Publication type: Publication

FIAN International releases its report Power Imbalances, Dispossession and Rising Inequality, How Digital Technologies Affect the Human Rights of Peasants and Small-scale Food Producers, on the politics of digitization of agriculture, at a seminar at the Palais des Nations at the UN in Geneva.

The way in which Human Rights institutions have looked at digital technologies has significant gaps, paving the way for violations. While attention has focused on issues such as privacy and freedom of expression, equally important economic, social, cultural and environmental rights have been neglected.

Transnational corporations capture peasant and native seeds by patenting genetic sequences. This undermines the knowledge and management practices that have nurtured humanity for millennia. Addressing structural inequalities is critical to shaping the development and use of digital technologies in ways that serve the most marginalized and oppressed peoples.

Read the report here.

The Liaison Group of the Autonomous People’s Response to the UNFSS, in which FIAN International is actively involved, has published a new analysis report in the face of the upcoming UNFSS Stocktaking Conference titled ‘Multistakeholderism and the Corporate Capture of Global Food Governance. What is at Risk in 2023?’.

The report highlights how multistakeholderism and corporate influence may deepen in 2023, potentially putting at risk the achievements of the food sovereignty movement, the reformed Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and certain democratic inroads within the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
 
The Liaison Group, formed by social movements, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society, facilitated the global counter-mobilization to challenge the UNFSS in 2021. The group continues to do so in 2022-2023 as the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) advances its agenda, particularly in the face of the upcoming Stocktaking Moment conference that will take place in Rome from 24-26 July 2023.
 
Multistakeholderism, or “networked multilateralism,” is a governance proposal that enables the corporate capture of global decision-making. This approach blurs the distinctions between public interest and corporate profit, between the rich and the excluded, and between governments and companies. The UNFSS and its Coordination Hub are advancing this agenda despite widespread criticism from small food producers across the world and organizations representing those most affected by hunger and malnutrition.

Find the paper here.

For more information, visit this website. 

Media contacts: Marion Girard Cisneros – marion.girard.cisneros@csm4cfs.org | Betsy Díaz Millan – betsy.diaz.millan@csm4cfs.org

The article *The Big Tech Takeover of Food Systems in Latin America: Elements for a Human Rights-based Alternative” first published in IT for change, is now available in Spanish  “Agritech y sistemas alimentarios en América Latina”  and has been launched in a webinar this week.

The report portrays the risks to food systems in Latin America which face an avalanche of corporate agri-tech initiatives and proposes human rights-based alternatives. 

Large corporations, such as Microsoft, the financial sector, some states and multilateral organizations, such as the Inter-American Development Bank, promote data “solutions” and digitization technologies for use in agriculture. Through advisory services and digital financing, they are penetrating peasant agriculture and carbon trading.  

These technologies are promoted and imposed as definitive solutions to world hunger, “climate change” and the crisis in our food systems. However, there is growing evidence that their objective is in fact to deepen corporate control of food. This is an extractivist and neocolonial strategy, harnessing science and technology to further dispossession, exploitation and consolidation of a corporate agri-food system.  

FIAN is alarmed that agri-tech's proposals are being mobilized by actors responsible for planetary collapse and the systematic violation of human rights. The monopolization of collective knowledge and wisdom, and its financialization is a major concern. Instead, food sovereignty requires respect for autonomy and self-determination in technology.  

It is urgent to defend the individual and collective economic rights of peasants and indigenous peoples over their data, and to guarantee public control over digital infrastructure. In the Colombian context, the state’s perspective on digitalization as a solution has become a common mantra. But it presents serious risks, not least the loss of national sovereignty over data that can threaten national security.  

For more information contact Amanda G. Cordova: cordova-gonzales@fian.org 

The world was still reeling from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the right to food and nutrition when food price hikes hit new records in 2022.

Instead of getting closer to achieving the zero hunger Sustainable Development Goal by 2030, we face recurrent food crises, closely intertwined with climate collapse, war and proliferating conflicts, public health emergencies and ever-increasing levels of inequality.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization forecasts that the number of undernourished people may rise by an estimated 7.6 million in a moderate scenario, or by 13.1 million people in a severe shock scenario by 2023, adding to the 811 million already reported hungry in 2020.

Unfair global economic rules lie at the core of the structural causes of recurrent food crises and hunger. FIAN focused its efforts in 2022 on urging the UN to review its food security approach, which is based on global trade. Global food value chains are extremely vulnerable to shocks. Food import dependency makes poor countries and people more vulnerable and less resilient. Countries acting alone cannot solve these problems because structural inequalities in our global economic system prevent governments, especially in poorer countries, from taking necessary action. For our World Food Day mobilization in October, we joined hands with the global movement to cancel debt, highlighting the interlinkages between food and the debt crisis.

There is an urgent need for global policies to address unfair trade and debt rules. The world also needs a new global food security strategy based on the right to food and the human rights principles of dignity, self-sufficiency and solidarity. This requires a move away from fossil-fuel based industrial food systems and deregulated markets, curbing speculation, building food reserves at multiple levels and giving priority to locally produced food from agroecological, small-scale food producers.

Read the FIAN International Annual Report 2022

The report is a joint endeavor of the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition which provides an annual snapshot of this key human right around the world.

The content of this report is based on inputs from members of the Global Network on the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRtFN), complemented with information provided by other networks, as well as relevant surveys and reports, such as from the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (CSIPM). The Report is part of the GNRtFN's broader monitoring initiatives: The Peoples' Monitoring Tool for the Right to Food and Nutrition and the feminist guide to Cooking up Political Agendas. 

Download the full report here