Food is not a commodity

food is a human right

새로운 사회, 변화의 씨앗이 될 여성농민! 
여기 하늘 같은 여성농민들이 있습니다. 
여기 새벽 같은 여성농민들이 있습니다. 
여기 태양 같은 여성농민들이 있습니다. 
Women farmers are the seeds of change for a new society! 
Here are women farmers like the sky. 
Here are women farmers like the dawn. 
Here are women farmers like the sun.

Majestic giants keep watch over the hills below.

Here at The Fiertzeside, the cherries, citrus, chestnuts and strawberry trees struggle in the final two weeks of the harsh August heat, dropping a carpet of autumnal bronze and gold leaves. An unusual weather front brought much needed rain. The aroma of wet earth and leaves fills the air, promising autumnal reprieve before the darker hours to come. It signals the time for renewed purpose and investment in the land during the cooler days to come to. Hoof prints on softer ground indicate the return of boar for the acorn harvest. We haven’t minded. They take what they need and leave.

I am reminded of the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I like to revisit it from time to time and do so now. If you’d like to join me in the read, I will review the book in four weeks to close this series on food.

Today, we’re offering figs fresh from two young trees, both of which fruited for the first time, and home-made fig jam on pumpkin and walnut bread rolls. The jam goes particularly well with the local Queijo da Serra da Estrela, a cured cheese made with sheep’s milk, recognised as a protected heritage food. Bom apetite!

I had planned this as the last post to complete the food series, but like a walk in forest where one might discover a new plant, or hear a new bird sound, I have wandered from the designated path into the bounteous wilds. With each discovery, comes another and my will to share the combined significance of small positive grassroots action has only strengthened my resolve to impart the scope and scale of a quiet revolution.

Today, we travel to Korea via South America, to discuss food sovereignty.

Current situation

In 2020, the estimated increase in food insecurity globally was equal to that of the previous five years combined. Food insecurity is defined as not having access to adequate food.

Only 2 out of every 3 people has adequate access to food.¹

However, nine years earlier, 70% of the world’s population was fed by local, ecological systems of food production, until those same systems were decimated by corporate agriculture.²

Industrial agriculture reduces food affordability, animal and soil health and biodiversity. Each ploughed field releases carbon into the atmosphere, destroys the microbial balance in soil and the delicate mycelial network of communication between plants and trees beneath its surface. Additionally, industrial scale agricultural corporations have sought to control ownership of land, water and seeds, as well as the market. They are not only creating food insecurity but are becoming sovereign over the entire process of food production.³ This does not bode well for the future.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) stated that 2021 offered “a unique opportunity for advancing food security and nutrition”. Its optimism stemmed from it being the year that the UN Food Systems Summit, the Nutrition for Growth Summit and the COP26 on climate change were to take place.

Recommendations by the FAO sound like pious platitudes. (image source)

A unique opportunity?

The UN Food Systems Summit, in particular, recognised the importance of local, ecological food systems:

The journey has profoundly affirmed that our food systems hold the power to realize our shared vision for a better world.  Around the world, people engaged in food systems are providing nutritious food for billions of people while safeguarding biodiversity and critical ecosystems.  There is a recognition that we must build on good practices — such as indigenous food systems — invest in science and innovation and engage all people — particularly women and youth, indigenous peoples, businesses and producers — in achieving the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals].⁴

However, the report focuses on food security, and although recognising the threat to food sovereignty, fails to confront it directly.

Food is Political

Food sovereignty isn’t an academic concept, it arose out of the threat to small scale food producers in primarily, South America. In 1996, La Vía Campesina, an alliance of small-scale farmers and food producers presented the concept to the World Food Summit. The origin of the term is a translation of soberanía alimantaría, a term which stresses the power of decision-making is in the hands of the people.⁵

La Vía Campesina describes food sovereignty as:

“the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regu- late domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable de- velopment objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self -reliant; to restrict the dumping of products in their markets . . . Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to food and to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production.”⁶

Most of the world’s food is grown, collected, and harvested by over 2.5 billion small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest dwellers, artisanal fisherfolk and urban farmers. Sold, processed, resold and consumed locally, this local food supply chain provides livelihoods and income.⁷

Food is political. Increasingly political actors have “worked for many years to control all aspects of food production systems and bring the cycle of food production, from seeds, inputs, land and other necessities under centralized and increasingly privatized control.”⁸ Food trade is also highly politicised. When the World Trade Organisation (WTO) included agriculture into international negotiations (led by more dominant countries), subsequent regulations made it harder for states to manage their food production and supply for their own population. The WTO effectively made transnational corporations sovereign over food. Production was centralised where labour costs were lowest, pushing small farmers out of business and demolishing rural economies.⁹

Food sovereignty challenges this approach. It confronts questions of democracy and power; equality and social justice; sustainability and culture. The movement challenges the concept of food as a commodity and envisions a future in which it is embedded in local social, ecological and cultural structures. Food sovereignty requires major systemic change to ensure food security for the future.

Control over food systems, La Vía Campesina asserts, needs to remain in the hands of small-scale farmers and food producers. Food sovereignty systems work in harmony with ecosystems and function in replenishing soils, water, biodiversity and climatic conditions. Hence able to feed the world, regenerate ecosystems, rebuild local economies and cool the planet - all at the same time.¹⁰

La Vía Campesina movement proposed 6 pillars supporting the food sovereignty approach:

1. Food for people: food is a human right, it is not just another commodity.

2. Valuing small-scale food providers.

3. Localisation of food systems.

4. Localised democracy: decision-making regarding territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock, fish etc is with the people.

5. Knowledge and skills - build on good practice: employment of local and citizen research systems.

6. Working with nature.

Food Sovereignty in Practice

The Incredible Edible movement, community gardens and farms, small-scale urban agricultural projects, permaculture in the desert (and other environments), the restoration of zai methods of farming and the Dervaes family garden are just a few examples of attempts not only to attain food security, but to reclaim food sovereignty.

My Sister’s Garden, South Korea

No, my sister doesn’t live in Korea!

My Sister’s Garden is an offshoot of the Korean Women’s Peasants’ Association (KWPA). The poem above is from their website. In 1989, women farmers from all over South Korea gathered to declare they were the rightful owners of agricultural production. They founded the KWPA to realise their rights and solve agricultural problems arising from the encroachment of transnational agriculture.¹¹

They had good reason to do so. In 1970, Korea had 80% self-sufficiency in food. By 2009, it was 27%. The opening of agricultural markets left Korea at the mercy of international grain and meat prices. That, combined with less reliance on Korean grown food, made it difficult for farmers to continue. Male workers migrated to cities for work, leaving women behind.¹²

Unpaid domestic workers, rural housewives, and someone's mother, 'women farmers' had forgotten their names.¹³

As an organisation the women declared themselves to be “the proud owners of agricultural production and the local guardians of agriculture.”

“They have been reborn as women farmers who are responsible for the lives of the people.”¹⁴

The KWPA works to improve the legal status of women farmers, to improve their rights through the enactment of the Women in Agriculture Act, and to challenge patriarchy and the neoliberalism that threatens food sovereignty and their livelihoods.¹⁵

The KWPA worked hard to oppose the KORUS FTA, an enormous trade deal with the US which was ratified in 2012 without any public consultation. It impacted, among other areas, agriculture. The trade deal was one in which large corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and Dow Chemical benefited at the expense of Korea’s peasants. The deal also undermined Korea’s environmental and health laws.¹⁶

My Sister’s Garden was a 2007 KWPA pilot project that arose out of an indigenous seed protection campaign. Its intent was to build a small-scale community cooperative which would provide local consumers with organic produce from native seeds.

The KWPA became increasingly concerned about the introduction of GMOs into the food supply system and for good reason. In 1997, Korean seed companies were sold to transnational companies, one of which was Seminis, which was later acquired by Monsanto, hence becoming the leading vegetable seed company in Korea. Monsanto continued to use the name of the original seed company Heungnong. Older farmers unwittingly bought imported seeds at the expense of native, reducing the localised diversity of those they used to collect.¹⁷ The need to save indigenous seeds became a priority. My Sister’s Garden soon became Our Sisters’ Garden(s).

Our Sisters’ Garden is now a separate entity, but maintains close ties with the KWPA’s food sovereignty division. The project began with the idea of a kitchen garden, a small, private space from which vital political discourse emerges.

Local food movements are a second generation alternative agriculture, the first being organic farming.

“This movement [second generation alternative agriculture] is focused on the relationship building between producers and consumers and the rural and the urban. It emphasises social economy based upon public goods and ecology rather than market economy based upon efficiency. It focuses on the local networks and communities rather than the global and national scales. These ideological and policy implications made local food popular as an alternative food system in many countries. The most typical types are farmers’ markets and the community supported agricultures.”¹⁸

Our Sisters’ Garden is primarily of the latter type, but also serves a political and educative function.

1. Firstly, it decentralised the KWPA organisation, putting the politics of food sovereignty on the front line in local spaces. Women’s cooperatives take responsibility for the production, processing and sale of food.

2. It focuses on a conscious solidarity between female rural producers and female urban consumers.

3. It has a clear ideology:

4. Its members identify both as women and as peasant, acknowledging their low gendered and economic status in the country which it seeks to redress.

5. It utilises a symbolically important space: the kitchen garden, a traditionally female domain, outside of the usual agri-food system. By choosing this, they actively reject globalisation.

6. Members use indigenous seeds, farm without chemical intervention and process the food themselves. The cooperatives sell food-boxes containing seasonal indigenous items produced with a regard for the ecology of the environment, and home-made traditional slow foods.¹⁹

By 2011 there were 13 producer communities.

The organisation faces some challenges, primarily from the urban consumer end. The contemporary demand for quick foods and out-of-season fruit and vegetables means a high drop-out rate from purchasing food boxes. To address some of the consumer complaints, however, would threaten the project itself. For example, greenhouse growing to meet demand for fresh vegetables off-season would impact on its low-input production principle.

In order to confront this difficulty, Our Sisters’ Gardens increased its education programmes and invited urban consumers into the peasant process to strengthen solidarity, a value at the heart of a Sisters’ Garden. It additionally faces continued difficulty in the changing economic landscape of Korea.²⁰ Despite this, as far as I’ve been able to discern, there are still ten existing kitchen garden cooperatives.²¹

The video below is significantly longer than I’ve shared before. As part of a Hunger for Justice series by the Agroecology Fund, three Korean women peasants who were present at the founding of the KWPA, tell their story:

Embers

Back at home, a former eucalyptus forest (which succumbed to a series of devastating fires across the country in 2017 - not helped by commercial eucalyptus farming) has been repurposed as a large solar farm. Recently, I took the bike to the top of the Açor range of mountains and stood beneath a line of the majestic giants of wind turbines keeping watch over the hills below. It was a humbling experience. In addition to hydro-power, Portugal enjoyed up to 95% electricity from renewable resources last winter.

For more positive news relating to sustainable energy technology,

Sam Matey

restacked this breakdown by

Noah Smith

:

AND

Katharine Hayhoe

is another who likes to share some of the good news (in addition to the not-so-great) and in this post shares some good news on renewable energy.

Retire that coal plant!

Up next:

Next week we will make our way to France where we will visit a network of farms with a unique story.

1. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (2021). The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021: The world is at a critical juncture. Date accessed 18/07/2023.

2. Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), (2011). Food Sovereignty Systems: Feeding the World, Regenerating Ecosystems, Rebuilding Local Economies, and Cooling the Planet – all at the same time. Date accessed: 18/07/2023.

3. ibid.

4. United Nations (2020). Secretary-General’s Chair Summary, Statement of Action United Nations Food Systems Summit. Date accessed: 18/07/2023.

5. http://foodsovereigntynow.org.uk/foodsov/origins/ Date accessed 06/09/2023

6. La Via Campesina, http://www.viacampesina.org. cited in Pimbert, M. (2015). Food Sovereignty and Autonomous Local Systems. RCC Perspectives, 1, 37–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26241305 Date access 06/09/2023

7. Pimbert, M. (2015) Food Sovereignty and Autonomous Local Systems. RCC Perspectives, 1, 37-44. http://jstor.org/stable/26241305. Date accessed 06/09/2023

8. European Coordination Via Campesina (2018). Food Sovereignty Now! A Guide to Food Sovereignty. https://viacampesina.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/02/Food-Sovereignty-A-guide-Low-Res-Vresion.pdf. Date accessed 07/09/2023

9. ibid.

10. ibid.

11. http://kwpa.org/index.php?mid=about Date accessed 07/09/2023. Translated with the help of DeepL app.

12. Cooper, B. and Gross, K. (2012) Our Sister’s Garden and the KORUS FTA. I$D$ Platform.

https://www.isds.bilaterals.org/?our-sister-s-garden-and-the-korus Date accessed 10/09/2023

13. http://kwpa.org op. cit.

14. ibid.

15. ibid.

16. Cooper, B. and Gross, K. op. cit.

17. ibid.

18. Hur 허남혁, Nam-Hyuk & Chong, Eunjeong & Kim, Heungju (2012). Women and the Politics of Place through the Space of Kitchen Garden - The " Sisters' kitchen garden project " of the Korean Women Peasant Association. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319664838_Women_and_the_Politics_of_Place_through_the_Space_of_Kitchen_Garden_-_The_Sisters'_kitchen_garden_project_of_the_Korean_Women_Peasant_Association. Date accessed 11/09/2023

19. ibid.

20. ibid.

21. https://www.sistersgarden.org/?act=package.list Date Accessed 11/09/2023. Translated via DeepL app.