The right to food is the right to have access to
sufficient quality food at an adequate amount, both at the individual
or collective level, on a regular and permanent basis, as well as the
means to produce it in accordance to each population cultural traditions
that would guarantee people´s sound physical and psychical health.
Even in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enacted in 1948
this right was included in article 25 , which recognizes “individual´s
right to an adequate life standard that would guarantee individuals and
their families good health and well being, and specially food.
In accordance to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO),
there were 1.020 million people suffering from hunger and approximately
another 2.000 million suffer what is known as “hidden hunger” (malnutrition)
which means extreme lack of micronutrients that severely hinders their growth
capacity as well as their basic physiological functions.
Hunger is probably the cruelest manifestation of humanity´s
disrespect given that the resources needed are already available
but there is a lack, once again, of political will to allow people
to execute their right to food.
75% of the people who suffer from hunger are male and female rural workers,
small scale farmers, farmers without land, indigenous communities, shepherds
or fishermen who have no access to the required resources to produce the
food they need to live in good health and dignity. Nevertheless,
the availability of food per person has increased 20% since 1960.
Therefore, this is not a lack of food issue. The basic reasons for
hunger in the 21st century are the exclusion and neglect undergone
by millions of people due to structural reasons while the fundamental
solutions come from political endeavors to change the social and
economic structures.
International cooperation has consistently tried to fight hunger,
but it has not always been done at the root level. Throughout last century
and this century, the international community has set forth several
initiatives to fight hunger.
In addition to the acknowledgement of the right to adequate food as a
human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the
International Agreement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in
year 1996 World Summit Meeting on Food, the Rome Declaration was approved
on World Food Security, where the participants agreed on reducing by half
the number of undernourished people before the year 2015. This agreement
was renewed five years afterwards in the World Food Summit, organized by
the FAO in Rome on June 10th through the 13th 2002 Development Objectives
of the Millennium. The FAO Council approved the “The Voluntary Guidelines
to the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context
of national food security” in 2004. In December of 2008 the text on the
Enforcing Protocol on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was approved
that would allow, once it comes into effect, the reporting of violations of
these types of rights and, therefore, the right to food.
After decades of trying to fight hunger through the betterment in the
food supply to those starving or undernourished, the FAO added a complementary
approach by addressing what causes the lack of food and acknowledges that it
is not a shortage of food issue but instead the key problem is the access to
food and the means to produce them. Only those countries who have made
investments in the rural areas have improved their fight-against-hunger
indicators.
The farmer organizations in the developing countries launch the food
sovereignty concept, the rights of individuals, villages and communities
to define their policies and agricultural and food strategies to produce
and distribute sustainable food.
Food sovereignty demands:
- to give priority to the local markets of farmers and families produce;
- to guarantee fair prices to the farmers;
- to guarantee the access to and, water, woods and other productive resources;
- public investment to promote family and community production activities.
The Spanish campaign “Right to food. Urgent”, sponsored by Acción contra el Hambre,
Ayuda en Acción, Cáritas Española, Ongawa and Prosalus, proposes:
