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.

Boxes

Newsletter no 42 - Ten years of Nyéléni - Much to celebrate!

Box 1

Why was the Nyéléni newsletter created?

The International Forum on Food Sovereignty in Mali in 2007—the Nyeleni Forum—brought together over 500 representatives from organisations/movements of small-scale food providers, consumers and civil society organisations, all of whom were involved in strengthening and expanding food sovereignty at local and global levels.

During the Forum, participants from 80 countries shared knowledge, visions, strategies and practices for transforming their communities, societies and economies through the principles of food sovereignty. These discussions revealed the wealth of knowledge continuously being created by food sovereignty practitioners as they confronted social, economic, environmental and political challenges. It also highlighted the centrality and utility of food sovereignty as a platform to build alliances and strategies to resist neoliberalism, global capitalism, authoritarianism, and all forms of injustice, inequality and violence. Participants pledged to build solidarity, unity and common cause within and across movements, constituencies, genders, cultures and regions by strengthening communication, political education, awareness and peer-to-peer learning.

The Nyeleni newsletter was created to respond to these commitments: to give voice to the priorities, concerns, experiences and knowledge of the food sovereignty movement, and foster dialogue across sectors/actors. The newsletter was conceptualized as an informational and educational tool to contextualize and explain complex issues to movement actors—especially those at the grassroots and in the frontlines—as well as bring their particular experiences to the forefront. The newsletter is produced four times a year in English, Spanish and French, and shared all over the world through conventional and social media.

The topics of each edition of the bulletin are decided by movement members, and the articles are written in styles and lengths that are easy to understand and translate. While allied researchers/academics are invited to present analyses, each newsletter contains testimonies from grassroots actors, and information about struggles, initiatives and outreach materials from movements across the world. The overall goal of the newsletter was and remains to be facilitating a pedagogy of peoples committed to building and realizing food sovereignty.

Box 2

Song – La Cumbia del Campesinx

La cumbia del agronegocio, la bailan los asesinos,
La cumbia del agronegocio, la bailan los asesinos,
El pueblo nunca la baila, unidos, jamás vencidos,
El pueblo nunca la baila, unidos, jamás vencidos!

La cumbia del campesino, la baila el pueblo unido,
La cumbia del campesino, la baila el pueblo unido,
Esa sí que la bailamos, porque estamos convencidos,
Esa sí que la bailamos, porque estamos convencidos,

¡Soberanía Alimentaria, queremos Reforma Agraria!
¡Soberanía Alimentaria, queremos Reforma Agraria!

¡Pasito por aquí, pasito por acá, queremos la Reforma Agraria Integral!
¡Pasito por aquí, pasito por acá, queremos la Reforma Agraria Integral!

The Peasants’ Cumbia

The cumbia of agribusiness, the murderers dance it,
The cumbia of agribusiness, the murderers dance it,
The people never dance it, united, never defeated,
The people never dance it, united, never defeated!

The cumbia of the peasants, the people dance it together,
The cumbia of the peasants, the people dance it together,
We dance that one, because we are determined,
We dance that one, because we are determined,

Food Sovereignty, we want Land Reform!
Food Sovereignty, we want Land Reform!

Step this way, step that way, we want Comprehensive Land Reform!
Step this way, step that way, we want Comprehensive Land Reform!

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 42 - Ten years of Nyéléni - Much to celebrate!

In the spotlight 1

Food Sovereignty at the forefront for a new system

Neoliberal policies have failed to achieve their promises of endless economic growth, while many real investments have lost their profitability. Now a new era of financialization and capital accumulation, characterized by the dematerialization of the real economy and mergers and acquisitions by TNCs, has led to an unprecedented market concentration focused on the enhancement of new R&D (Research and Development) and (bio)technology investments. They aim to extend the frontiers of capitalism to capture all the world’s biodiversity, lower the cost of food and labour, and restart a material economic expansion.

To achieve this objective, TNCs increasingly influence the UN system to receive favourable public policies and normative frameworks. The World Economic Forum and TNCs are trying to transform the UN institutions’ governance principles and practices through so-called “multi-stakeholder governance” and make it the domain of a small number of powerful private monopolies. The COVID pandemic has shed light on the power of TNCs, as in many countries large scale corporate food enterprises were financially supported while small-scale food producers went bankrupt and food and agricultural workers (many of them migrants) remained unemployed and therefore without access to food.

The food sovereignty movement – which mainstreams agroecology – can be at the forefront of an alternative way forward, offering a solution to restart material economic expansion while tackling climate change, and reshaping a new society based on egalitarian principles. Indeed, the FAO has recognized the role of small-scale food producers in feeding the world, and recognises their role at the core of solutions to mitigate and reverse climate change. Until now, all the solutions to mitigate climate change proposed by the corporate sector have failed to address underlying causes and have continued to allow the biggest polluters to continue heating our planet. Real solutions to stop climate change are rooted in peoples’ access to and control of land, seeds, and water and in the promotion of agroecology, the restoration of nature and landscapes that enable water retention.

Following the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996 – during which La Via Campesina launched the Food Sovereignty agenda and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) was formed — it was at the Nyeleni Forum in 2007 where social movements gathered to agree on a common agenda for Food Sovereignty. In 2015 many of those same movements came together at the Nyeleni Forum for Agroecology, where a common definition of Agroecology was agreed in order to bring it into the mainstream of the United Nations. Now the food sovereignty movement through the IPC is calling for a new global summit which aims to connect the food sovereignty agenda with the other converging struggles for climate justice and system change, and which can demonstrate the real alternatives to the current food and economic system already in existence —alternatives based on agroecology and an economic system that includes territorial markets, direct relationships between producers and consumers, cooperatives and participatory community-led governance mechanisms and policies.

In the spotlight 2

Communication and the Urgency of Reporting on Food Sovereignty

To exercise your rights, you must know them. Alternative, popular, and community-based communication is key to this effort, as it entails social organizations and movements creating messages that strengthen their own narratives, without any intermediaries involved. They communicate the struggles, demands, complaints, ideas, and proposals for a dignified life directly from communities themselves, including calls for social, environmental, economic and gender equity.

Among the mainstream communications media monopolised by agribusinesses – who invest in million dollar advertising schemes whilst greenwashing their extractive projects that pollute soils and waterways – popular communication is forging its way.

Through blogs, social media messages and online video streaming, social, environmental, feminist, peasant, indigenous and Afro- organisations are experiencing a new boom in media appropriation, with new communication technologies becoming major allies.

An emblem of this new era is the collaboration between various organisations to build new communication channels and their own media. This unity in diversity, which we promote in order to advance a common political agenda, has its place in these transmedia platforms where the media hegemony can be challenged. In addition, there are audiences eager to see themselves reflected in these modern means of communication which have been built from the bottom up and from the political left, to inspire them and to help them find a cause they feel connected to.

Within the coverage of issues related to the development and practice of Food Sovereignty – be it articles, posters, reports, photo-reports or podcasts — it’s important to continue to share the stories that illustrate the emancipatory projects that are taking place around the world and that are facing political persecution, militarisation of the land and the imposition of agro-industrial technologies which are being incorrectly labelled as being ‘sustainable’.

In this capitalist and patriarchal world, women are the ones who suffer most from hunger and only 13% of them own land although paradoxically, they are responsible for 60% of global food production. Narratives on Food Sovereignty must feature women as the leading protagonists, showing the work they do and boosting their voices as political subjects of Agroecology.

Communicating what Food Sovereignty is and why its defence and its construction from the bottom up are important must be an integral part of movements’ strategies. Getting this message across is a central tool for effecting change, not an afterthought.

Voices from the field

Newsletter no 43 - Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic

Voices from the field 1

Agricultural and Food Workers

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground pages 8-12

During the pandemic, government authorities qualified agricultural and food workers as “essential workers”, meaning they had to continue to work in conditions where they were treated as expendable since employers often failed to provide adequate protective measures[1]. The work they do is essential; their health and lives, it seems, are not. This is true of workers in food supply chains who help feed the world – but who, paradoxically, are often least able to feed themselves as their wages or income are insufficient to ensure food security by obtaining sufficient, safe, and nutritious food. Risks are high in food and agricultural industries because of systemic weaknesses. Only 5% of the workers in agriculture have any access to a labour inspection system or legal protection of their health and safety rights. COVID-19 outbreaks at meat processing plants around the world provide the best illustration of the high risks and the price paid by meat workers in ensuring food supplies to markets, shops, supermarkets, canteens, restaurants, cafes and bars. Tens of thousands of workers in meat plants have caught the disease due to a combination of factors: poor employment practices often predominantly of migrant workers, poor and crowded working and health and safety conditions, and in some cases, poor living quarters.[2] The global meat processing industry is controlled by very few, large corporations with significant power over workers and governments. COVID-19 has put a spotlight on how companies are using their political clout to influence governments.[3] While huge profits are made and dividends are paid to shareholders, the pandemic is used to freeze wages and social protection benefits.

Further reading: COVID-19 and the impact on agriculture and food security

ILO instruments and tools in agriculture:

  • The Labour Inspection (Agriculture) Convention, 1969 (No. 129)
  • The Right of Association (Agriculture) Convention, 1921 (No. 11)
  • The Plantations Convention, 1958 (No. 110)
  • The Rural Workers’ Organizations Convention, 1975 (No. 141)
  • The Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention, 2001 (No. 184)
  • The Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202)
  • The Code of practice on safety and health in agriculture (2011)

Voices from the field 2

Peasants and Small Scale Family Farmers

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground pages 19-22

Peasant/small-scale family farmer organizations emphasize that the pandemic has revealed the unsustainability and inadequacies of the global food system controlled by big companies, and the inequalities and vulnerabilities it reproduces. Lockdown restrictions have been disproportionately affected peasants and their communities and the poor and working class most. States have taken advantage of the pandemic to exercise more authoritarian control over people. We are witnessing an increase in cases of expropriation of land and water resources, assassination of social leaders, as well as domestic violence against women. The pandemic is being used as an opportunity to push neoliberal, pro-corporate reforms in countries in all regions. Closures of territorial markets (farmers, weekly and village markets etc.) while keeping supermarkets open have had disastrous effects on small-scale producers’ livelihoods, and are not justified by safety requirements.

Peasant and family farmers have been in the forefront of putting in place solidarity initiatives and mechanisms for vulnerable people and communities. Peasant organizations organized campaigns to disseminate information on how to prevent contagion, called for measures to protect agricultural and food workers, and denounced violence against leaders and peoples, especially women. They have called for a radical transformation of food systems in the direction of greater equity and sustainability, and adequate public social policies and protection mechanisms for the vulnerable. These include domestic food production for domestic consumption; territorial markets with short supply chains and more effective links between rural and urban areas; agroecology; regulation of prices in favor of producers rather than intermediaries; producers’ access to and control over natural resources; support for family farmer and women’s associations and direct financing to their organizations; appropriate financial measures including lower interest rates on credit.

Voices from the field 3

Fisherfolk

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground pages 12-15

Millions of women and men are directly involved in small-scale fisheries including processing and marketing of fish and depend on fish as a healthy and affordable protein. Fisherfolks report that indiscriminate lockdowns demonstrated a pre-existing tendency to underplay the role of fish in food systems. Meanwhile social distancing measures and closing of local markets have stopped many small-scale fishers from going fishing. The “virus stigma” on wet markets where fresh fish is often sold also created problems. Women comprise 80–90% of the post-harvest sector, and work in close proximity in processing and retail facilities, putting them at higher risk for COVID-19. In processing plants worldwide, women tend to occupy temporary and lower-paid positions, do not have access to social protections after losing their jobs, are more likely to be laid off, and cannot defend their labor rights. Many migrant fishers were stranded on vessels or in harbors, unable to return home, living in cramped living conditions without adequate water or food. Meanwhile large scale offshore freezing vessels and those involved in fishmeal fisheries could continue their activities.

On the other hand, there are numerous examples of fisherfolks contributing to address food insecure populations in their communities. In Oaxaca, Mexico, local fishers contributed their time and boats to provide 50–60 tons per week of free seafood for their communities. In Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa, they organized themselves to provide 100 parcels of food to the most needed.

Voices from the field 4

Indigenous Peoples

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground pages 16-18

Indigenous Peoples organisations have reported that COVID 19 deepened many of their pre-existing structural problems such as lack of basic infrastructure: water, electricity, paved roads. The pre-existing effects on Indigenous Peoples’ health due to pollution from mining in their territory make them more vulnerable to COVID 19 and it also exacerbates pre-existing injustice, discrimination, inequalities, violations of the right to food and nutrition, the right to health and other human rights. The loss of biodiversity and habitats where many Indigenous Peoples live generate the conditions for the development of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Indigenous Peoples’ main activities – subsistence agricultural production, small scale fishing, herding, and gathering – have all been impacted by lockdowns. In some places basic hygienic water and sanitation is not available in communities increasing their vulnerability. Faced with this situation, Indigenous Peoples have generated their own sanitary control initiatives, through ancestral or current practices.

Indigenous youth voices say, “the pandemic has revealed inequalities, discrimination, sectorization, class division and fundamentalisms” of dominant societies towards indigenous peoples.” Likewise, “acts of criminalization are seen when they defend their rights. That is also a pandemic”.

Looking towards the future, Indigenous Peoples are clear they will continue to promote food sovereignty, traditional sovereignty, guarantee decent housing, revive their forms of traditional health aid, promote actions to protect the elderly possessors of traditional knowledge with an anti-colonial approach and accountability. They must preserve community practices, traditional practices.

Voices from the field 5

Pastoralists

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground page 35

Pastoralist organisations in 12 countries of West Africa have recorded that COVID 19 is increasing multiples crises afflicting territories that were already heavily affected by the insecurity that has prevailed in the region for a number of years. Risks include the death of cattle due to the limitations on movements and seasonal migrations. Seasonal migration is a practice they have developed to address shocks. If they cannot practice it their whole range of resilience mechanisms will be threatened and we are likely to see a recurrence of famine leading to a break-down of families and massive exodus towards urban centers. Rural conflicts could increase and there will be a significant reduction in the offer of animal protein for the local populations. Other pastoralists from Iran and Mongolia are also facing impacts of lockdowns – Delayed seasonal migration could cause weight loss and illness in livestock due to rising temperatures in wintering grounds, as well as extra expenses for buying feed and water. Herders are not able to sell raw materials including wool, cashmere, as well as meat products as local markets, factories and tourism spots are all closed.

Voices from the field 6

Urban food insecure

Excerpted from Voices From the Ground pages 23-25

The incidence of COVID-19 infection is higher in cities than elsewhere, where socio-territorial inequalities in urban areas contribute significantly to existing inequities in access to adequate food. Those consumers who buy their food through supermarkets found supplies severely disrupted, especially in the early stages of COVID-19. In addition, there was an increase in the consumption of industrialized products, of low nutritional quality. One of the most relevant public food and nutrition security programs that has been discontinued in many cities is school feeding. An FAO survey shows that among cities responding to an electronic form 88% reported having suspended the offer of food to students. However, Community Supported Agriculture delivery to consumers has been authorised unilaterally in all countries, even where other forms of direct sales were stopped, mainly because the food is not packaged and is handled safely by producers.

Voices from the field 7

Women

Excerpted from Gender, covid-19 and food systems: impacts, community responses and feminist policy demands.

We believe that the right to food, food security and nutrition and food sovereignty will never be achieved without ensuring the full respect, protection and fulfilment of women’s rights and the dismantling of patriarchal, feudal and neoliberal power relations. We want to go beyond the universally agreed goal of gender equality and women’s empowerment, which does not explicitly assert the centrality of women’s rights, the recognition of our self- determination, autonomy and decision-making power in all the aspects of our lives and bodies, including the food we produce and consume. We recognize, in light of this pandemic, the need to deconstruct the dominant narrative on women who are very often portrayed as victims in need of anti-poverty policies and social assistance.

We believe that the current global food system builds on and perpetuates gender- based discrimination and the violation of women’s rights. In order to achieve a fair and equal society where women can fully enjoy their rights and self-determination, we must put at the center the alternative model of consumption and production founded on agroecology and the food sovereignty paradigm.

We believe that any policy demands must be grounded on key feminist principles such as gender justice, equality and equity, non-discrimination and intersectionality, participation and recognition.

Voices from the field 8

Youth

Excerpted from Youth demands for a radical transformation of our food systems.

Covid-19 and the responses of governments are having devastating impacts on young people and our communities around the globe. We are experiencing the combined impacts of an acute health crisis, a current and looming food crisis, and a climate crisis – all illustrative of wider systems crises.

In this time of multiple crises, Youth are facing several challenges. As markets fail, schools close, and jobs disappear, we see opportunities and our futures crumble away. However, we are not standing idly by. We, as a diverse community of Youth from around the globe, are active in developing solutions to the challenges facing our communities: we are organizing ourselves to continue providing food for our communities and caring for the elderly as well as our children; we are shortening the distance from producer to consumer; we are defending school feeding programs and local markets; we are rebuilding rural economies and territories, ensuring youth can stay and return in the country- side; we are caring for and healing the earth by growing nourishing food through agroecology; we are standing up to domestic violence against women and girls as well as racism, homophobia, xenophobia and the patriarchy; and, we are defending workers’ and migrants’ rights as well as the rights of rural people. We are also imagining new ways to organize the world: envisioning healthy, sustainable and dignified food systems, and taking steps towards achieving them.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25892&LangID=E

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/11/chaotic-and-crazy-meat-plants-around-the-world-struggle-with-virus-outbreaks

[3] https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/power-profits-and-pandemic

Boxes

Newsletter no 43 - Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic

Box 1

COVID- 19 underlines why corporate-controlled global food supply chains must go

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global food supply chains that have increasingly dominated food production and distribution in both the global North and the global South. The chain is already breaking down at one of its most critical links: migrant labor.  Workers are falling victim to COVID-19 owing to their being deprived of the most basic protective gear, like facemasks, and their working in crowded conditions that make a mockery of social distance rules.

But the global supply chain is not only threatened by problems at the production and processing ends, but by transportation bottlenecks, especially at key hubs, like Rosario, Argentina, owing to people’s fears that long distance transportation is a major transmitter of the virus. The 2007-2008 global food crisis should have underlined the vulnerability of corporate-controlled global supply chains but they were extended even more.

What changes to the global food system does the COVID-19 debacle urge on us? Probably the most important measure is to move food production back to more sustainable smallholder-based localized systems. In addition localized production, being less carbon-intensive, is much better for the climate than production based on supply chains.

Traditional peasant and indigenous agricultural technologies should be respected because they contain a great deal of wisdom and represent the evolution of a largely benign balance between the community and the biosphere.

It has been said that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. The silver lining of the COVID-19 crisis is the opportunity it spells for food sovereignty.

The full article is available here.

Box 2

Relocalization of food systems and agroecology, the ways forward

The COVID- 19 crisis has shown that local food systems and short supply chains have proved resilient and are better able to innovate in times of crisis as well as feed people local healthy food without being dependant on numerous links in supply chains.

The most effective initiatives to address the COVID crises have largely come from diverse organized local communities at multiple levels sometimes working with responsive government bodies and public authorities. They have mobilized and supported the distribution of food parcels, cooked meals, delivered basic necessities, health protection materials, seeds, production inputs and other livelihood supports for vulnerable families and communities in their own countries as well as in other countries and regions.

In every region, family farmers, fishers and consumer organisations have created and strengthened direct connections through community supported agriculture (CSAs), community supported fisheries, direct deliveries to households, expansion of food cooperatives and social programmes. Where possible producers have used online platforms to market their produce directly. Mutual aid schemes from soup kitchens to CSAs and community clinics have helped to plug the gaps of hunger and poverty.

Prominent proposals for systemic change demanded by these communities are agroecology and relocalization of food systems – supporting agroecological production, social economies and protection, cooperative marketing, short circuits and supply chains, and ensuring safe working environments and the adequate functioning of territorial food markets, as well as other means of provision of food produced by local, small-scale food producers, including through public procurements.

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 43 - Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic

In the spotlight 1

Voices from the ground: Only a radical transformation of the food system can tackle COVID-19

The emergence, spread and devastating impacts of the COVID- 19 pandemic exacerbate existing and avertable systemic injustices. How we build, organize and govern our food systems are key in determining and shaping these injustices. Decades of neoliberal policies, reducing the role of the state and privileging a free market-led food system, have led to the dismantling of public policies and regulation, prioritized commodity exports and food corporations’ profits over small-scale producers’ livelihoods, local food systems and food sovereignty. COVID-19 is just the latest in a series of infectious diseases and crises linked to the industrial food system and it won’t be the last.

Those most deeply affected by the pandemic include women, youth, refugees and migrants, workers and small scale food producers, landless peoples, urban food insecure, and indigenous peoples. Many peoples were unable to lock down as they were dependant on daily wages, and have neither the financial reserves, nor adequate social protection or state support systems to draw on in times of crises. COVID-19 has revealed that the so-called competitiveness of the industrial agriculture model is built on high insecurity and abuse of workers, low wages and substandard working conditions as well as environmental and health risks.

COVID-19 makes the need for a transformation of the food system towards food sovereignty, agroecology, based on human rights and justice more urgent than ever. The crisis cannot be fixed by emergency measures and stimulus packages that perpetuate the same model.

Yet few Government responses were aimed at the realization of human rights or centred on the needs of marginalized communities. Official policy and financial support have mostly favoured corporations, large producers and global supply chains ensuring them the capital and work-force they need to keep operations running. Government responses were and continue to be shaped by historical economic and social disparities within and among countries. Now developing countries face a new spectre of capital flight, large loans with conditionality leading to higher debt, and impending structural adjustment policies. Grassroots reports show that official responses most often reflected siloed approaches, lack of preparedness and coordination. There was also insufficient international cooperation to address the factors leading to the emergence and devastating spread of COVID-19, as well as to respond adequately to short-term needs and long-term recovery.

Worryingly, many governments invoked emergency powers—in the name of controlling the pandemic—that allow them control over all aspects of governance and security with no democratic oversight. These powers have been used to criminalise dissent and brutally enforce unfair lockdowns.

Although governments and global institutions use the narrative of “build back better”, their policies feature more support for big corporations and pro-corporate digitalization and new technologies. In contrast, communities’ responses have fostered values of community, solidarity, resilience, sustainability and human dignity. These two approaches cannot co-exist.

Grassroots movements have clear demands, based on our evidence on what is needed for a Just Recovery from COVID- 19:

  1. Break with neoliberal approaches of the past
  2. Put Food Sovereignty into practice
  3. Reaffirm the primacy of the public sphere
  4. Strengthen Human Rights based global food governance

We call for a paradigm shift that reclaims food systems as public commons for the well-being of people and the planet, based on the centrality of human rights, that puts food sovereignty into practice, recognizes the primacy of public policies and strengthens a genuinely inclusive, democratic and coherent model of governance to realize the right to adequate food for all, now and in the future.

In the spotlight 2

Can Agroecology Stop COVID- 21, 22, and 23?

Pathogens are repeatedly emerging out of a global agrifood system rooted in inequality, labour exploitation, and the kind of unfettered extractivismthat robs communities of their natural and social resources. In response, some industry representatives propose more agricultural intensification under the guise of sparing ‘wilderness’, an approach that—in backing the agribusiness model – leads to greater deforestation and disease spillover.

Land sparing omits many peasant, Indigenous, and smallholder agricultures that are integrated within forest ecosystems and produce food and fibre for local and regional uses. Indeed, peasant and Indigenous land sharing preserves high levels of agrobiodiversityand wildlife diversity that keep deadly pathogens from spreading.

Pandemic Research for the People (PReP) is an organisation of farmers, community members, and researchers focusing on how agriculture might be reimagined to stop coronaviruses and other pathogens from emerging in the first place. We advocate for agroecology, an environmentalism of the peasantry, the poor, and Indigenous long in practice, which treats agriculture as a part of the ecology out of which humanity grows its food. A diverse agroecological matrix of farm plots, agroforestry, and grazing lands all embedded within a forest can conserve biocultural diversity, making it more difficult for zoonotic diseases to string together the line of infections that then escape onto the global travel network. Such diversity also supports the economic and social conditions of people currently tending the land.

Peasant agroecologies are more than matters of soil and food, as important as those are. Their work in stopping pandemics and other social goods arises from their broader context. Agroecologies are founded upon practical politics that place agency and power in the hands of poor and working class, Indigenous, and Black and Brown people. They replace the dynamics of ecologically (and epidemiologically) harmful forms of urbanization and agricultural industrialization operating in favour of a racial and patriarchal capitalism. They place planet and people before profits none but a few reap.

Newsletter no 42 – Editorial

Newsletter no 42 - Ten years of Nyéléni - Much to celebrate!

Ten years of Nyéléni – Much to celebrate !

Illustration by Francisco Daniel, MST de Brasil, facebook.com/fcodam/

A decade ago, the movements of peasants, fisherfolk, shepherds, women, migrants, workers, young people, and indigenous peoples sowed a crucial seed in the defence of Food Sovereignty and the right to food – the Nyéléni Newsletter. During this ten year germination period, we have shared challenges, experiences, reflections, and acts of unity. In recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic has reaffirmed the fundamental role of those who feed communities in a healthy, fair, and sustainable manner.

Alarmingly, we have also witnessed how extractive capitalism, authoritarianism and agribusinesses have taken over land and territories with total impunity, causing lives to be put at risk while governments continue to enact policies, regulations, and laws that favour corporations and industrial food systems.

Despite this, there is still plenty to celebrate. This newsletter is a unique instrument of solidarity, exchange, training, and communication for the organisations that are advocating an end to the Industrial Food System and its replacement with Food Sovereignty. Today we applaud legislation promoting Food Sovereignty, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the mass expansion of Agroecology in practice and training through hundreds of schools, as well as the constant fight to keep peasant seeds in the hands of small-scale food producers.

So, in this edition we celebrate, cherishing our collective memories and reaping the fruits of our labour, because we are the voice of hope, and we will sing loudly!

The Nyéléni newsletter Editorial Board
on behalf of the International Food Sovereignty movement (in alphabetic order):

Erik Hazard, Food First
Margaret Nakato Lubyayi, WFF
Martín Drago, Friends of the Earth International
Million Belay Ali, AFSA
Nadine Nembhard, WFFP
Ramón Vera Herrera, GRAIN
Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South
Sofia Monsalve, FIAN
Viviana Rojas Flores, La Via Campesina
The Secretariat of the IPC for food sovereignty

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Ten years of Nyéléni – Much to celebrate! no 42

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Newsletter no 43 – Editorial

Newsletter no 43 - Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic

Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic

Illustration: Farm Workers –Vegetable and Fruit Pickers – Essential Worker Portrait #6 by Carolyn Olson, http://carolynolson.net

When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, few imagined the scale of the devastation that the disease would wreak across the world, or for how long it would last. As COVID-19 swung from country to country on its deadly course, it became clear that governmental actions or inactions, and social-economic-political contexts were as responsible as the virus for triggering impacts.

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from abating: infections continue to spike in numerous countries with the emergence of new, more contagious strains of the SARS-COV-2 virus. The long awaited vaccines have started to be rolled out but may well be out of reach for majority of the world for several months or even years due to “vaccine apartheid.” Despite the limited availability of vaccines due to the time needed for production and testing, many wealthy nations have purchased sufficient vaccine supplies to immunize their own populations at least twice, and are backing monopolistic control over vaccines by pharmaceutical companies through legally enforceable intellectual property rights in the World Trade Organization.

This edition of the Nyéléni newsletter presents excerpts from some of the documentation and research conducted by practitioners and advocates of food sovereignty, particularly, Voices from the ground, From COVID-19 to radical transformation of our food systems, prepared by the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism to Committee on World Food Security. Links to the full reports/papers are provided with each excerpt.

Focus on the Global South and Friends of the Earth International

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Food sovereignty in a time of pandemic, no 43

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Voices from the field

Newsletter no 41 - Beyond land - Territory and food sovereignty

Voices from the field 1

Climate change and small-scale fishers 

Fatima Majeed, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, Ibrahim Haidery, Karachi, Pakistan 

Climate change has had a profound effect on our lives as small-scale fishermen and fisherwomen. It has disrupted the fishing season, increased the sea level, and reduced the availability of fish. The number of small-scale fishers had decreased as fishing as a livelihood can no longer sustain them. Especially women were forced to take up jobs in small factories in order to earn some money to feed themselves and their families.  

Among small-scale fishers’ families in Pakistan, most of the household chores are borne by women, such as looking after household expenses, children’s education, health, as well as family’s happiness and sorrow. Small-scale fishers do not consume the fish they catch; it is their source of income. When there is little or no catch, their condition is worse than that of daily labourers. Most small-scale fishers and their families do not have access to three regular meals a day. Most of the food on their table is all that fishers could bring home that same day.  

Through its advocacy campaigns, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, a member of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) and the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, has been advocating for a sustainable fisheries policy to be formulated at the provincial level to mitigate the effects of climate change. It also demands the abolition of several coal power plants and dams in Pakistan, and called for environmentally friendly renewable energy generation that responds to the needs of communities and people.  

Voices from the field 2

He Kai kei aku ringa – Food provided by my own hands  

Moko Morris, Te Waka Kai Ora Aotearoa, tribal affiliations to Te Ātiawa and Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Aotearoa, New Zealand. 

Inspired by La Via Campesina, Te Waka Kai Ora Aotearoa (National Māori Organics Authority of Aotearoa)developed an Indigenous verification system for food that is grown and produced according to traditional Māori values. Hua Parakore– the name of this verification system – literally means “a pure product” or “kai atua ”- food from the gods. Hua Parakore speaks of our deep connection to nature and of our way of taking care of our territories, ecosystems and biodiversity. We hope that soon, as one drives around our country, one can readily notice Marae (meeting houses) farms, schools, early childhood centres with our signs proclaiming our commitment to growing food with Indigenous values that tells our story and empowers food sovereignty.  

A new Bill that has been laid before the Parliament suggests one single national standard for organic products. The objective of this bill is to boost the organic sector but it disregards our well known and respected system.

There are no provisions in the Bill to uphold the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi), which was signed between the British Crown and the Māori people in 1840 and which obliges the government of New Zealand to respect and protect the rights of the Māori people. This includes the protection of the rights to our taonga, (treasures) which includes our territories, as well as Ngā Hua Māori (Nature’s products) and Kai Atua. 

The present Bill therefore furthers the colonising agenda and negates our rights. Instead of acknowledging, protecting and promoting the Indigenous food systems in Aotearoa/New Zealand that have fed our people for centuries while respecting nature, the government pushes for an organic food sector that is guided by commercial interests and will create a mono-cultural landscape. We remain committed to our right to food and our self-determination. 

Voices from the field 3

Legal recognition of customary tenure systems in Mali 

Massa Koné, Malian Convergence against Land Grabbing 

Mali’s land law, the Code Domanial et Foncier, recognizes in principle the customary land rights of communities, but these provisions are not implemented in practice. The land titles that Malian and international investors acquire from state services through abuse of power, corruption, violence, etc., override the customary land rights of the communities that have lived on these lands for many years. Thanks to years of grassroots mobilization and advocacy, the Malian government approved a new law on agricultural land (LFA) in 2017, followed by two implementation decrees in 2018. While the legal frameworks inherited from the colonial era allocated all land to the state, the LFA recognizes that there is agricultural land that belongs to the communities, which is a historical achievement.  

The tenure security and management of community lands is now in the hands of the communities via so-called Village Land Commissions that are set up after debates and validation in village assemblies. At least seven persons are appointed as members of these commissions, including women, young people and representatives of the various agricultural activities present in the village. The land is therefore no longer in the hands of a few men, i.e. village chiefs, land chiefs or lineage chiefs, who had sole responsibility for it. In addition, so-called Local Land and Natural Resource Management Agreements, which are the basis of the rules to be respected, are collectively transcribed and deposited with the administrative and legal authorities. The land commissions have three main functions: (1) to manage all issues related to land; (2) to prevent and manage conflicts; and (3) to draw up a land ownership certificate that will be legalized by authorities and offers the same level of legal protection as a land title. 

The LFA thus creates space for communities to self-manage their resources, based on collective rights and according to rules defined by each community. This protects rural populations against land grabbing and land speculation, and opens up spaces for developing peasant agroecology territories. However, the struggle is not over. Social movements, peasant organizations and some CSOs are currently supporting the implementation of the law, notably by accompanying the creation of the Village land commissions in a process that puts communities centre stage. In addition, the Code Domanial et Foncier is currently being revised and ongoing mobilization is needed to ensure that it is in line with the LFA, at a time when several actors want to reverse the gains of the LFA. 

Boxes

Newsletter no 41 - Beyond land - Territory and food sovereignty

Box 1

Old story, new threats: digitalization of land in Indonesia

Digital technologies are increasingly being applied to land governance across the globe. Promoters of digitalization claim that it will enhance the efficiency of land administration and provide more tenure security (see Nyéléni Newsletter on Digitalization). Digital satellite imagery, drones, electronic databases and blockchain technology are used to map, demarcate and register land, store land-related data and facilitate land transactions. These technologies are often pushed by big donor-funded projects, which are primarily aimed at consolidating the privatization and commodification of land and attracting corporate investments.

The World Bank-funded Program to Accelerate Indonesia’s Agrarian Reform (One Map Project) is a case in point. Approved in 2018, this USD 240 million program focuses on comprehensive mapping of land and forests as well as land registration and issuance of individual land titles. The data and maps are incorporated into digital land registry and cadastre, called e-Land. According to the World Bank, e-Land will provide access to tenure information not only to the public and government agencies, but also to “commercial banks, real estate market facilitators, and land valuers”. As such, the project continues the World Bank’s policies in Indonesia and elsewhere to foster land markets and create a business-friendly environment.

Peasant organizations such as Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) point to the fact that the project does not resolve Indonesia’s main land issues, namely, the extreme concentration of land ownership and the lack of protection of customary forest rights. Indigenous and peasant communities are often excluded from the official digital maps. Therefore, SPI and local communities are producing their own maps with the help of digital tools such as GPS in order to challenge the official maps and corporate land claims and assert their rights. Instead of supporting agrarian reform, the project thus has opened a new challenge for communities and social organizations: the battle over digital data. 

Box 2

Community forest management for biodiversity and climate preservation

Community forest management is an extremely efficient forest preservation tool. Indigenous Peoples and other forest peoples make a use of biodiversity often based on ancestral knowledge, enhancing the biodiversity of the forests where they live. The case of the Ngobe indigenous people in the South region of Costa Rica and North of Panama is an example of this: they weave forest fibers and their hats and baskets are of high quality. They use a large variety of palm fibers and lianas from the forest: a Ngobe woman can use and knows tens of forest plants with which to elaborate different woven products. Thus, for long duration rustic baskets, they use “cucharilla” lianas, for rapid and rustic hats, they use “estrella” lianas, for fine hats they use the fibers of three or four different underwood palms. We asked one of the women what happens if they run out of lianas and palms. “No!”, she said, “we harvest lianas on the waning moon for them not to dry up when we trim them, and we only harvest some leaves from the palms and only during the appropriate moon time, and during the rainy season we host a liana festival, where the entire community participates with young people to collect our lianas from the forests”.

The agroforestry systems of the Bribri people and other Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica are true gardens that integrate a rich diversity of beans, pumpkins, different plantain and cacao varieties, maize, rice and a wide range of wood trees that wisely and precisely regulate the light of the system. Integrating ancestral knowledge with primary forests, it forms an impressive setting of biodiversity and agrodiversity. Over and above, it is no surprise when a study analyzing over 500 experiences of “common heritage” management concluded that “most of these groups showed essential features to improve community wellbeing and obtained beneficial results both in economic terms and in terms of improvement of resources such as water basins, forests and pest management”.

More information: Baltodano J. Y Rojas I. 2008. Los Ngobes y el Bosque. Asociación de Comunidades Ecologistas La Ceiba- Amigos de la Tierra.CR. 64 pp. www.coecoceiba.org
Pretty J., 2003. Social Capital and the Collective Management of Resources Sciencie #302, Dic 2003, 1912-1913

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 41 - Beyond land - Territory and food sovereignty

In the spotlight 1

From agrarian reform to people’s rights to territories: a brief history of people’s struggles for natural resources

The struggle for land has been a pillar of the food sovereignty movement since its emergence in the 1990s. At that time, peasant and landless organizations in different regions of the world were mobilizing against extreme land concentration and large farms (sometimes called latifundios), which had often been inherited from colonial times [In many countries, organizing against land concentration and demanding land redistribution has been part of social struggles for most of the second half of the 20th century. For instance, many revolutionary movements in Asia, including after decolonization, had land at their center.]. In 1999, La Via Campesina launched a Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform (GCAR) to push for human rights-based land distribution policies, and to oppose approaches that promoted markets as the best way of allocating land to the most “efficient” users and profitable uses. Rural movements’ demands for comprehensive agrarian reform also gained traction internationally, culminating in the final declaration of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) in 2006.

Towards the end of the 2000s, two important developments changed the framing of land struggles. Firstly, the food sovereignty movement gathered for the World Forum for Food Sovereignty in Sélingué (Mali). Different constituencies of small-scale food producers, such as indigenous peoples, pastoralists and artisanal fishers participated in this landmark meeting. These organizations had different histories and concerns than some of the peasant organizations and did not necessarily center their demands on agrarian reform. The notion of “territories” emerged out of the debate as a more holistic framing, capturing the close and multi-faceted relationship that different communities and people have with their natural environment, including farmland, water, fisheries, rangelands and forests. Secondly, the food price and financial crises that started in 2008 triggered a new wave of land grabbing, which also targeted regions that had not seen high levels of land concentration until then (e.g. West Africa). The new land rush sparked fierce resistance of communities and small-scale food producers’ organizations in defense of their territories, including their collective and customary tenure systems. In 2011, organizations from around the world gathered again in Sélingué for an International Peasant Conference to Stop Land Grabbing. This marked an important moment for the building of a global movement against land grabbing, which built on demands for agrarian reform but also recognized more strongly the demands of movements and constituencies who were not comfortable with agrarian reform language. In 2016, social movements and their allies came together for an International Conference on Agrarian Reform in Marabá, Brazil, where they endorsed the concept of Popular Agrarian Reform, which was initially developed by La Via Campesina Brazil and which embeds demands for land distribution within broader policies to transform economies and society, specifically including urban working people.

The global land grab put land back prominently on the international agenda. Among others, it gave further impetus to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s initiative to develop an international reference document on the governance of natural resources. The small-scale food producers’ organizations gathered in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) led the participation of civil society in the negotiations that took place in the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines) were adopted in 2012. Building on the ICARRD, they clarify states’ obligations to respect, protect and guarantee all legitimate tenure rights – whether they are legally recognized or not –, prioritizing the most marginalized groups. They contain provisions for the protection of customary tenure systems as well as for restitution and redistribution [The IPC’s Land and Territory Working Group has developed a People’s Manual to help grassroots organizations to use this international instrument.]. The Tenure Guidelines were complemented in 2014 by the Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries, which also emphasize the collective character of many communities’ rights.

These international guidelines have provided an opportunity for social organizations to advance their struggles at local, national and regional levels. They have achieved important advances in several countries and have further pushed for an explicit international recognition of the human right to land for rural people. This was finally achieved with the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas in 2018 [See in particular articles 5 and 17], which complements the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Labour Organization’s Convention no. 169. However, the Tenure Guidelines were also taken up by actors who consider land and related natural resources primarily as a globalized economic and financial asset. In such a framing, “secure land rights” or “security of tenure” means providing exclusive property rights, usually in the form of individual land titles. The International Land Coalition (ILC) is one of the most emblematic manifestations of an approach, which considers land-related “investment” projects as necessary, while acknowledging that negative impacts on local people need to be mitigated. It is under such a framing that land has been included into the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In the spotlight 2

Land and territories today: new challenges and broader struggles

At the same time as land and natural resources have been put back on the global agenda as key issues, the dispossession of communities and people has reached new heights. Today, social movements’ struggles for territories need to respond to a new context that is marked by a number of developments:

• Financialization: The financial crisis that started in 2008/09 has made evident the enormous power of finance capitalism and the dispossession and destruction of livelihoods that it causes for communities around the world. Land deals and all kinds of “investment” projects (large-scale agriculture, infrastructure etc.) are managed through opaque investment webs, tax havens and offshore centres. New financial instruments such as derivatives allow for new ways of wealth extraction and speculation by corporate and financial actors [More information here]. While financialization has come along with new levels of concentration of control over people’s territories in the hands of a few powerful actors – for instance, the Singapore-based agribusiness company Olam owns and manages more than 3 million hectares of land and forests around the world – it also challenges traditional claims for agrarian reform, namely the call for distribution of non-utilized land. This is because the value of land as a financial asset is decoupled from its use and land that is not under production is used in other ways to generate financial returns. This also applies to forests and oceans, which have been transformed into assets for different climate change mitigation schemes under the so-called “green” and “blue” economies.
Financialization entails that the effective control over land and other natural resources is increasingly in the hands of financial actors that are not necessarily visible for affected communities and people. These include pension funds, investment funds, banks, insurance companies and asset management companies such as BlackRock, the world’s biggest finance firm. Struggles for land and territories therefore need to address also financial justice issues such as stopping tax evasion, closing tax havens and ending illicit financial flows.

• Digitalization: Digital technologies play a key role in transforming land, fisheries and forests into globalized assets and are therefore a key element of financialization. Digitalization is promoted by governments, international institutions and the corporate sector as a new “silver bullet” that is supposed to make natural resource governance more efficient and to ensure tenure security for communities. While the food sovereignty movement and small-scale food producers’ organizations still need to discuss further to what extent digital technologies can be used in an emancipatory way, it is clear that the corporate-driven digitalization agenda is perpetuating structural inequalities and power imbalances [For more information, please see the Nyéléni Newsletter No. 37 on “The Digitalization of the Food System.].

• Rise of authoritarianism and crisis of democracy: Social movements’ and indigenous peoples’ struggles are increasingly squeezed between authoritarian, racist and chauvinistic regimes that seek to capture land demands for their own purposes on the one side, and new levels of corporate capture of governance spaces on the other. These developments have led to an alarming level of erosion of human rights and democracy at national and international levels. Consequently, the fundamentals for framing land demands and campaigning have changed. At international level, the rise of corporate power, the inability of UN institutions to provide useful/credible advice in the face of crises, and the rise of right wing authoritarianism has led to a deep crisis of the multilateral system of the UN, which has profound implications for the implementation of the significant achievements mentioned above [One example is the Food Systems Summit that is planned for 2021 and whose corporate-driven process has been denounced by more than five hundred organizations from around the world].

• Convergence of agrarian and ecological struggles: The profound ecological crisis the world is facing today and which manifest most strongly in human-made global warming as well as in the dramatic loss of biological diversity, has major implications for food sovereignty. Agrarian movements and struggles for land and territories need to integrate these issues in a comprehensive way. One manifestation of the relevance of ecological issues is the fact that relevant discussions regarding land have moved away from the “traditional” land governance spaces and are increasingly happening in other fora, such as those related to climate change, biodiversity, land degradation and soils etc. [This has happened at the same time when the FAO has largely given up its leadership on land issues and has no clear strategy for the implementation of the Tenure Guidelines in line with the UNDROP. This has opened the door for other actors to take over the leading role, such as the World Bank and multi-stakeholder platforms such as the ILC.] Even though small-scale food producers’ organizations have partially succeeded in bringing the Tenure Guidelines, the SSF Guidelines and UNDROP into some of the relevant discussions, the framing of land issues remains very narrow. Some of the civil society groups that have been active in the climate and biodiversity spaces, for instance, focus on specific and limited demands such as safeguards to protect indigenous peoples’ rights or formalization of communities’ land rights. Small-scale food producers’ organizations struggling for food sovereignty are not well represented (yet) in these fora, which are dominated by specialized NGOs and their “expert” knowledge. The small-scale food producers’ organizations of the IPC are currently struggling for a broader recognition of rural people’s role as stewards of ecosystems and that this requires effective control over their territories.

• Focus on the production model: Currently, the most intense debates on food are about the necessary transformation of food systems and agroecology. In the light of a deep legitimacy crisis of the agribusiness model, which is all too obviously unsustainable, social movements and CSOs have made important achievements, especially in the CFS [The CFS is currently engaged in two important policy processes in this regard: 1) the negotiations on Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition; and 2) the development on policy recommendations on
Agroecological and other Innovative Approaches.] and FAO [Following two international and a series of regional FAO symposia/conferences, the FAO Council (the executive organ of the FAO) formally adopted Ten Elements of Agroecology in December 2019]. Land and territories are central to these debates, but they are rarely prominently discussed in this context. In addition, despite the legitimacy crisis of agribusiness, there is little real change so far. Agribusiness has put forward Climate Smart Agriculture and the use of new (biological and digital) technologies as false solutions that are supposed to maintain its power. The COVID pandemic and the limitations it has entailed for social movements and indigenous peoples’ organizations in terms of their capacity to mobilize has been used by agribusiness to further expand its power in many countries [Among the most blatant examples is the admission of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Ecuador and Bolivia, and the ever-increasing deforestation in Brazil.] and in the internationally dominant discourse.

• COVID-19 pandemic and responses: Although the crisis caused by the pandemic and governments’ responses to it has laid bare the profound inequalities of our societies and the profound crisis of the industrial food system, debates and response measures have focused to a great extent to health aspects. Despite broad recognition of the fact that extractive activities, including agribusiness, are responsible for the destruction of ecosystems and that this leads to the emergence of new pathogens, the international and national responses have focused on saving big corporations and maintaining global value chains. While some peasant organizations have made the link to land concentration, calling for redistributive reforms as part of the response to the crisis, to the economic recession and to the escalation of inequalities that it is likely to entail [See, for instance MST’s Emergency Plan for People’s Agrarian Reform]; there has been no comprehensive proposal yet by the food sovereignty movement on how to incorporate land and territories into the post-pandemic order.

At this time of major disruptions and shifts, it is important to revive and (at least partially) refocus the struggles for land and territories in the new context. This will require building on the “old” strategies while finding new pathways that are adapted to the current circumstances. Over the last years, broader convergences of struggles for food sovereignty, women’s rights as well as environmental, social and financial justice have started to emerge, which connect movements and demands in new ways, and could lead to new strategies of building power to achieve systemic change. In several countries, the COVID “emergency” has boosted solidarity and local organizing, combining direct relief and support actions with political demands geared towards transformative change.

The current moment provides an important opportunity for a deep, collective and action-oriented reflection because it has exposed more clearly than ever the immense injustices and inequalities of the current food and economic systems. It is also a moment of reconfiguration of power relations that will determine to what extent social movements and people’s mobilization will be able to advance the political agenda of food sovereignty.