"Food Sovereignty" movement meets in Mali, fights for small-scale farmers

A group composed of several international organizations came together to organise the World Forum for Food Sovereignty, held in Mali from February 23 to 27. More than 500 delegates from more than 80 countries representing the five continents and all sectors of society with an interest in agricultural and food issues attended the meeting. The meeting has been dubbed "Nyéléni 2007" after the Malian village in which it was held.

The group's statement said the gathering was an opportunity to reaffirm the right to food sovereignty and to clarify its economic, social, ecological and political implications. It also strove to create an international process whose aim will be to achieve recognition of the right to food sovereignty.

The group said, "A deliberate decision was made to hold the meeting in Africa, where agriculture plays a central role, and where numerous rural and urban families suffer from hunger despite the abundance of natural resources. Mali was a natural choice (because) it is a democratic country where civil society organisations enjoy freedom of action and expression (and it) is one of the first countries in the world to have made food sovereignty a policy priority, with its new agricultural framework law."

According to U.S. delegate Anna Lappé,"Food sovereignty means that everyone should have the right to access wholesome food, that producers should have the right to fair wages for their work, and that communities the world over should have the right over their natural and genetic resources, like seeds."

She says the conference organizers further expounded on their purpose as being to advocate for "agriculture by and for peasants and small farmers; fishing by fisherfolk not multinational companies or on industrialized fish farms; livestock by pastoralists; indigenous people with rights over their own territories; wholesome food for all consumers; labor with workers rights at the center; a healthy environment for all; and a future with youth in the countryside."

Lappé reflected that a key theme throughout the meeting was the impact of transnational companies on the ability for all of those gathered there from throughout the world "to be able to continue to farm, to feed themselves, and to provide food for their own communities. They're facing the onslaught of corporate food in their markets, the impact of trade policies which have
forced the opening of their borders to the subsidized food from the industrialized north, the introduction of genetically modified seeds, and more."

Said delegate Ahmad Taheri, from a farmers association in Iran, "What connects us is the discrimination that all farmers suffer. We are suffering from a common pain: the disappearance of small-scale agriculture."