The future of food: time to pick your side

The G20's version of 'food security' or a global movement for a radically different food system?

Amy Horton, food speculation campaign

Today, the agriculture ministers from the G20 countries will meet in Paris to discuss food security and volatile prices. They may add their voice to the growing call for international action against speculators. But their focus is likely to be on ramping up food production, even as the UN’s top expert reminds us that the problem is more about distribution: a third of food is wasted and nearly half of cereal production goes to feed livestock.

Three quarters of the G20 delegates will be male, and only one of them African – though the continent is home to a quarter of the world’s hungry people, only South Africa is a member of this elite group.

Their rarefied meeting sits in glaring contrast to a gathering of 500 people at a purpose-built camp in the village of Nyeleni, Mali in 2007. Hailing from more than 80 countries, they were mainly food producers representing small-scale farmers, urban movements, indigenous peoples and many others. 

A different vision emerged from Nyeleni: food as a human right, not a commodity. Ecological farming instead of industrial agriculture, with its ever growing appetite for water and fossil fuel-based fertilisers. Democratic control rather than rich countries forcing the global south to import heavily subsidised produce. Known as ‘food sovereignty’, this vision:

puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations."

Today, farmers, unions, activists, ecologists and others will challenge the G20 by launching a mass meeting – to take place in Austria in August. The aim: to build a movement for food sovereignty in Europe. They’re not starting from scratch. People are already making steps towards food sovereignty, in community gardens, local markets, Transition Towns and myriad other ways.

But the organisers say that grassroots activities and local movements are not enough. We need to join a broad coalition that can challenge the EU’s common agricultural policy, which subsidises big industrial farms to the detriment of producers in the global south.

Also today, farmers, activists and others not represented by the G20 will gather in Paris to make their voices heard. Their call to action warns:

The solutions contemplated by the G20 are inadequate to prevent a new food crisis, and do not clearly support peasant and family farming, which is the only way to feed the one billion people suffering from hunger. We say to the G20: ‘Don’t gamble with our food!’"

The site of the protest? The Tuileries park, where a royal palace stood until it was destroyed in 1871 during the repression of the radical, democratic Paris Commune – inspired in part by food shortages. 140 years on, it’s time to revolutionise our food system.

Join the debate. Your comments are welcome. Read more about food sovereignty in WDM's new briefing and let us know how this resource could be improved. Find out more about the Nyeleni Europe forum and how you could participate.