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Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- Industrial uses of land and urbanization have also increased in recent years, further heightening the competition: 19.5 million hectares of farmland are converted annually into land for industrial and real estate development. Researchers have documented cases in which farmers' lands have been expropriated for mining projects or for the building of industrial plants, in conditions amounting to forced eviction with no or insufficient compensation. In certain regions, the expansion of industrial areas has taken the form of the establishment of special economic zones aimed at creating conditions favourable for the arrival of foreign investors. Large infrastructure projects such as dams and highways have also had an important impact, and a significant proportion of the communications sent to Governments by the Special Rapporteur during the period from 2003 to 2009 relates to evictions for such projects.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- There are strong arguments, however, in favour of land reform as contributing to the progressive realization of the human right to food, at least in contexts characterized by (a) a high degree of concentration of land ownership (such as a level of inequality higher than a Gini coefficient of 0.65), combined with (b) a significant level of rural poverty attributable to landlessness or the cultivation of excessively small plots of land by smallholders. The implication is that States should monitor existing inequalities in terms of access to land and, where both circumstances are present, should allocate the maximum available resources to agrarian reform schemes and implement those programmes in accordance with the principles of participation, transparency and accountability, to protect them from being appropriated by local elites. Where States fail to establish land redistribution schemes, they should provide justifications for not having done so.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 42a
- Paragraph text
- [In order to ensure the enjoyment of the right to food, States should:] Implement the conclusions set out in the Final Declaration of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and prioritize "improved" State-led land redistribution programmes. States should implement land redistribution programmes where a high degree of land ownership concentration (which could be defined as a level of inequality higher than a Gini coefficient of 0.65) is combined with a significant level of rural poverty attributable to landlessness or to the cultivation of excessively small plots of land by smallholders. Redistributive agrarian reforms should: (a) include comprehensive rural development policies that follow the recommendations resulting from the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, including extension systems, access to credit and agricultural research and support beneficiaries, provided with sufficient budgets; (b) make use of land ceiling laws and be based on legal frameworks that clearly define beneficiaries and exempted land; (c) encourage communal ownership systems, rather than focusing solely on individual beneficiaries; (d) be implemented in accordance with the principles of participation, transparency and accountability, in order to prevent their appropriation by local elites; (e) be grounded in constitutional provisions regarding the social functions of land, where such provisions exist. All States should monitor land inequalities before and after the implementation of such programmes;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 43d
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur also makes the following recommendations to the international community:] International human rights bodies should consolidate the right to land and take land issues fully into account when ensuring respect for the right to adequate food. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights could play a leading standard-setting role in clarifying the issue of land as a human right by issuing a general comment in that regard. Acting in their monitoring capacity, human rights bodies should examine the justifications offered by Governments that fail to put in place land redistribution programmes or policies with similar aims, despite the existence of a high degree of concentration of land ownership, combined with a significant level of rural poverty attributable to landlessness or inequitable land distribution.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Contract farming often leads the producer to shift from food crops to cash crops. When farmers change all of their crop production to non-food crops covered by contractual arrangements, however, they relinquish the ability to produce food for their families, thus losing a valuable safety net. This renders the farmers vulnerable to food price increases, particularly if firms do not meet their contractual obligations or if farm incomes are lower than expected in comparison to the evolution of food prices. Farmers sometimes also have to manage gaps between contract cycles, during which time they do not earn any money from farming. To mitigate the risks involved in the shift to cash crops and the resulting dependence of farming households on the market to purchase food, a portion of the contracting farmer's land should be left to the farmer or other household members to grow food crops for household consumption. This can be effective especially where the contract farmer benefits from technology and skills transfers, leading to multiplier effects on non-contracted farming activities, including subsistence crop farming. Similarly, farmers can use by-products and residues from contract farming activities in various ways, including by selling the by-products or using them for subsistence activities. In Madagascar, small-scale farmers contracted by Lecofruit for vegetable production use part of the land for the production of rice, the staple crop, and the productivity of rice increases (from 3.6 to 6.0 tons/ha) thanks to the use of compost and manure and the recycling of waste from vegetable production. In Mali, the production of biodiesel from jatropha by small-scale farmers contracted by MaliBiocarburant SA (MBSA) produces residual "press cakes" that can be used as an organic fertilizer, as well as glycerine used to produce soap. The jatropha trees are intercropped with maize, which accounts for 80 per cent of the surface, ensuring that priority is given to staple food crops. This should ensure adequate protection for the contract farmer against the risk of occasional bad harvests or sudden crop price depressions. Such a guarantee of a stable income commensurate with an adequate standard of living is essential, and even a pricing mechanism that, as proposed below, guarantees a minimum price to the producer (unless the price is linked to the cost of production and the cost of living) would not provide an equivalent safeguard.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- Under such clauses, firms may reject delivered products by stating falsely that they do not conform to quality regulations, thus transferring financial losses to farmers when market prices are low. Firms can manipulate prices when the price mechanism specified by the contract is not transparent, using complex price formulas, quantity measurements or price measurements. They also can manipulate delivery schedules to benefit from market price changes or from changes in a product's qualities upon which prices are based (for example, delaying the purchase of sugar cane when prices are based on sucrose levels because sucrose levels decline rapidly after harvest).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- Farmers can be encouraged to form their own cooperatives, farmer associations or collectives. While such farmer-controlled enterprises can enter into contract farming schemes (in conditions more favourable to the members), they also can strengthen farmers' negotiating skills and bargaining positions in their dealings with the suppliers of inputs and commodity buyers; they can facilitate access to markets and to moving towards the processing, packaging and marketing of crops; and they can improve the ability of their members to contribute to the design and implementation of public policies that affect them (see A/HRC/13/33, paras. 30 and 31). For instance, the total income of farmers with group marketing in the Philippines (as supported by the MASIPAG network, which reaches 35,000 farmers practising sustainable agriculture) is about 45 per cent higher than the income of other farmers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- Governments should support the organization of farmers into cooperatives and other types of producers' organizations that can improve farmers' bargaining position and help them to move up the value chain into the produce packaging, processing and marketing operations and help them to acquire inputs and sell their produce under better circumstances. This condition is necessary to ensure fairness in the negotiations between investors and farmers' organizations. Governments could also provide legal advice to farmers or their organizations to enhance their negotiating position and to ensure that any contract they choose to enter into is economically sustainable for them.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- Governments should ensure that the degree of competition among traders is sufficient to prevent farmers from being locked into unequal relationships with a particular trader in the absence of alternative buyers for a given crop. In particular, Governments should ensure that the expansion of contract farming does not result in the dismantling of public support schemes and the privatization of agricultural extension services, which would narrow the range of options available to small-scale farmers and increase the asymmetry of power between unorganized small-scale farmers and private actors operating on a national, regional or global scale.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- Governments should ensure that regulatory oversight keeps pace with the level of the expansion and the complexity of business models, including small-scale farming. Certain key clauses of contracts should be regulated, including those concerning price fixing, quality grading and the conditions under which inputs are provided, and the reservation of a portion of land for the production of food crops for self-consumption. The contracts, once agreed upon by the parties, could be subjected to vetting by authorities to ensure that any abuse is identified and, where appropriate, remedied; in addition, non-judicial dispute resolution mechanisms should be made available. Particular attention should be paid to the seven critical aspects and good practices for contract farming identified in section III above. [...]
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- Development partners and international organizations can ensure that contract farming schemes work for the benefit of the poor small-scale food producers and respect the principles of the right to adequate food, including by increasing the capacity of community-based organizations to negotiate equitable agreements with the private sector, by contributing to financing equity participation by local communities in joint ventures or by supporting farmer-controlled enterprises to acquire the assets and managerial skills necessary to climb up the value chain, as initial support is frequently needed to start businesses that will become self-sustaining.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Agroforestry or comparable techniques such as the use of leguminous-cover crops to fix nitrogen also have a huge potential. This matters particularly to the poorest farmers, who are least likely to be able to afford to buy inorganic fertilizers, and whom fertilizer distribution systems often do not reach, particularly since the private sector is unlikely to invest into the most remote areas where communication routes are poor and few economies of scale can be achieved. But it is also of great importance to low-income countries, which import to meet their inorganic fertilizer needs. In sub-Saharan Africa, part of the reason why the use of fertilizers is very low (average 13 kilograms (kg) of fertilizer nutrients per hectare) is because of the considerable fiscal costs involved in the import and distribution of fertilizers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Agroecological practices require the supply of public goods such as extension services, storage facilities, rural infrastructure (roads, electricity, information and communication technologies) and therefore access to regional and local markets, access to credit and insurance against weather-related risks, agricultural research and development, education, and support to farmer's organizations and cooperatives. While this requires funding, the investment can be significantly more sustainable than the provision of private goods, such as fertilizers or pesticides that farmers can only afford so long as they are subsidized. While many efforts have been made since 2008 to reinvest in agriculture, too little attention has been paid to the differences between the various types of investment required and to understanding their impacts on the reduction of rural poverty. This has led World Bank economists to note that "underinvestment in agriculture is […] compounded by extensive misinvestment" with a bias towards the provision of private goods, sometimes motivated by political considerations. Research based on the study of 15 Latin American countries over the period 1985-2001 in which government subsidies for private goods was distinguished from expenditures in public goods indicated that, within a fixed national agriculture budget, a reallocation of 10 per cent of spending to supplying public goods increases agricultural per capita income by 5 per cent, while a 10 per cent increase in public spending on agriculture, keeping the spending composition constant, increases per capita agricultural income by only 2 per cent. In other words, "even without changing overall expenditures, governments can improve the economic performance of their agricultural sectors by devoting a greater share of those expenditures to social services and public goods instead of non-social subsidies." Thus, while the provision or subsidization of private goods may be necessary up to a point, the opportunity costs should be carefully considered.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- Agricultural production has risen dramatically over the past 40 years, the combined result of crop breeding, intensive fertilizer use, the mechanization of production on large plantations in new cultivated areas and, in countries that could afford it, subsidies supporting farmers and intense research and development efforts. But there was an imbalance in this development. Some basic cereals and soybean were promoted, and the subsidies they benefited from were partly responsible for overproduction and overconsumption. In comparison, too little was done to improve the availability and affordability of pulses such as lentils or pigeon peas, or of fruits and vegetables, for instance by reducing post-harvest losses and improving marketing through better transport infrastructure connecting farmers to consumers.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- Laws guaranteeing a right to information can also contribute to improving accountability in the delivery of public programmes and may be key to social audits. Research shows the effectiveness of freedom of information or transparency laws in ensuring access by citizens to entitlements, as well as the benefits of such laws for the poor or those without political connections. Right to information acts, such as those in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, India, Norway and Pakistan, may be used by beneficiaries to access information by filing an application to demand copies of records or by visiting a public office in order to examine the records and files. For example, in India, under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the attendance sheet details the names of workers, how many days of work they have completed, and the quantity of work completed (on the basis of which payment is calculated), while under the Targeted Public Distribution System, beneficiaries can tally the distribution register with their ration card to prove that rations meant for them have been sold in the black market, allowing the detection of fraudulent practices.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- Finally, because global food systems have been shaped to maximize efficiency gains and produce large volumes of commodities, they have failed to take distributional concerns into account. The increases in production far outstripped population growth during the period from 1960 to 2000. But these increases went hand in hand with regional specialization in a relatively narrow range of products, a process encouraged by the growth of international trade in agricultural products. The associated technological and policy choices concentrated benefits in the hands of large production units and landholders at the expense of smaller-scale producers and landless workers, resulting in the growth of inequality in rural areas and a failure to address the root causes of poverty. Of course, there were important evolutions throughout the period. The 1960s and 1970s were characterized by a State-led type of agricultural development, under which governments, eager to provide urban populations with affordable food or to export raw commodities in order to finance import substitution policies, either paid farmers very low prices for the crops produced or supported only the largest producers who could be competitive on global markets, thus accelerating rural migration. In the 1980s, the introduction in most low-income countries of structural adjustment policies resulted in a retreat of the State from agricultural development. It was anticipated that trade liberalization and the removal of price controls would encourage private investment, making up for the reduction of State support. Overproduction in the highly subsidized farming sectors of rich countries put downward pressure on agricultural prices, however, discouraging the entry of private investors into agriculture in developing countries. If there was private investment at all, it went to a narrow range of cash crops grown for export markets.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Though apparently unrelated to one another, these issues - industrial livestock production, liquid biofuels for transport, and waste - share certain common characteristics. As the Special Rapporteur has also highlighted with regard to the exploitation of fish stocks (A/67/268, paras. 21-23 and 29-32; A/HRC/19/59/Add.4 (Madagascar), paras. 38-43), they present the international community with specific challenges that result from globalized markets connecting populations with widely diverging purchasing powers, in the context of finite resources. The reason why large areas of farmland can be dedicated to producing feedstock to satisfy the overconsumption of meat in affluent societies, or to fuel their cars, is that consumers in rich countries can command the resources that will allow their lifestyles to continue unchallenged. Similarly, the huge amounts of retail and consumer waste in rich countries are correlated with the fact that, as incomes have grown, the proportion of the household budget spent on food has diminished. This highlights the limits of the argument that the expansion of trade in agricultural commodities leads to efficiency gains by encouraging a division of labour according to comparative advantage: in fact, the expansion of trade also has resulted in the luxury tastes of the richest parts of the world being allowed to compete against the satisfaction of the basic needs of the poor. Ultimately, this creates a highly worrying competition for the natural resources needed for food production, particularly land. While a purely Malthusian view of land as finite oversimplifies the issue of competition for scarce resources, as the productivity of land can be increased to a certain extent and as some land can still be brought into production, recent research has highlighted the considerable social and ecological costs of doing so. Once these trade-offs are taken into account, this research shows, there is significantly less cropland available for future expansion than has been traditionally assumed in most scenarios.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- There is a connection between the obstacles faced by low-income countries in their attempt to improve their ability to protect the right to food of their populations, and the need for reform in middle- and high-income countries. While a number of reasons explain the lack of investment in food production to satisfy local needs - including in particular the burden of foreign debt (which leads countries to focus on cash crops for exports) and the often weak accountability of governments to the rural poor (A/HRC/9/23, para. 17) - the addiction to cheap food imports is also caused by massive overproduction in better-off exporting countries, which is stimulated by subsidies going to the largest agricultural producers in those countries, and which ensures access to cheap inputs for the food processing industry. And it is facilitated by the growth of international trade and investment and the corresponding increase of the role of large agribusiness corporations in the food systems.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- For such strategies to succeed, the careful sequencing of actions matters, requiring strong cross-sectoral coordination. For instance, support to small-scale food producers should be paired with investments in local food packaging and processing industries and in food retail, in order to maximize the benefits to the local economy of the growth of the agricultural sector. Support to small-scale food producers should also go hand in hand with investments in the manufacturing and services sectors for the delivery of consumer items, since increased incomes in rural areas have the potential to raise demand for locally traded goods and services: this "consumption linkage" is estimated to be four to five times more important than the "production" linkage between food producers and agro-processing activities. The multiplier effects are particularly significant where agricultural growth is widely spread across large segments of a very poor population.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- The bargaining position of farmers is often weak before they enter into contracts. They typically have less information and negotiating skills than their business partners and a lower degree of legal literacy. The way prices are determined, the deductions for the provision of inputs, the conditions under which the contract can be terminated and the way in which the quality grading of the produce is assessed are all areas in which contractual clauses may be heavily biased in favour of the buyer.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 50g
- Paragraph text
- [States, in accordance with their obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate food for all, should:] Increase support to farmers' markets and urban and peri-urban agriculture, in land-planning schemes, through fiscal incentives and by ensuring appropriate infrastructure to link local producers to the urban consumers;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- States, under international law, have the duty to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate food. The duty to respect requires States not to take any measures that result in preventing access to adequate food. The duty to protect requires measures by States to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive individuals of their access to adequate food (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 15). Consequently, States must control long-term arrangements between investors and buyers and between farmers and producers to prevent the risk of abuse or, where abuses do occur, to ensure that effective remedies are available. They must also protect basic labour rights recognized under the core International Labour Organization (ILO) instruments, since the failure to comply with such rights can lead to violation of the rights to work and to an adequate standard of living recognized in international human rights law. The duty to fulfil obliges States to proactively engage in activities intended to strengthen people's access to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including food security (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 15). To the maximum extent of their available resources, States must, therefore, create an environment enabling farming communities to enter into various arrangements under conditions that ensure that their rights will be effectively safeguarded, despite sometimes stark inequalities of power and asymmetries of information among the various parties.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- [As part of their obligation to devote the maximum of their available resources to the progressive realization of the right to food, States should implement public policies supporting the adoption of agroecological practices by:] improving the ability of producers practicing sustainable agriculture to access markets, using instruments such as public procurement, credit, farmers' markets, and creating a supportive trade and macroeconomic framework.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- Trade liberalization and foreign direct investment (FDI) by transnational corporations in the processed food industry have played a large role in increasing the availability of ultraprocessed foods on the global market. The removal of policies to protect domestic markets has strongly affected the increase in production of certain unhealthy foods, as well as their availability and cost. Countries that embrace market deregulation experience a faster increase in unhealthy food consumption.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- Contract farming has been defined as an agreement between farmers and processing and/or marketing firms for the production and supply of agricultural products under forward agreements, frequently at predetermined prices.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The consequences are well known. Because small-scale farming was not viable under these conditions, many rural households were relegated to subsistence farming, surviving only by diversifying their incomes. Others migrated to the cities, a rural exodus that in Africa accounted for at least half of all urban growth during the 1960s and 1970s and about 25 per cent of urban growth in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, the dependence of low-income countries on food imports grew significantly. Many of the least developed countries are still primarily agricultural, yet, in part because they have to repay their foreign loans in hard currency, they export a narrow range of commodities and therefore find themselves highly vulnerable to price shocks on international markets for these products. Their food bills have soared - the combined result of population growth and a lack of investment in local agricultural production and food processing to meet local needs. When the prices of agricultural products suddenly increased in 2008 in the wake of higher oil prices and speculation, the least developed countries found themselves trapped. The imbalances in the food system, which had been building up over the previous forty years, suddenly became visible, and the human consequences too important to ignore (see A/HRC/9/23 and A/HRC/12/31).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- Indeed, many least developed countries have succumbed to a vicious cycle. As they were confronted from the 1960s to the 1990s with strong population growth and rural-to-urban migration, their governments had no choice but to depend more on food aid or to import more food products. This made it even more difficult for their own farmers to make a decent living from farming, as they faced increased dumping of heavily subsidized foodstuffs on domestic markets. In effect, the import of low-priced food products functioned as a substitute for improved wages for workers in the non-agricultural sectors, and for the establishment of social protection floors for all. As the Special Rapporteur noted in the report he prepared following his mission to WTO (A/HRC/10/5/Add.2), this was perhaps a convenient solution so long as the prices of basic food commodities remained stable or were declining. However, with higher and increasingly volatile prices, it results in new threats to the right to food of net food buyers and is a recipe for social and political instability. Furthermore, the increased reliance on food imports is a major cause of "nutrition transition" in the developing world, by which nutritionists mean the shift to processed foods richer in salt, sugar and saturated fats - foods that have a long shelf life and are attractive to urban populations and younger generations, but are often less nutritious and less healthy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Movement
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 39
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- Within the food and agriculture sector, approximately ten corporations control and monopolize the commercial seed and global pesticide markets, as well as food retailers. In addition to their financial power, TNCs significantly influence law and policymaking processes both at the international and national level. Similarly, IFIs exercise considerable influence over national decision-making in relation to food and agricultural policies. Many developing countries are compelled to implement projects that jeopardize economic, social, and cultural rights in return for economic and financial aid. In recent decades, there have been significant efforts to alter the policy approach undertaken by IFIs, especially the World Bank, in relation to supporting development projects that have a harmful effect on human rights and the environment. Moreover, bilateral, and regional foreign trade agreements have facilitated the privatization, deregulation and growth of extractive industries around the globe, a development that has had significant impacts on food security and health. Globalization has highlighted and exacerbated socioeconomic disparities throughout the world, with the result that global social inequality is not only expressed in terms of inter-State justice, but as implicating human rights obligations as well. States are
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 87
- Paragraph text
- Taxation, import restrictions, subsidies and labelling initiatives may, however, be scrutinized for violation of trade agreements. They may also give rise to debates as to whether such governance tools intrude unreasonably on personal and individual freedoms and differing cultural understandings of "nutrition".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 20
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- Individual titling appears to matter less to the poor than security of tenure, reflecting the fact that "[a]t low levels of income and in the absence of other social security mechanisms, land serves as a social safety net for the rural poor and provides them their basic means of livelihood". In other words, while security of land tenure and recognition of land rights may correspond to strong demand, as illustrated by a number of country experiences, the same cannot be said of individual titling and the alienability of land. On the contrary, the limiting of land sales can protect smallholders from pressure to cede their land; it can also protect use rights regarding communal land and preserve communal forms of land management. There is growing experience with the use of low-cost, accessible tools for recording local land rights, or at least land transactions, to ensure security of tenure through the recognition of use rights rather than full ownership. Examples include the "Plan foncier rural", implemented in Benin and tested in Burkina Faso, and the $1 registration process leading to the issuance of certificates in some Ethiopian states. An interesting illustration of the decentralized management of land rights is Law 2005-019 of Madagascar, setting forth the status of land.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph