Other activities

FAO summit 16-19 November and CSO parallel meetings

How can we make sure earlier resolutions will be carried out, in spite of the economic crisis?  Will the new Committee on World Food Security be able to deliver?

Parallel to this summit civil society is organising a Forum from 13 to 17 November 2009, called «We the people demand: Food Sovereignty now ! An important output of the Forum will be a Joint Declaration which will be submitted to the plenary assembly of the Summit. Because of the constraints of space, it will not be possible to accept all the requests for participation and quotas were given for the various sectors concerned. For further information see http://www.csa-be.org/spip.php?article=639
and http://www.foodsovereignty.org/new/
The above info  through Daniel van der STeen, Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (Collective for Food Strategies), Brussels

On Friday 13 Patrick Mulvany writes:

Hi
The People''s Food Sovereignty Forum is about to start. More than 800 people have expressed interest in coming... it is heavily oversubscribed!!
The sun is shining on the Forum venue, full of marquees; we are awaiting Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food,  to start proceedings.

ERADICATE HUNGER

Among various documents being circulated is the attached Open Letter calling for the eradication of hunger.  This letter and the Working Document it refers to is the result of a process over the past 6 months by a drafting committee, set up by the IPC for Food Sovereignty, of some 30 people from social movements and NGOs from all corners of the world. There are more than 100 organisational signatories and many hundreds of individuals, so far. A Press Launch of the document in the main World Summit for Food Security will happen early next week. Your individual and/or organisational signature is welcome. see www.eradicatehunger.org

FAO DECLARATION

The final draft declaration is better than it might have been but is very weak and reflects a failure of governemnts to repsond to global outrage about hunger. However, para 13 is crucial in terms of future governance of food and agriculture. Para 26 is such a limited, selfish and proprietary call... what about all the technologies that are proven to feed people now and for the future that are freely available to the small-scale food providers who feed the world..

WHO WILL FEED US?

The ETCgroup Communique  "Who Will Feed Us?"  has just been released here in Rome. It is the result of detailed research showing that 70% of food is provided by small-scale food producers, not global food companies, though the latter claim and would wish to control more.

See the library for this communiqué.