The human right to adequate food is a powerful idea for ending hunger in the 21st century, and a movement is growing to realize this human right, even in a world threatened by poverty, inequality, and climate change. World Food Day (WFD) 2007’s theme was the Right to Food, and WHY was active in several WFD events.

WFD Teleconference: Climate Change

Program director Leah Stern represented WHY at the 2007 WFD worldwide Teleconference, “Climate: Changes, Challenges and Consequences.” As Hurricane Katrina has tragically demonstrated, it is the poor who are most threatened by natural disasters, and on a global level the threat is so much greater. “About 3 billion people now live on a daily pittance and are prey to hunger and disease. Their nations generally don’t have the resources needed to adapt to climate change and maintain a safety net during periods of intense drought, winds, floods, polluted water and farm lands, crop losses, livestock infestations and massive movements of climate-change refugees.”

The teleconference showed that geography plays a role, with sub-Saharan Africa most in need, but the increasing wealth gap between rich and poor nations creates enormous inequity, “…if you look at who is responsible and who is suffering.” Meanwhile fast-industrializing nations such as China and Brazil continue their path of modernization, with China ticketed to become the world’s leading emitter of polluting gases in the near future. A positive report from the teleconference noted the signs of a great awakening in the U.S. on the climate-change issue, but questioned whether this movement would reach critical mass and produce urgent action in time. Change is needed on a global level (Kyoto and beyond) but also on an individual level: see “ten things to do” at www.climatecrisis.net. For more on the teleconference theme and material, see www.worldfooddayusa.org.

Implementing the Right to Food

Christina Schiavoni and Peter Mann of WHY International were interviewed by UN Radio for World Food Day on the Right to Food. Peter described some of the history behind the growing awareness of this human right: from FDR’s 1941 “Freedom from Want” as one of his Four Freedoms, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 which first recognized the right to food as a universal human right, up to and including the Right to Food Guidelines adopted by the FAO Council in 2004. Meanwhile the right to food is increasingly being integrated into national constitutions and legislation: the bad news is that 854 million malnourished human beings in the world are still not able to realize this right.

The right to food is not charity, it is about justice and freedom for people held down by hunger and poverty. It is intrinsically linked to other rights - the right to education, to work, to health, to freedom of assembly and association. Christina spoke about the importance of food sovereignty, which restores the power of communities to feed themselves while ensuring fairness for farmers and farm workers. She spoke of efforts at WHY to unite communities in the US and around the world in this global movement. A recent example was a series of exchanges between New York City urban farmers and food justice advocates and visiting farmer leaders from Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala, Canada, and the U.S.
Resources:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) www.fao.org
FIAN (FoodFirst Information and Action Network) www.fian.org

The International Year of the Potato 2008

There seems something inherently amusing in naming an international year for the humble potato, but the potato is in fact the fourth most important food crop in the world, and more than one-third of global potato output now comes from developing countries, with China and India now accounting for 30 percent of world potato output. The versatile and adaptable sweet potato is the world’s seventh most important food crop, produced largely in Asia. Andean farming systems have nine species with edible roots and tubers, including thousands of diverse potato varieties. In mountainous regions throughout the world, root and tuber crops play a crucial role in the diet and the rural economy.

WHY staff attending the UN’s Right to Food events were intrigued by the diverse shapes and textures of Peruvian potatoes on display, but unfortunately we had to leave before we could sample the culinary potato dishes that were promised. FAO handouts on potato and gender, nutrition, biodiversity and trade were helpful (see http://www.potato2008.org/en/index.html ). However, it was clear also that potatoes were being processed to meet rising demand from the fast food, snack and convenience food industries; that both FAO and the International Potato Center (CIP) (www.cgiar.org) were gravitating toward potato biotechnology; and that the struggles must continue that empower the poor and hungry to realize their right to food. These struggles are urgent: see the article by Tejas Kadia “Where is the Urgency?”