What featured this session, focused on Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought, Desertification and Africa, was that, before the commission started their discussions, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, highlighted the role of this organization in the discussion about the future of agricultural development, stressing that the adoption of an approach based on human rights is necessary.

For this to happen, De Schutter pointed out that a model should be implemented that prioritizes the most vulnerable people, promoting the access to land for small farmers and peasants. In this way, he stated that the model should promote agrarian reform, and implement production models that do not contribute to climate change.

This is why the Rapporteur highlighted the need “not only to increase food production, but to reorient agro-food systems and the regulations that influence them at national and international levels, towards sustainability and the progressive realization towards the right to food,” quote included in the joint declaration issued by the federation of environmentalist organizations Friends of the Earth International and the peasant grassroots organization Vía Campesina.

It is in this declaration where both organizations state their common opinions with what De Schutter expressed.

Although they highlight the Rapporteur´s statements, when he said that the peoples should have the control of their territories and access to water guaranteed, they also state that the peoples should have the right to define and control their own food and food production systems. “In fact, that is food sovereignty: the ability for people to choose what and how to produce, and how to trade it.”they state.

In order to achieve this goal, they demand the dismantling of corporations which state they are “feeding the world” through an agressive industrial model, and emphasize the need to find sustainable production models, that guarantee that seeds remain “the heritage of the peoples to the service of human kind”.

The organizations state: “We believe such sustainability lies on local and diversified agroecological production of food, and on the urgency to move from an intensive large-scale industrial agricultural system, to local and regional systems that are environmentally adequate and diverse.” And they add: “In the urban context, such sustainability entails the possibility to buy this kind of food in a network of diverse retail markets, which will work as bridges between people and food, links between those who produce it and those who consume it.”

Vía Campesina and Friends of the Earth express that this model of production must be defended, confronting the “false solutions” and the production model carried out by the big corporations, which is supported and financed by international financial institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the regional Development Banks, in addition to the multilateral organizations which promote free trade, such as the World Trade Organization, and the policies of the US and the EU.

Real World Radio talked to Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International, who was present during the session of the Commission on Sustainable Development of the UN, and told us his impressions on it.