Concluding Conversation:
Building Blocks for a Just Food System
3:30 – 4:30 pm
Room 127

Moderator:  Allison Tait, Community Economic Development Clinic

Liveblogged by: David Lebowitz & Margaret Hsieh

3:41pm – We are getting started here in 127.  Allison  points out that the concluding conversation is aptly named “Concluding Conversation.”  Food policy is, according to YLS Dean Robert Post, a Victorian parlor.

Here to talk about some practical take-away points from the conference are Jun Borras, Olivier de Schutter and Andy Fisher.  Each panelist will suggest one or two steps that can be taken to bring about food production patterns that will honor the right to food and human dignity.

3:45pm: Jun Borras is speaking.  His main point is that we should support social movements that are fighting for human rights to food and access to and control over natural resources.  However, it’s important to realize that there are different social movements that use human rights in their discourse.  We need to differentiate which ones are more promising and thus deserve our support.  “Transformative” movements may be the most promising — they question the fundamental logic of current patterns of food and energy production.

The question of global land-grabbing is also a huge issue.  The convergence of the energy and food crises has precipitated the energy sector’s movement into the land sector, giving rise to today’s land-grabbing phenomenon.  Land-grabbing occurs precisely in areas of the world with the most hungry persons.  We should support “people’s counter-enclosure movements” to fight dispossession of poor people.  We shouldn’t wait for land grabbers to come into our communities, but should proactively enclose our own commons.

3:50pm – The crowd applauds Jun Borras.  Now it’s Professor de Schutter’s turn.

He points out that we are both consumers and citizens.  We need to question our consumption choices and seek information about them.  Lack of awareness about the impact of our lifestyles in developed countries is extremely problematic.  The model of civilization on which the development of renewable energy is premised–that business as usual should be allow to continue going on–is insufficiently questioned.  For example, the vegetable oils we consume every day come at the expense of indigenous peoples and access to forests in poor countries.

We should join organizations, write letters, sign petitions, etc.  The right to food should be no different than the right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured, etc. — there should be the same level of public outrage.  He agrees with Jun Borras about the importance of social movements, and points out that many of these movements are not sufficiently united.  Groups that work on food sovereignty, agro-ecology, right to food, and workers’ rights “should form coalitions more than they have.”  Even kinds of advocacy that might not normally be seen as traditional “right to food” work should be included.

He ends by saying that he is not depressed at all, but optimistic about the future.  Prof. de Schutter thanks YHRDLJ for organizing the conference.  The audience applauds.

[Andy Fisher -- 3:55]:

There’s been enormous interest in food policy change in the past few years.  We need to strategize and institutionalize so that food policy change doesn’t become the “flavor of the month.”  We need to find continuous resources and funding for food programs.  In universities: permanent provisions for local purchasing, discipline in food studies, books published on food, classes integrated throughout the school and across disciplines on food, faculty who have expertise in food.  We need to build the human capital to institutionalize community food security and institutionalize food security as a permanent discipline that collaborates and works with the social movement.  These changes need to come form the bottom up, because they won’t happen otherwise.

[Tait: 4:00] — We are now taking questions.

Q1: What lessons are there to be learned from attempts to secure right to healthcare around the world?  What can we learn from those attempts and social situations that we can apply to our attempt to get a right to food?  Can capitalism and the right to food coexist?

A1 [Fisher]: There have been debates whether the right to food is a useful framework for the US.  The questions around capitalism and the right to food — these are the right questions, and Fisher is going to leave it at that.

Q2:  There have been several sustainable food initiatives at UConn. Community garden at UConn last summer was successful.  The only dining hall at UConn that has turned a profit for the university was the one that uses local foods.  All the coffeeshops at UConn are now fair trade.

Q3: An essential ingredient of food movements is building relationships.  Relationships are an antidote to just using price as a market signal.   Relationship builds a much larger channel, and serves as an antidote to all the advertising pumped out by the food industry.  Community food systems are built on webs of relationships.  In terms of policy, the focus of policy should be how to build containers for relationships — how to build policies that are inclusive, flexible, include a broad range of skills and people.  Need a lot of flexibility, because every community is different.  E.g., patterns between Vermont and Central America, although many differences.  We need a revolution in building community relationships similar to the computer revolution.  How do we do that?  A good source of models might be the open-source software community, which has been building a lot of collaborative technologies.

A3 [Fisher]: How do we build food systems up to scale so they are operating on a more significant and substantial scale?

Q4: The entire US system needs to move away from a dedication to cheap corn and corn syrup.  We’re not going to have the economic room for alternatives if we don’t move the corn out of the center.

A5 [De Shutter]:  Food policy has a focus on price without enough concern about how food is produced and what kinds of human and environmental impacts there are.  Unfortunately, the whole system is based on this and it’s difficult to reverse.  There needs to be a paradigm shift.  There’s no concrete plan of action with a timetable, so governments don’t know how to implement.  It’s important to change the system, but we should do this piece by pice and identify concrete steps to be taken.  One way: re-localize the food systems by having local authorities pay a major role: territorial approach to food systems.  In addition, this may be more feasible, because local authorities might have more important role to play.  This is the reason for De Shutter’s moderate optimism.

A5 [Borras]: There is something new in the convergence of energy and food sectors that changes the configurations in the agrifood complex.

Q6: The Administration both gets it and doesn’t.  In the food movement, we’re good at creating grassroots alternatives that build energies within communities.  These alternatives are doomed to be islands, however, unless we can use them to unite for broader policy changes.  Very little money is going towards alternative food systems, whereas tons go towards that benefit large agribusinesses.  Is the right to food the appropriate guiding principle for making these strategic alliances?

A6 [De Shutter]: The right to food paradigm is useless if it cannot provide concrete strategies.  We need to be well equipped to deal with concrete issues.  De Shutter’s work consists of looking at technical dossiers and answering how specific policies can be transformed to meet the needs of the poor.  “Lawyers are powerless.”  They lack the expertise.  They need economists, specialists, etc. to be effective: they need to form coalitions.  But human rights activities and lawyers also have things to contribute.  The right to food is about an obligaiton to provide justifications, to revise detrimental policies, etc.  If not made operational, the right to food can be dismissed.

A6 [Fisher]: Those models (community food projects, etc.) are models that can show the way and hold alternatives to monoculture of economic, social, and political pathways.  We need to build coalitions to unite the different groups.  If we are going to transform the food system to something democratic and sustainable, there needs to be a broader social movement, change in legislation from WTO down to city councils.  It’s going to take a lot more than the community garden initiatives.

Q7: Would like to make a brief comment.  Talking about rights to land is too narrow.  We need to talk about the right to food in a way that links together consumers, producers, and societies as a whole.  The right to food is the tool we have to achieve solutions.  Unfortunately, different groups (like farmers, those who work in nutrition, etc.) don’t see each other as allies.  Ministers of agriculture know about commodities but not nutrition — how can we expect them to defend the right to adequate food?  We need to address the food problem in a holistic manner.

[Allison Tait 4:30]: Thanks to everyone who has helped with and participated in this conference.

International Institutions & the Right to Food
Moderator: Nadia Lambek ’10, Yale Law School
Panelists: Marc Edelman, Hunter College (CUNY);  Smita Narula, New York University Law School;  Flavio Valente, FIAN International

Liveblogged by: Margaret Hsieh & Paul Linden-Retek

Lambek (1:55 PM): reiterated that she, unfortunately, is not Jim Silk, who could not attend as moderator. Panel will address a variety of issues concerning international institutions and food policy.

Narula (2:00 PM): Will focus on the right to food under international human rights law and the interaction of international institutions. Previous panel speakers have cautioned against pushing policies that may undermine right to food rather than alleviate structural problems we face. Food crisis has revealed paucity of legal framework but also has breathed life to the problem. I will speak about how exactly to reclaim the right to food.

1. Clarify goals

Under international human rights law, the right to food is first the freedom from hunger but then also the right to adequate food (availability, nature of the food, and accessibility)

Food sovereignty rather than food security–the right to decide.

Issues of equality: equitable distribution of food (part of the right to food is an obligation of states to make food accessible without discrimination)

2. Mapping the framework of international human rights law

States have obligations to individuals for the fulfillment of economic, social and cultural rights, of which the right to food is a part: Respect, Protect, and Fulfill.

Problems with this model: enforcement, of course, but also global actors interfering and undermining the right to food (IMF, World Bank and forced liberalizations of economies; WTO and unequal balance of trading rules; transnational corporations and multinational agrobusiness); lead state actors and the Doha round.

3. Address some of doctrinal challenges for making framework more robust

In international human rights law, we have focused so much on the direct state actions and obligations toward citizens, but have ignored the above factors which have “impact without obligation”. The key is to introduce obligation into the above framework of impacting institutions. For example, lead states should play a more active role in structuring WTO or IMF agreements and regulate transnational corporations with the right to food specifically in mind.

Respect and Protect in the right to food are the prongs most neglected: Food aid by itself doesn’t sufficiently address structural challenges. This is where social movements can come in and find commonality across communities. We need to also reintroduce issues of agency and dignity into conversations on right to food.

Valente ( 2:15 PM) – 5 issues: struggle, power, tools, obligation, governance

Reminds us that this is a struggle over millennia between the powerless and the powerful. This is what human rights is about, about a social pact and a concrete struggle. We must respect that this is what is behind human rights. Human rights were built by huge social movements: French and American revolutions and the upheavals of the Second World War. These agreements were signed not in the name of states but in the name of peoples. Human rights consists on limits on the state and obligations of the state to reduce abuses, inequities, and injustices. Social organizations and movements are the motor of this endeavor and the human rights framework only presents tools for broader popular action. The right to feed oneself is a prerequisite for other rights. “There is no conditionality here.“

I have heard a misconception here today about what politics is about. Quoted Brazilian sociologist: “There are those who say that there is no food policy in Brazil are wrong. There is. It is a policy of hunger.” Hunger is not an accident but the consequence of political decisions and political forces serving other interests.

Let’s create a multi-stakeholder space, instead of a space that includes the IMF and World Bank while ignoring human rights interests. Global Partnership, to be created by the UN, would include other world institutions. Sees this as an effort to water down governmental obligations, and social movements have reacted against this. It is important to reintroduce governance back into the picture. We need a space (FAO) to speak about food security, where governments can be held to one mandate and not other interests. Reform of CFS (Committee on Food Security) is of primary importance. Civil society should have the ability to speak on the same level as governments, but without a vote. It is important that the decision ultimately be made by governments under a framework of accountability of civil society. But the responsibility should be attached to governance.

Edelman ( 2:30 PM) – Peasants’ Rights and the UN System

1) Expansion of normative idea of human rights.  Rights once considered inconceivable are now legitimate or at least open for discussion.

2) Formation of forms of collaborative governance between state and non-state actors.

3) Transnational global movements and new conceptions of rights.  Transnational agrarian movements following footsteps of indigenous movements.

4) New normative concepts that have come out of grassroots social movements and entered mainstream discussion: food sovereignty, precautionary principles, etc.

Peasants’ Rights Convention Proposal.  Some of the rights claimed include: Right to life and an adequate standard of living, freedom od association, opinion, and expression, right to have access to justice, right to seeds and traditional agricultural knowledge, right to capital and means of agricultural production, right to information, right to environmental presevation, self-governance in their own “territories,” “free, prior informed consent” for projects affecting them, etc.

Future prospects for the ICRP.  Western states deployed the liberal argument against collective/community rights, arguing that only individual could hold rights.  However, regional groupings may be favorable to a peasants’ rights framework.  Two other issues are likely to be major points of contention: right to land, right to reject (mono-crop practices, GMOs, etc.).  Right to reject: builds on the idea of the right to free, prior, and informed consent.  A hegemonic conception of rights in dominant UN states focuses on notion of individual market actors.  Defining peasants as legal right-bearers may be difficult.  Proponents of ICRP have made notable advances in recent months.

Audience Q ( 2:45: PM) –
Q1: ILO Convention.  In many ways, it was easy for states to accept this convention, because it dealt with small, exoticized groups.  Problems arise when goals of indigenous groups conflict with those of mainstream society (e.g., re. petroleum).  The possibility for conflicts is even large when it comes to peasants, in contrast with indigenous groups.  How do you change the consciousness of the population at large so they see their interests as being aligned with, rather than opposed to, peasants’ interests.

A1 (Edelman): The agenda of the peasants’ rights convention is very ambitious.  It embodies a struggle between models, although it doesn’t use that language — implication of contention over political and economic power.  Edelman is not optimistic about acceptance of the ideas advanced in the convention — for example, the right to reject.  In every society, there is conflict between urban and rural areas, etc.  Such conflicts are resolved through political contention.  Building political consensus is immensely challenging, especially is societies that have urbanized quickly — there, peasants are relegated to margins of society.

A2 (Valente): “We don’t have answers — that’s the thing.”  Quotes Marx.  There are no more places for people to live to.  Prioritization of ecological rights over human rights.  Human rights instruments have the role of bringing visibility to human suffering, and to bring relevant discussions to the mainstream.  The human rights movements isn’t limited to peasants.  What do we want for the world?  An agricultural model that destroys the climate, etc.,  or a more sustainable model of production that includes the people and makes it possible to lead a dignified existence in the countryside?  To feed the world today, we need more farmers, not less.  Industry has benefited from low cost food and wages, which allows for quick profits (at the expense of rural farmers and people).   We are subsidizing the profits of international corporations.  This needs to be made clear.  Unfortunately, this is not discussed.  The Convention is not a solution, but a means of increasing visibility to the problems.

A1 (Narula).  Human rights provide tools for influencing the discussion around normative problems.  Decisions that have been made are not accidental — the current arrangements in global agriculture serve particular interests.  In the wake of all these recent crises, a consistent message is that states need to work together and guarantee a right to food.  But there is no attachment of language of responsibility of other actors, who are merely called upon to cooperate in good faith.  Ultimately, we are talking about power structures, and to change these, we need to begin a conversation.  There’s a global south and global north within each country; not just the larger Global North v. Global South.  First step is to recognize that the dichotomies are not so simple.

Q2: Two levels for change: current global regime, enforcement of the global regime.  We have created a lot of conflicting global regimes.  There is food productivity stagnation in many countries.  How can we come up with a green revolution to improve food productivity?  All technological advances would be coming from the private sector, where there are restrictions do to patent law.

Q3: In discussing the question of how can we convince the public that peasants’ rights is something worth fighting for, we  have overlooked the “urban bias.”  Improving the participation of farmers in public decisionmaking is the single most important expression of peasants’ rights today, and can help to balance against the urban bias.  In addition, urban populations have a strong interest in conditions improving for farmers — or else there will be continual urban flight even when there is a lack of jobs in industry in the cities.  The urban-rural divide is something that we should look at more carefully.

Q4: “Here we are, in the uber-dominant state.”  The US is the originator of the model of industrial agriculture that has spread around the world and caused many of the problems that we are talking about.  There is a global food security initiative within the Obama administration.  What can we do domestically to address these issues?

A4 (Valente):  Very little has changed in the international setting from the American position, at least on the big issues.  There have been some signs of change: One, Americans have signed the document without putting in a footnote that they are opposed to the right to food.  However, the most important movement that has not happened: a global framework made by all the governments (justification: each country needs to have its own policy).  Country-led national food security plans are dominant today.  But how can these work when there is a large global structure in which the players are not equal?  From a human rights perspective, it is interesting to see the contradictions in the US with economic and social rights — this has been kept under the rug for a long time.  But Obama has made some interesting remarks about the right of people to feed themselves.  There is a strong grassroots movement in national food security.  Things will not just change from top down.

A4 (Narula):  There are several initiatives US citizens can get behind.  Push for the ratification of the ICCPR.  There would probably be very strong resistance, but that doesn’t mean this shouldn’t be pushed for. There is more room for enforcement here than in other countries. Also, there are specific proposals about how the US can regulate corporations — agribusinesses, etc., buyers v.s. sellers, regulating IP rights in order to make sure these are in service of the right to food.  The US, as dominant state, can influence international food policy.  We can favor a more level playing field but have not started trying to do so.  Regulating the activities of corporations have lots of traction.

Q5: Global food movement.  Progress: recognition that you don’t contribute to food security by merely feeding people (aid, cheap prices, etc.); must support countries in feeding themselves.  Major problem: ag development still seen as unilateral development; idea that Global South will follow the Global North (not moving toward more democratic food systems).  This may simply be because we don’t understand there are other ways to support agricultural development.  In addition, ecological approaches are not well understood by decisionmakers.  Fewer profits are made to teach farmers to learn how to use local inputs, etc. (cheaper to just provide them with seeds).

Q6: Alternative mechanisms for regulating models that are produced in universities regarding the right to food or food sovereignty?

A6:  In Brazil, there is strong demand for education in agri-ecology.  There is the problem of criminalization of small movements.  E.g., small agri-ecology projects that are being brought to court.

A7: Agri-economy curricula in universities.  To change these involve changing many other aspects of agricultural.  E.g., there are laws in many places against using non-certified seeds.  Agri-ecology would presumably involve using such seeds (and other practices) that are currently legally prohibited (current legal prohibitions favor large agri-institutions).

Q7: Food Security Act that is moving through countries — mentions GMOs.  Many groups have opposed the mention of GMO technology.

Marc Edelman is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY. Professor Edelman has pursued extensive anthropological studies concerning the role of peasants in globalization, and he has published widely on changing land tenure and land use patterns, production systems, rural class relations, and social movements in Central America. Currently, he is completing a book on peasant involvement in global civil society movements and transnational networking among small farmer organizations. He has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including American Anthropologist, Journal of Agrarian Change, and Studies in Comparative International Development.

Smita Narula is a clinical professor at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU. She is an advisor to the special rapporteur on food, and author of The Right to Food: Holding Global Actors Accountable Under International Law, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 44 (2006). Previously, she spent six years at Human Rights Watch, first as the organization’s India researcher and later as Senior Researcher for South Asia. She has also worked for UNICEF and UNDP. Before graduating from Harvard Law School, Narula received a Masters in International Development from Brown University.

Flavio Valente is the Secretary General of FIAN International, an global civil society organization that has advocated for the realization of the right to food for more than 20 years. FIAN consists of national sections and individual members in over 50 countries around the world, and has consultative status to the United Nations. From 2002 to 2007, Mr. Valente was the Brazilian National Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Adequate Food, Water and Rural Land. He was for many years the Technical coordinator of ABRANDH (Brazilian Action for Nutrition and Human Rights) a Civil Society organization linked to the World Alliance for Nutrition and Human Rights (WANAHR), and since 1998, a member of the coordination of the Brazilian Forum for Food and Nutritional Security (FBSAN).

“Between Starvation & Globalization” – Realizing the Right to Food
Facilitators: Lauren Birchfield & Jessica Corsi
Other Panelist Attendees: Smita Narula; Carmen Gonzalez; Flavio Valente

Liveblogged by: Adrienna Wong

Discussant Question 12:58 PM: What are the elements of a successful litigation strategy?

Corsi 12:59 PM:

• A public interest litigation system is really important. In some systems, petitioners can deliver complaint directly to judge rather than file a formal legal complaint, etc. Removing obstacles to bringing public interest litigation is crucial For example, the standing requirement in U.S. courts is a huge barrier to this kind of litigation.
• A human rights oriented constitution. That’s also really important. All the countries that have had Right to Food litigation have human rights oriented constitutions – like those in Latin America, like India, like South Africa.
• A judiciary with a political culture of protecting public from injury from the government. To clarify, in countries with a public interest litigation system, courts have authority to determine cases to protect public from harm with lowered standing requirements. Compare with the US Supreme Court and how deferential it is to the political branches.

Discussant 1:03 PM: Lived in India, rural India, and never heard of the right to food litigation – and finds this shocking.  In the district where she was, there was a nonprofit that gave out lunches to kids in schools. Those school lunches were what made kids go to school every day. However, parents felt conflicted about sending kids to get a handout. Ignores importance / social significance of parents’ ability to provide for their own kids.

Discussant 1:05 PM: Most of the work he’s done is in Africa and Middle East. In Africa government goes to UNICEF begging for aid. And big NGOs like UNICEF can direct them to do anything. But in India, government is very competent, very desirous of being competent, enacting change – to engage and serve their citizens, and that makes things possible in India that aren’t elsewhere.

Corsi 1:06 PM: It is important that India had domestic institutions that could facilitate this. They were proud of their domestic institutions – as they should be.

Narula 1:07 PM: India does have strong technological, bureaucratic infrastructure. However, the flip side of that is it’s gotten more isolationists – “India can take care of itself” – no need for international human rights law, etc. Positive side is lots of substantive rights affirmation in the law; negative side is government acts as gatekeeper between international resources/intl NGOs and the people. And that makes resources easy to capture by elites.

Discussant 1:09 PM: Human rights law – right to food, right to land – very Western focused. But people in Africa care about more important things. They have competing priorities. We keep talking about what we think. But what do the people think?

Corsi 1:10 PM: I think that for anyone anywhere that is starving, the right to food is their first priority. I don’t know that your comment applies to this context because this right is so essential to staying alive. There also aren’t necessarily competing priorities — right to food can be tied in with other rights, such as the right to education, as we’ve seen in the school feeding programs.  So I think framing this as a Western construct is a little too blunt a characterization.

Birchfield 1:11 PM: Even if people in India aren’t speaking in the language of “I don’t have a right to food” they are saying “I want food” “I want to continue farming” “I would like to stay on my land” — they are articulating the same concerns. What the right to food campaign is trying to do is create institutions of accountability to those interests. In India the resources are there, as you pointed out, it’s just a matter of accountability as to how those resources are distributed.

Corsi 1:12 PM: India has a lot of resources, has positioned itself as a donor to other countries, but in doing so has sacrificed its own people in order to position itself as a leading economic force in the world.

Discussant 1:13 PM: That’s not necessarily what I meant by competing interests. I mean that

Valente 1:15 PM: I think this stuff about human rights is a Western construct is as much bullshit as the U.S. saying economic and social rights are not law. It’s just a way of avoiding obligations that everyone agreed to — people sign on to these international declaration, agreements. These are just arguments to avoid one’s responsibilities. I’ve worked in over 60 countries, as Natl Rapporteur on Brazil and elsewhere. And what I know, is that people on the ground, the social movements, even if they don’t call it a “human right” they know it’s a human right – they are fighting for their survival, their livelihoods. The human rights discourse is a tool that isn’t available to them or hasn’t been available to them. This should be more about letting people on the ground know the rights are there, and know the instruments are there. I really think the arguments against human rights are flawed because of people, not the nature of human rights.

Discussant 1:15 PM: I also spent some time in rural India, in Bengal, and the divide between rural and urban infrastructure is just huge. I was very interested in the Social Audit system in India. Can communities just call for audits themselves? (I’m not very clear on the legal spects of things, we worked more on social economic projects). We had a feeding center in my village that completely failed — food was not getting to the children. We also had ration carts, and that was also very flawed. People became aware that ration cart dealers were corrupt, were selling the food, and at market price, so there weren’t rations for people. So in many areas there were riots, people would beat the ration cart dealers, then the police would come and beat the police.

As a solution, an NGO worker proposed for the village to use the Right to Information policy instead of violence – this actually worked, there was transparency on the situation, and ration cart dealer in that village was removed by the government. But prior to that intervention by the NGO worker, nobody was aware of the Right to Information legal instrument. There was just too many barriers between institutions and people with the whole food scheme there.

Birchfield 1:19 PM: I think you bring up an important point that a precursor to the Right to Food campaign was the Right to Information campaign — it was crucial because people with the right to information could count the grain coming in and out and use that to hold officials accountable.

What’s important is that we need to tell people “how do you operationalize this right” — it needs to be more than just telling people they have a right.

Corsi 1:20 PM: The Right to Food campaign is very aware of the fact that they are very centralized, and can’t put someone in every village. So what they ‘ve been trying to do is decentralize system to bring it to the village level and to use the draft national food security act to codify reporting and redressal systems that would happen at the village or block/district level – some more local component of the state.

There’s also a law to set up human rights courts – so a goal is to establish Right to Food courts to bring in complaints about how officials may have lots of resources, but people are starving and food aid isn’t working.

You need to have all these implementation elements – just a Supreme Court order isn’t going to work. There need to be reporting and redressal mechanisms – those don’t exist yet, but that’s what people are working.

Discussant 1:22 PM: I believe in a right to food, but can we talk about a conditional right to food? For example, how about you get food, if you go to the doctor, if you got to school. If you create a strict right to food, do you create a moral hazard for people? So we can motivate people upwards

Corsi 1:23 PM: We’re talking about essentials for survival. So no, I don’t agree.

Narula 1:25 PM: There are two elements of the right to food. there’s the right to eat, but there’s also the right to determine what you eat and the terms of what you eat, and how you produce it. What’s involved here is also allowing for food sovereignty to take hold, and not just intervening when people are starving.

The problem with food aid is that it changes incentives, it is a dumping of surplus food into countries, and changes the ability of local producers to produce what they want. This is really about moving the conversation from charity to accountability — even accountability of exactly those who are giving aid, because they may be the same people who made people hungry in the first place.

What I think is more important is the respect and protect element of the Right to Food – so to provide for your own populations, but also respect the efforts of other countries to provide for theirs, and to not undermine those efforts.

Discussant 1:27 PM: In my experience, in my village, it’s sort of self-corrective. People who didnt’ need the school lunches didn’t take them. People don’t like to take aid. This is to provide people to take the next step to helping themselves.

Why I said it was shocking that I hadn’t heard about this is that there was nobody – no interpreter for the community – to tell them what the National Law meant for them. I think creating that link – so people have the access to these laws, would resolve a lot.

Discussant 1:30 PM: I’m from Ethiopia – a country with mass famines. I think it’s striking that we are medicalizing food, clinicizing food – to save people’s life. And I think that’s losing something.

Gonzalez 1:30 pM: I think that lawyers lose track of their role – we are not supposed to act as messiahs, we are supposed to represent someone. The ability to use laws to achieve concrete social initiatives have been incredibly creative. One of the most interesting movements in the Landless Workers Movement – after they were arrested and prosecuted for occupying land, they raised their issues in a court – challenged property law there. To redefine the notion of property as something to benefit society. Because of the social movement – that property law was given content.

Valente 1:32 PM: Along that line there is a lot of other things like that in Brazil. There’s a right to the streets – there’s a guy – a social worker that goes and tells people “what do you want” and then he tells them how that is protected by the law, and then they can go make that demand. This is not just a charitable thing – this is an entitlement that people have as part of a society. Brazil is working on the right to food  from a social movement approach. A nutrition component is very embedded; the indivisibility of rights is very embedded. Ministers involved in water, in energy are part of the food commissions – because all of those are all crucial. You need access to jobs, to wages, to land, to get a right to food.

People have a right to life – that shouldn’t be conditiond. You’re right that long-term aid disturbs people’s lives. If you’re brought up receiving things, dependency can become a problem, and that’s why the right to food has to be brought up as part of the idea of dignity, indivisibility of rights – so that doesn’t happen.

In 1993 when the right to food was brought up in Brazil, it was the same issue as in India. Huge stocks of food, and nobody was getting it – it was food that was invisible to people wracked by food insecurity.

Corsi 1:37 PM: That’s an excellent note to end on. The example of Brazil, what they’re doing with accountability, a national rapporteur, accountability mechanisms. There’s a lot of literature coming out from the FAO in Rome, from the UN, from the Special Rapporteur’s team, from activists on the ground, in law journals — so keep up with this.

Farm Subsidies in a Post New Deal Era
Facilitators:  David Lebowitz & Suzanne Love
Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal

Summary by: Annalisa Leibold

The moderators started the issue lunch by presenting a cable news clip on farm subsidies, which set the tone for the discussion by noting that large industrial farms receive most of the subsidy money, and even those very congress members that vote on farm subsidy policy may be subsidy beneficiaries themselves. The moderators then reviewed the New Deal history of farm subsidies, namely the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1935, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 (which serves as the template for our current subsidy regime). The current subsidy regime differs drastically from its historical underpinnings, with 70% of the subsidies going to just 10% of farmers. The group discussed the difficulty of changing the political landscape of subsidies, particularly when those at the head of relevant congressional committees usually come from agricultural producing states. Moreover the agricultural industry seems to exert substantial influence over various governmental agencies through powerful lobbyists and also controls the dialogue on issues of food to a large degree through influential add campaigns. Although the system of farm subsidies creates gross negative externalities, both domestic and international, only a niche group of Americans appear to be well informed about these issues. The group concluded by noting that meaningful reform to the system of farm subsidies would likely require a complete overhaul of the system, rather than any quick targeted fix.

Mind the Gap: Infrastructure Gaps in the Food System
Facilitator: Kristin Carroll Tracz, Coalition on Agriculture Food and the Environment (CAFE)

Summary by: Romy Gaschow

Participants discussed some of the structural problems that prevent local producers from selling food more widely and competitively with major producers. One participant brought up the burdens created by a uniform system of regulation, where all producers regardless of size must meet the same health and safety standards necessary for certification. The practical reality is that smaller producers pose a much lower potential threat to health and safety, since their food reaches fewer people, so it was argued that there should be a tiered system of regulation that imposes different standards on small-scale producers. However, some participants discussed that some larger producers have recognized the recent successes of small-scale producers and as a result have pushed for stricter state-level regulations to stifle their success. Another suggestion was to help scale up the processing activities of smaller producers through “processing hubs”, where multiple small growers can join together and buy individual shares of a larger processing facility. Processing costs are much more burdensome to smaller producers, so if they can aggregate their needs and resources with others growers, this will help all smaller producers keep down processing costs and make their food more accessible to consumers. Another proposal for scaling up the activities of local growers was to promote wholesale farmers markets for restaurants and other business that buy food in greater quantities than individuals do.  The group also discussed the promises of urban agriculture, particularly through greenhouse and aquaponic systems, which may help large urban centers to be at least partially self-sustaining year round.

Moderator:  Lea Brilmayer, Yale Law School
Panelists: Saulo Araujo, Grassroots International (Mesoamerica); Marc J. Cohen, Oxfam America (Ethiopia); Jessica Corsi & Lauren Birchfield (India)

Liveblogged by: Nick Hoy & Chelsea Purvis

Cohen (10:57am) – Small holder agriculture is very much on the global policy agenda.  Cohen studies governance reforms aimed at supporting small holder agriculture: 1) decentralization and 2) ensuring gender equality.  These have been very strong themes in Ethiopia since 1991.

Cohen (10:58am) - Cohen discusses his research approach.  He and his research partner carried out a survey across a large swath of Ethiopia.

Cohen (11:00am) - The focuses of his study were: 1) access to agricultural extension, 2) gender dimension of agricultural extension (what do women need to know about agriculture?), and 3) drinking water supply.

Cohen (11:02am) – Regarding decentralization, district governments find it difficult to implement changes at local levels.  Ethiopia has various strategies for gender equality, such as instituting a Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

Cohen (11:05am) – Cohen found that there are big differences by region in terms of access to extension for both women and men.  He did find that deployment of extension agents to communities increases awareness of community concerns and potential.  Service provision remains top-down; extension training is technical; and agents aren’t trained in gender issues.  There are also cultural barriers that prevent extension agents from dealing with women, although they tend to deal with heads of household regardless of gender.

Cohen (11:08am) – Cohen’s recommendations: It’s important to reduce regional disparities in access to extension.  Women should be more effectively targeted in extension, and extension should be more demand-driven.

Cohen (11:09am) – A note on water: Local water committees are not trained in persuading people to use wells, they’re trained in operating and maintaining wells.

Araujo (11:11am) – International Day of Peasant Struggle illumines the need to push for a new food policy agenda: food sovereignty (“the right of people to define their own food and agriculture…”). Case studies are Brazil, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

Araujo (11:13am) – Coalitions are creating regional food soveriegnty (Rio Group and CARICOM, UNASUR, ALBA). How are free trade agreements (CAFTA, NAFTA) both aiding and frustrating food sovereignty? 

Araujo (11:15am) – Redefine south-south trade!

Araujo (11:16am) – Trends in national policies: increased government spending to regional and local food sovereignty, recognition of legal right to food in constitutions.

Araujo (11:19am) – Brazil incorporated right to food in national constitution, instituted Zero Hunger Program, and increased government spending and loans to small farmers. But success has not been immediate: reform has stalled and the fast expansion of agri-fuels is a barrier to development. For every $1 to small farmers, $1587 goes to agribusiness.

Araujo (11:26am) – Bolivia has a new national constitution, a new food sovereignty development plan, and recognition of unique needs and place of indigenous peoples. Tailored plan for circumstances, and commitment to low-income families.

Corsi (11:34am) – Discussing India’s historic right to food case in 2001.

Corsi (11:35am) – The social and economic context: there was hunger amidst plenty in Rajasthan.  People were starving to death while grain was rotting in storage nearby.  Since 1991′s new economic policy, poverty had increased and starvation had worsened.

Corsi (11:39am) – But the judicial context is also important: India’s constitution is an excellent human rights document, and this case was brought under its right to life.  India’s supreme court is an activist court committed to improving the welfare of the poor.  In India, lawyers are allowed to bring cases describing social ills–they do not need to represent parties to do so.

Birchfield (11:42am) – Lawyers tied the right to food to the right to life and argued that public distribution systems were not effective.

Birchfield (11:43am) – What’s so fascinating about the right to food in India is the relationship between the parties involved.  Public interest lawyers can make demands of the government and shape the implementation scheme; they reach out to the community to educate people about the right to food and hold audits of governors; and they directly lobby the government to request improved schemes.

Birchfield (11:48am) – The case began in Rajasthan but quickly expanded outside of the state.  Implementation orders also expanded in scope to cover not only rations but also nutrition and rural development and labor.   One recent development: a codification of some of these themes in a 2009 food security bill.

Corsi (11:39am) – This case has completely changed the dialog about right to food in India.  A decade ago, no one discussed right to food; now all political parties are debating the food security bill.  It’s a testament to the power of public interest litigation.

Audience Q (11:53am) - How to treat long term land leases, especially in Ethiopia? And where does the income from the leases go?

Cohen (11:54am) – All rural land in Ethiopia is owned by the state. Even renting land is very difficult. Code of Conduct may not be helpful due to unique circumstances (small plots, recurrent drought). Remains to be seen whether the government uses the lease money and reinvests in agricultural development. (Audience comment: opportunity for humane development through decentralized processes.)

Audience Q (12:00pm) - What’s still causing suffering in India is lack of a remedy and enforcement for certain groups (caste structures, religious minorities, women). Not just north-south inequality, but also intra-country hierarchies.

Corsi (12:03pm) – Speaks to limitations of legislation and litigation, although the litigation has attempted to be multi-dimensional and take into consideration caste, gender, etc. Schools proud that meals are allowing children to attend who would not otherwise be able to. Perhaps takes a “change in consciousness,” spurred by court orders.

Audience Q (12:07pm) – Is there proof that decentralization actually works to improve gender inequality?  And is public interest litigation success generalizable?

Cohen (12:08pm) – The record on decentralization is mixed.  Often higher levels can be helpful at promoting equality.

Corsi (12:09pm) – Right to food litigation is a strategy that can be used in other countries.  It’s happening in Nepal, Colombia, Ghana, South Africa.

Audience Q (12:09pm) – FIAN sees the new food security act in India as a very dangerous thing because it reduces the power of the court orders and doesn’t talk about access to production and resources.  We think that any act should be linked to “respect and protect”–access to resources– not to government programs.

Corsi and Birchfield (12:11pm) – India takes an entitlement approach, not a respect and protect approach.  The bill looks like it will codify but reduce entitlements in court orders.  The bill is disconnected from right to food issues and movements.  That’s a shortcoming of the bill in its current draft.

Audience Q (12:14pm) – Political and economic mobilizations around the concept of right to food are also very important.

Audience Q (12:16pm) – How to empower the small-scale agriculturalist?

Araujo (12:17pm) – Small scale farmers are more efficient and more respectful of local cultures. From the policy end, we need more balance in terms of trades and regulations.

Saulo Araujo is coordinator for Grassroots International’s Brazil and Mesoamerica programs. He has dedicated himself to the interrelated issues of environment, food and agro-energy, with special focus on the impacts of global trade and industrial agriculture on the food sovereignty and resources rights of urban and rural communities. As an agronomist by training, he has worked with different organizations dedicated to agroecological development, a framework that addresses local and global demands for sustainable management of resources through community supported practices and the value of local knowledge.

Marc J. Cohen is a senior researcher on humanitarian policy and climate change at Oxfam America and a professorial lecturer in international development at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. He served as Commissioning Manager for the 2009 Oxfam International paper “Band Aids and Beyond: Tackling Disasters in Ethiopia 25 Years After the Famine” and is a co-author of the study Gender and Governance in Rural Services, published in January 2010 by the World Bank. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Global Challenges to Food Access
9:00-10:30 am
Moderator: Amy Chua, Yale Law School
Panelists: Jun Borras, St. Mary’s University; Carmen G. Gonzalez, Seattle University School of Law; Annie Shattuck, Food First; Ellen Messer, Brandeis University.

Liveblogged by: Shitong Qiao & Chelsea Purvis

Shattuck (9:12 AM) – The factors that caused the food crisis are still relevant.  Importantly, “This crisis had nothing to do with scarcity.”

Shattuck (9:17 AM) – We have seen “record harvest, record hunger, record profit.”  Shattuck is looking for the root historical causes for the way that food systems have been dismantled.

Shattuck (9:17 AM) – The Green Revolution increased inequality globally.

Shattuck (9:22 AM) – Characteristics of the food system now are land concentration, corporate control over inputs and outputs, foreign direct investment and investment from local elites, and large-scale land acquisitions.  The policy response to this system has been to make the dangerous proposition that we should re-create the Green Revolution.

Shattuck ( 9:22 AM) – An alternative vision echoes calls for food sovereignty coming from rural activist groups.  Does the international community have the courage and political will to follow their lead?

Gonzalez ( 9:25 AM) - - Gonzales discusses the factors that impact food security of a country. Biological diversity is very important to food security.

Gonzalez ( 9:30 AM) – - Talking about history of global food security. Countries are more and more dependent on importing food. 

Gonzalez ( 9:34 AM)– Talking about the impact of agricultural trade, WTO, and transnational corporations on global food security. Agricultural subsidies have been increased, increasing the preexisting inequality in food supply. Transnational corporations have too much control over global food supply.

Gonzalez ( 9:36 AM) – - The WTO framework has limited the developing countries to develop their economic policy to guarantee food security.

Gonzalez ( 9:40 AM) – - Fragmentation of transnational law should be addressed to increase food security. She argues for injecting human rights into trade agreements. Human rights norms should be contained in trade agreements.

Messer (9:42 AM) – Messer frames her arguments not in terms of who will be fed in the 21st century but in terms of who will be able to feed themselves.  She also focuses on two obstacles to access to adequate food: the loss of food production capabilities during times of violent conflict and the marginalization of women.

Messer (9:48 AM) – Comparing hunger in 2000 to hunger now: hunger in 2000 was declining, though this was largely due to improvements in China.   We saw then and see now that conflict is associated with decreases in food production over time.  Food prices were declining in 2000 but rose throughout the decade, leaving increasing numbers of people hungry.

Messer (9:51 AM) – Discussing “food from peace.”  Are there ways to incorporate human rights–including tolerance for public demonstrations–at the highest levels in food policy?

Borras ( 9: 54 AM)–One of the most important issues is global land grabs.

Borras ( 9: 55 AM)–A specific case to illustrate what global land grabbing means. Four generations of villagers lived in a land in Mozambique. Then one day a big company came and ordered those residents to vacate that land.

Borras ( 9: 59 AM)–Transnational companies reevaluate the land in global south. The key is to prevent negative impacts of land grabs. Everybody should benefit from land investment. One key is to develop an international voluntary code of conduct to regulate global land grabbing.

Borras ( 10: 02 AM)– Two approaches. The first is the promotion of western property rights in global south. The second is to increase the availability of  land through mapping, zoning, etc.

Borras ( 10: 05 AM)– Land in developing countries actually involves complex socioeconomic and political relations.

Borras ( 10: 06 AM)– Procedural question in land grabbing.  Talking about flaws of the voluntary code.

Borras ( 10: 10 AM)–He is arguing for human rights framework of land and measures to support domestic courts to stop land grabbing.

Audience Q (10:14 AM) – How can the developed world, especially the United States, be made to care about this issue?

Gonzales (10:15 AM) – The United States has to realize that the global food system makes us unhealthier.  Moreover, the food system threatens our domestic food security.   Those who are most immediately affected are the poorest of the poor, but eventually all will be affected.

Audience Q (10:19 AM)- The right to land is relatively weak in international law. How do you see it?

Borras ( 10: 20 AM)- Weak, but things change.

Audience Q (10:21 AM) – Can a rights-based approach treat famines differently?

Messer (10:21 AM) – Acute food shortages have been declining since the 1970s.  Where we still see acute food shortages are where we see political instability and lack of capacity to respond to food shortages.

Carmen Gonzales is an Associate Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law. She has served as member and vice-chair of the International Subcommittee of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Professor Gonzalez has published widely on the environmental and social justice implications of trade liberalization. Articles she has written include Seasons of Resistance: Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Cuba; Trade Liberalization, Food Security, and the Environment; Markets, Monocultures, and Malnutrition: Agricultural Trade Policy Through an Environmental Justice Lens, Genetically Modified Organisms and Justice: the International Environmental Justice Implications of Biotechnology; and Institutionalizing Inequality: The WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Food Security, and Developing Countries.

Ellen Messer is an anthropologist specializing in human rights and food security. She is the former director of the World Hunger Program at Brown University, and has also taught at Tufts University’s School of Nutrition Science & Policy.  She currently teaches in the Sustainable International Development program at the Heller School of Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. Dr. Messer received her PhD in ecological anthropology from the University of Michigan, after carrying out ethnobotanical fieldwork in Mexico focusing on food systems. She is the author of numerous books and articles on the topic of food policy, including: The Human Right to Food as a US Nutrition Concern, 1976-2006 (2007) and Food Systems and Dietary Perspective: Are Genetically Modified Organisms the Best Way to Ensure Nutritionally Adequate Food? 9 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 65 (2001-2002).

Annie Shattuck is a policy analyst at Food First. Annie has written and spoken extensively on the global food crisis, agrofuels, climate change and food sovereignty. Trained in biology and agroecology, she has worked in participatory action research, rural development, and ecology research in the U.S. and Latin America. She is co-author of the book Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice with Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel, which examines the root causes of the global food crisis and grassroots solutions to hunger springing up around the world.