustainable neoliberal model, driven by transanacional companies and financial markets. Current European agricultural policies have been developed according to the doctrines of the World Trade Organization.

And, more importantly, the CAP has evolved from a mechanism to ensure food security on the continent to an instrument without political vocation, which leaves agricultural regulation at the mercy of pure neo-liberal competition, where multinationals always win and small farmers in Europe and in many other countries always lose. It is time for change, and it is time to fill the false democracy in which we live with politics. Food Sovereignty should be considered as the framework for agricultural policies in Europe and worldwide. Producers and small-scale producers, with their farming, despite what the agro-industry may say, are the only ones who can feed the people while preserving the richness of our planet for future generations. While political and economic interests persist in the wrong direction, throughout Europe, citizens are organising themselves to regain control of their food and agricultural systems: movements for the multiplication of seeds, anti-GMO organizations, young farmers reviving the countryside and productiondistribution-consumption cooperatives are among the many alternatives that are being built in Europe. The Nyeleni Forum 2011 will offer the possibility for a collective reflection on these emerging initiatives, and how we can work together more effectiviely. In Austria, we will strengthen the pillars on which we’re building the European movement for food sovereignty.

Javier Sanchez, ECVC and Steering Committee for Nyéléni Europe

Icon

Nyéléni Europe, no 5

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download

Newsletter no 4 – Editorial

Newsletter no 04 - Food price volatility and food markets

Food price volatility and food markets

Illustration, Anna Loveday-Brow

A new food price crisis: the time has come to put people at the centre of the food system!
Chronic, persistent and increasing hunger levels. Rising demand on top of a collapsing resource base. Unsustainable consumption patterns and waste. Feedstocks diverted from food to fuel. Extreme vulnerability. Climate chaos. Political unrest and food riots. Markets rigged against the many in favour of the few. Spiralling food prices… The dominant food system is not delivering. This is because it is a food system moulded by a market where purchasing power is more important than rights, where food, land, and water and other resources have been restricted to a mere commodity. It is a system where the power to decide who produces what, how, for whom or by whom is concentrated in a handful of companies, and where public policies to regulate agricultural or financial markets have been largely dismantled. This system today is colliding with inherent limits. It traps a billion producers and consumers in poverty and fails to address the ecological boundaries of a flawed food system. Inequalities are increasing, and peoples are excluded from their fundamental rights. In the midst of a second severe food price crisis in three years, some governments have lost confidence in the capacity of international markets to deliver their needed food. The international community is forced to address the problem. But it still fails to recognise the main causes of the persistent crisis and to develop coordinated and coherent responses that go beyond the defence of short term interests. The time has come to put people at the centre of the food system. In that system the supply of food is accomplished by agro-ecological, resilient, small-holder farming, producing sufficient and accessible food for all. Policies need to be grounded in the right to food and food sovereignty to deliver on food, nutritional and ecological security. Small food producers and civil society organisations call for the needed radical changes by mobilising forces and contributing to the debate for transformed policies at national and international levels.

Thierry Kesteloot, Oxfam-Solidarity

Icon

Food price volatility and food markets, no 4

1 file(s) 0.00 KB
Download