The escalating crisis of volatile food prices and food insecurity is the result of an industrial development model based on large-scale, export-orientated agriculture tied to international competition, self interest and stock market speculation. With over a billion people going hungry each day despite a huge surplus of food production, a reorientation towards more localised, smaller scale and sustainable agriculture is urgently required.
Large-scale industrial agriculture depends on
engineering the land to ensure the absence of natural diversity. But as
the recent emergence of herbicide-tolerant weeds on U.S. farms has
shown, nature ultimately finds a way to subvert uniformity and assert
itself, argues Verlyn Klinkenborg.
On March 7th, European Coordination Via Campesina and Nyéléni Europe
organised a public conference on food sovereignty called “More
Farmers, Better Food”, held to communicate to a large public and to European institutions the results
of the Nyéléni Europe Forum, held in Austria in August 2011.
In his latest book, Jean Ziegler explains how the global hunger crisis is the direct consequence of neoliberal political decisions and the excessive influence of transnational corporations. With around one billion people still lacking access to basic food, more must be done to combat the power of agribusiness, argues Siv O'Neall.
As the threat of another famine haunts Africa, this time in the Sahel region, it is high time we finally accepted that global food systems are broken. Fixing them requires a new focus on small farmers, food reserves and long-term planning, argues Olivier De Schutter.
While the 2007-08 food price crisis
has been a catalyst for important policy reforms, governments have yet to
address its underlying causes and enact deeper
structural reforms, leaving the world at risk of another devastating spike in
global food prices. A report bySophia Murphy and Timothy A. Wise.
The consolidation of transnational corporations has seen some shifting of the focus of power in global agricultural markets, away
from governments and supranational bodies towards agribusinesses. But the exercise of this power isn’t limitless
and can be constrained by policy, finds a report by the Oxford Farming Conference.
The activities of European banks, pension
funds and insurance companies are increasing global hunger and poverty
by speculating on food prices and financing land grabs in poorer
countries, according to a report by Friends of the Earth Europe.
