donderdag 5 juni 2008

Alternatieve voedseltop schuift kernvragen naar voor

Verschillende organisaties uit de civiele maatschappij die opkomen voor voedselsoevereiniteit, verenigden zich in Rome en stelden samen een document op met hun vragen en eisen dat verspreid werd onder de deelnemers van de FAO-top. Hieronder lees je het statement.

Key demands from Civil Society organisations organized through the IPC (International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty)

Rome, 2 June-2008

See also www.foodsovereignty.org and the CSO declaration (already signed by more than 700 organisations) www.nyeleni.eu/foodemergency.

The present crisis is the result of decades of international and national policies which violate the right to food. There is need to ensure coherence of all food-related national and international policies with the obligations under the right to food. In particular policies on agriculture and fishery, trade and investment, and development and energy should contribute to promote and never undermine the full realisation of the right to adequate food.

Strengthening peasant based production and domestic markets: rebuilding national food economies and allowing self sufficiency in food.
  1. Governments should give priority to support peasant and family farm based food production for domestic markets. This financial and technical support may not be hindered by any international agreement.
  2. Governments should have and use the right to fully control and protect their domestic food markets and be able to establish the necessary intervention mechanisms in order to guarantee stable and fair prices for producers and consumers.
  3. Peasants and small farmers should be enabled to access their domestic markets.
  4. A genuine agrarian reform is urgent in order to give peasant families access to land and to combat poverty and hunger in the rural areas.
  5. Poorest consumers should receive support so that they keep access to sufficient adequate food.
  6. The rapid corporate expansion of agrofuels, the related land grabbing by TNCs and the expulsion of millions of peasants worldwide into hunger and misery has to be stopped.

Protect national markets against speculation by traders and investers on the national and the international markets.
  1. Speculation and trade in futures and other financial products related to food products has to be prohibited.

Create an international framework that support food production for domestic use instead of destroying it.
  1. Negotiations on trade liberalisation under WTO and Free Trade Agreements have to be stopped.
  2. International buffer stocks and intervention mechanisms have to be built up in order to stabilize prices at a reasonable level. Exporting countries have to accept rules that control the quantities they can bring to the market and that avoid low price dumping.
  3. A moratorium has to be announced on the uncontrolled corporate driven expansion of agrofuels. An in-depth evaluation has to take place and policies have to be defined that clearly give the highest priority to food production for domestic needs.

Establishment of a UN Commission on Food Production, consumption and Trade expanding on the format established by the Brundtland Comission.
The UN task force is dominated by the failed institutions whose policies have created this food price crisis. The Commission should include all relevant actors, be mindfull of the results of the IAASTD and ICARRD, make a full evaluation of the food system and give an interim report to the UN General Assembly and the governing bodies of FAO, IFAD and WFP by the end of 2008 and a final report towards the end of 2009.