Synergies created at food systems conference
FIAN International, together with other members of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition, held a three-day workshop in Geneva to discuss how social struggles can be unified in the path towards holistic, human rights-compliant and sustainable food systems.
The workshop from 24 to 26 June gathered participants from different parts of the world and with a wide diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Partakers included social movements representing small-scale food producers, indigenous peoples and workers, human rights organizations and activists, nutritionists and health professionals, women’s rights organizations, and academics.
The first day of the seminar focused on getting to know each other and identifying challenges posed, including the growing corporate control over food systems within governance structures. Participants shared experiences about their struggles and the alliances they have built to overcome these challenges, which helped to learn more about each other’s strains and to identify synergies among all.
The second day picked up on the previous day’s discussions. Participants split into working groups to brainstorm about the nature of food systems, with topics such as the existing divides separating social struggles and how these could be overcome, as well as to recognize strategies for dismantling corporate power. The third day discussed the global dimensions of food systems and the role of States’ extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) in relation to transnational corporations (TNCS), trade and financial markets.
Particularly prominent in the discussions throughout the seminar was the need to recognize women’s rights, including sexual and reproductive rights, as an essential element in the struggle for rights-based and sustainable food systems.
The seminar was successfully concluded by a series of poems and songs from different parts of the world, which got to the heart of the seminar’s discussions, and by the message from the Human Rights Council about the vote in favour to establish a working group for a binding treaty to regulate TNCs.
The workshop presents the first step in a larger process that aims at bringing together different public interest constituencies and develop a common vision and strategy towards food systems. This synergy seeks to achieve people-centered food systems that can guarantee the protection of basic human rights and dignity of food producers and consumers alike throughout the globe.