Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 1
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- One billion people are hungry today. For the vast majority - smallholders or agricultural workers, herders, artisanal fisherfolk and members of indigenous communities - access to land is a condition for the achievement of a decent standard of living. The reason why approximately 500 million people depending on small-scale agriculture are hungry is not only that the price they receive for their crops is too low and they are less competitive than larger production units, but also that they cultivate plots that are often very small - which makes the vast majority of them net food buyers - and they are often relegated to soils that are arid, hilly or without irrigation as they compete against larger productive units for access to land and water. Whether because small-scale farming has become non-viable or because they have been expelled from the land in the absence of effective security of tenure, many such farmers become agricultural workers on large-scale plantations, where they are often paid lower than subsistence wages and left without social or legal protection. Artisanal fisherfolk pastoralists and agro-pastoralists now face a similar threat: as land becomes scarcer, they increasingly risk being excluded from the fishing and grazing grounds on which they have been able to rely for generations. And the precarious position of indigenous peoples and forest-dwelling populations may be attributed in particular to the increased pressure on the forests on which they depend for their livelihoods.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Year
- 2010
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Food, Report to the UNGA (2010), A/65/281, para. 1.
- Paragraph number
- 1
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