Sustainable Food
Security: A
Human Right
and A Social
Responsibility --

Turning the Right to
Food into Reality

The international treaty establishing the fundamental rights of every person, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, couldn't be more explicit. Food security is a basic human right.

At the same time, just saying that food is a human right doesn't put food on the table. Turning the right to food into a reality for present and future generations is hard work. It takes a series of political decisions, financial commitments, technological innovations, social cooperation, and individual actions to make it happen. Furthermore, the food we place on our tables must be safe and nutritious if we are to truly achieve sustainable food security. The active defense of the human right to food and the production of adequate quantities of safe and nutritious food are society-wide responsibilities - the collective responsibilities of everyone.

During the past few decades, many people in the United States and around the planet have worked on various components of the right to food, ranging from programs to alleviate hunger to the promotion of sustainable agriculture. The time has come for a broader, more comprehensive vision - one that includes all aspects of food production, distribution, and the human right to consumption - in order to achieve the long-term goal of economic, social, and ecological sustainability embodied in the agreements coming out of the Rio, Copenhagen, and Rome Summits.

In order to make the right to food a reality, we must focus on three main strategic activities. The first is to educate the public that the right to food is guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most Americans know about civil and political human rights - the right to be free from torture, slavery, false imprisonment, etc. Almost no one knows that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds five aspects of human rights in equal standing - economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights.

Our task is to make it known throughout the world that economic rights, including the right to food, are equal in stature under the law as all civil and political rights, making the right to be free from hunger fundamental, like the right to religious freedom. The upcoming 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration, in December 1998, is excellent opportunity to raise these issues.

Second, we must continue to uncover, publicize, and then reverse the actions of governments and other powerful forces which threaten sustainable food security. For example, military spending by the North Korean government has diverted money and labor power away from food production, leading to famine for as many as two million people. Land seizures by mining corporations in Brazil have created huge numbers of landless, hungry peasants. In the United States, the new welfare law is a clear human rights violation.

The third main area is the promotion, here in the United States and overseas, of the proposed Global Food Security Convention and a legally binding Code of Conduct, both discussed at the World Food Summit in Rome. The United States government negotiators were the most difficult to convince of the merits of these ideas, and our government remains the major obstacle to further progress.

Simultaneous with our work to promote and defend the human right to food security, we must work to make sustainable food security a physical reality. This work is divided into two areas: working to ensure that family farmers are economically sustainable; and working to ensure that production methods of farmers are ecologically sustainable, including reduced dependence on non-renewable natural resources, and the assurance that the food is safe and nutritious when it arrives to our tables.

The key to economic sustainability for family farmers is ensuring that their crops receive a fair price in the market. One way that consumers can support this effort is by "voting with our dollars" by shopping at farmers markets, supporting organic producers, joining Community Supported Agriculture farms to buy directly, or by looking for products in stores with the "TransFair" fair trade label, which alerts consumers that the producers of these items, mostly from the Third World, received a fair price.

Food safety is the final element of sustainable food security. It is not enough to have a bountiful table if the food is laced with pesticides, dioxins, heavy metals, or other dangers. We have to find ways to farm that ensure that the food is not contaminated. This also means protecting farmers and farm workers from exposure to these threats, and keeping our watersheds and drinking water safe for human consumption. Genetically engineered foods also pose health and environmental risks through "genetic pollution" and monocultures that threaten the diversity of nature.

The results of the World Food Summit have provided an extraordinary opportunity to formulate a new global commitment to the fundamental human right to be free from hunger and malnutrition. It is up to each individual, family, and community to turn the right to food into reality.

Mark Ritchie is the President and Cali Brooks is a Program Associate of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 1313 5th Street SE, Suite 303, Minneapolis, MN 55414, Phone: 612-379-5980, Fax: 612-379-5982.