the principles of food sovereignty:

So, how do we traverse this jungle? Like all forest dwellers, it is important to equip ourselves with a set of simple guidelines before setting on the journey. In our view, there are five basic guidelines, or principles, that must form the basis of any food policy. These are:

1. The Principle of food sovereignty. This is not the same as “food security”. A country can have food security through food imports. Dependence on food imports is precarious and prone to multiple risks -- from price risks, to supply risks, to conditionality risks (policy conditions that come with food imports). Food sovereignty, on the other hand, implies ensuring domestic production and supply of food. It means that the nationals of the country (or at the very least nationals within the region) must primarily be responsible for ensuring that the nation and the region are first and foremost dependent on their own efforts and resources to grow their basic foods.

2. The Principle of priority of food over export crops produced by small farms sustained by state provision of the necessary infrastructure of financial credit, water, energy, extension service, transport, storage, marketing, and insurance against crop failures due to climate changes or other unforeseen circumstances.

3. The Principle of self-reliance and national ownership and control over the main resources for food production. These are land, seeds, water, energy, essential fertilizers and technology and equipment (for production, harvesting, storage and transport).

4. The Principle of food safety reserves. Each nation must maintain, through primarily domestic production and storage systems (including village storage as well as national silos) sufficient stocks of “reserve foods” to provide for emergencies.

5. The Principle of a fair and equitable distribution of “reserve foods” among the population during emergencies.

Sadly, and with dire consequences, the above quite commonsensical and, we believe, reasonable principles have not been followed by many governments in the South. They have been grossly violated through five main reasons, among other minor ones:

1. Distorted state policies on production and trade (e.g. removal of tariffs that made local producers vulnerable to imported food from rich countries that subsidized their own food production and exports).

2. Land grab by the rich commercial farmers, thus disempowering small producers and rendering them vulnerable to “market attacks.”

3. Effective loss of control over resources of food production, including land (even where nationals “owned” land) because of imported seeds, imported fertilizers, imported machinery, imported technical assistance, and imported banks, and also loss of control over water and energy through surrendering these to foreign corporations attracted by the lure of so-called FDIs (foreign direct investments).

4. Donor aid dependence, and bad advice that came with it from donors including the World Bank and the IMF during the heyday of the “Washington Consensus” (1975-2005).

5. Disruption of the infrastructure of food production (as described above) that came as a consequence of the above four factors.

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(...) It is estimated that up to 15 million Mexican farmers and their families (in particular indigenous peoples) may have been displaced from their livelihoods as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and competition with subsidized American maize.
(...) Just 10 corporations, including Aventis, Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta, control one third of the $23 billion commercial seed market and 80% of the $28 billion global pesticide market. Another 10 corporations, including Cargill, control 57% of the total sales of the world's leading 30 retailers and account for 37% of the revenues earned by the world's top 100 food and beverage companies.
(...) In an increasingly liberalizing (globalizing) world, Transnational Corporations (TNCs) have increased their control over the supply of water, especially in the South. In many cases, private sector participation in water services has been one of the “aid conditionalities” of the so-called “donor assistance” (ODAs) from donor countries and the IMF and the World Bank. Just three companies, Veolia Environnement (formerly Vivendi Environnement), Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux and Bechtel (USA), control a majority of private water concessions globally.
(...) The biofuels industry is inherently predatory on land and resources, especially if it is generated out of food such as maize and Soya beans. It is estimated that to produce 50 litres of biofuels to run a car for one day’s long trip or three days city-run, it would consume about 200 kg of maize -- enough to feed one person for one year. This does not even take into account the cost of energy, water and other resources that go into biofuels production.
(...) The heavy production and export subsidies that OECD countries grant their farmers - more than $349 billion in 2006 or almost $1 billion per day - mean that subsidized European fruit, vegetables lower grade meat, and chicken wings can be found in markets all over West Africa at lower prices than local produce.