The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 42

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The gradual substitution of policies focused on low prices of foodstuffs by rights-based social protection, as a means of ensuring access to adequate food for the poorest groups of the population, again illustrates the importance of a careful sequencing of reforms. Today, 75 to 80 per cent of the world population still does not have access to social security to shield them from the effects of unemployment, illness or disability - not to mention crop failure or soaring food costs. There is now an international consensus in favour of making the full realization of the right to social security a priority. On 12 June 2012, the International Labour Conference adopted Recommendation No. 202 concerning national floors for social protection, with 453 votes in favour and 1 abstention. The G-20 has subsequently acknowledged the importance of this objective. In the long run, the establishment of robust social protection schemes in line with this recommendation should protect not only poor households but also vulnerable households against the risk of falling into poverty. Thus, governments would shift away from their exclusive focus on maintaining low prices of food items, a focus that has often come at the expense of food producers, particularly the least competitive among them. Cash transfers to poor families, such as the Oportunidades programme in Mexico (A/HRC/19/59/Add.2, paras. 21-27), the Bolsa Família in Brazil (A/HRC/13/33/Add.6, para. 33) or the Child Support Grant in South Africa (A/HRC/19/59/Add.3, para. 39), have shown their effectiveness in reducing child poverty, and hunger. As long as gaps remain in social protection, however, food price inflation will continue to be a serious threat to the right to food of low-income households. Thus, while low food prices may not be a long-term solution - both because of the fiscal cost of subsidies to farmers and because a policy focused on keeping prices low may ultimately harm the least competitive food producers - they remain, in the short term, vital. Social protection schemes should be strengthened in all countries, and the social protection agenda and the agricultural agenda should be better aligned with each other, to gradually succeed in making the transition.
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)
  • Equality & Inclusion
  • Food & Nutrition
  • Poverty
Person(s) affected
  • All
Year
2014
Paragraph type
Other
Reference
SR Food, Report to the HRC (2014), A/HRC/25/57, para. 42.
Paragraph number
42