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Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Recent years have witnessed various attempts to regulate the impact of business activities on human rights outside of the territorial boundaries of the home State. Notably the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) underlined that States "should set out clearly the expectation that all business enterprises domiciled in their territory and/or jurisdiction respect human rights throughout their operations" and clarified the responsibility of TNCs and other business enterprises to respect human rights. Similarly The United Nations Global Compact (2000) urges TNCs to respect workers' rights and human rights; and the OECD Guidelines call on enterprises to respect human rights. In 2011, a group of experts in international law and human rights adopted the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which provide that States are responsible for violations of economic, social and cultural rights by non-State actors, including corporations in cases where these non-State actors act under the instructions or direct control of the State, or are empowered by the State to exercise elements of governmental authority.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- In setting out the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in resolution 6/2, the Human Rights Council encouraged close cooperation with all stakeholders, including non-State actors. Accordingly, during her first month in office, the Special Rapporteur held consultations on a preliminary and informal basis with representatives from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), academic experts and representatives of member States and civil society organizations based in Geneva. She also had occasion to meet with representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), including the Director-General, members of the senior management team and members of the team working on the right to food, as well as the Chair of the Committee on World Food Security and members of the Bureau and Advisory Group of the Committee. The Special Rapporteur wishes to express her gratitude to those with whom she met and appreciates their warm welcome. She is encouraged by the dedication of many States, organizations and individuals working towards the eradication of hunger and the realization of the right to adequate food and she looks forward to cooperating with all stakeholders on issues relevant to her mandate over the coming years.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 34
- Paragraph text
- Latin America has been leading the movement towards the adoption of framework laws in support of the realization of the right to food. Food and nutrition security laws grounded in the right to food have been adopted in rapid succession in Argentina (2003), Guatemala (2005), Ecuador (2006 and 2009), Brazil (2006), Venezuela (2008), Colombia (2009), Nicaragua (2009) and Honduras (2011). Most recently, following the launch in Mexico of the "Crusade against Hunger" - itself anchored in the right to food as inserted in the Constitution in 2011 - and after the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District of Mexico adopted a framework law in 2009, a decree adopted on 22 January 2013 by the Secretariat of Social Development established the National System for the Crusade against Hunger. The decree creates the Interministerial Commission for the Implementation of the Crusade against Hunger (composed of 19 ministerial departments/institutions); establishes a National Council of the Crusade against Hunger, an inclusive body allowing for a permanent dialogue with the private and social sectors, the academic community and international actors; and creates community committees composed of beneficiaries of social programmes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- Despite the significant progress made in recent years, some dimensions of the right to food remain underdeveloped. This is especially the case as regards its extraterritorial dimensions. According to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the duties associated with the right to food extend to all situations, whether located on a State's national territory or abroad, over which a State may exercise influence without infringing on the sovereignty of the territorial State (see E/C.12/2000/4, para. 39, E/C.12/2002/11, para. 31 and E/C.12/2011/1). This is reaffirmed in the Maastricht Principles on the extraterritorial obligations of States in the area of economic, social and cultural rights, adopted by a group of international law experts on 28 September 2011, as well as in the Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, endorsed by the Human Rights Council on 27 September 2012 (see A/HRC/21/39, para. 61). Yet, the mechanisms allowing victims of violations of the right to food in extraterritorial situations are often non-existent or hardly accessible in practice. On the whole, however, the examples above show a remarkable progress of the right to food since the Right to Food Guidelines were adopted.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- This report focuses on the vertical dimension of scaling up agroecology, namely, the establishment of an enabling framework - although this is both a condition and a driver of horizontal scaling up. Governments have a key role to play in this regard, beyond supporting access to land, water and seeds for small-scale farmers. This section identifies a number of principles that could support the scaling up of agroecological practices. Encouraging a shift towards sustainable agriculture may be a delicate process associated with transition costs, since farmers must learn new techniques that move away from the current systems, which are more specialized, less adaptive, and have a lower innovation capacity. Therefore, the following principles should be applied with flexibility. The incentive structures which such policies create to encourage the shift towards sustainable farming should be regularly tested and re-evaluated with the participation of the beneficiaries, transforming policy into a mode of "social learning rather than an exercise of political authority." The move towards agroecology should be based on the farmers themselves - its main beneficiaries. Agroecological techniques are best spread from farmer to farmer, since they are often specific to an agroecological zone.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Effects of pesticides on the right to food 2017, para. 66
- Paragraph text
- All major pesticide companies are members of the United Nations Global Compact, reporting yearly to the United Nations through the Global Reporting Initiative. While it is somewhat encouraging that they are willing to join corporate social responsibility schemes, such arrangements lack any enforcement or accountability measures and allow companies substantial freedom in choosing what they wish to adhere to.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Effects of pesticides on the right to food 2017, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- The Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters is also relevant to the regulation of pesticides and derives many of its core obligations from human rights law. Article 1 sets out detailed obligations with respect to the matters covered by the Convention.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Effects of pesticides on the right to food 2017, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Given the severe, negative impact of the use of hazardous pesticides on people and the planet, an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations would be important to strengthen the international accountability framework.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- As a result of IPR laws, seeds that would have once been saved and shared are now the intellectual property of corporations. Recent litigation demonstrates that corporations are willing to appeal to the law to protect their property. Since 1997, Monsanto reports that it has filed 147 lawsuits against those farmers who failed to "honor this agreement," i.e. Monsanto's intellectual property rights.
- 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
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- The private sector has significantly exerted its influence over nutrition governance through public-private partnerships, which may blur the line between public interest and financial gain. Involvement by the private sector may be driven by direct financial returns, such as tax breaks, market penetration and positive public relations, as well as increased corporate influence in nutritional policymaking.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- On 1 April 2016, following the recommendations of the Conference, the General Assembly proclaimed 2016-2025 the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. The Decade presents a unique opportunity to centralize globally agreed targets, align actors around implementation and address the shortcomings identified in the current nutrition governance system.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- The Guiding Principles underline that the responsibility of companies to respect human rights exists independently of the abilities and/or willingness of States to fulfil human rights obligations, and hence to prevent them from taking advantage of weak legislative environments. However, ensuring accountability and access to effective remedies for victims remains a major challenge.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- The legally binding nature of voluntary rules may also emerge with the help of national law. Voluntary standards can often be enforced in accordance with competition or consumer laws, where they include relevant representations to the consumer. Thus, a corporation's non-adherence to its own codes can be enforced before courts in the country of the corporation's headquarters.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Although international human rights law presupposes the consent of a State to establish an obligation, the evolution of human rights has included the extension of duties under international law directly to non-State actors, including individuals and business enterprises.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- In recent years the scope of a State's human rights obligations has progressively evolved to include duties to exercise jurisdiction over activities that are connected to one State but have an impact in another. In principle, corporations can also be held accountable either by States responsible for regulating, monitoring and preventing human rights violations; or through intergovernmental instruments or voluntary codes of conduct.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- Over the last few years, there has been an important increase in the number of States that have adopted provisions containing explicit recognition of the right to food or freedom from hunger. The following section will provide an overview of some recent examples of case law in relation to the justiciability of the right to food at the domestic and regional level.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- The justiciability debate continues to provoke controversy at the international level. However despite strong opposition from a number of States an Optional Protocol to the Covenant, establishing an individual complaints procedure, was finally adopted in 2008. Its subsequent entry into force in May 2013 was hailed as "potentially one of the most important developments in human rights protection at the UN level in a generation".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- While some critics suggest that the voluntary nature of the Right to Food Guidelines limits their usefulness, they were adopted by member States of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) by consensus. States cannot therefore claim to be unaware of or refuse to comply with the guidelines. Over the years, in many formal settings, the Governments have reiterated their commitment to and support for the guidelines.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- Despite the availability of widely endorsed good practices, many Governments, development agencies, donors and policymakers are still focusing on large-scale, high-input solutions that marginalize small-scale farmers because of existing political biases, trade rules and policies that limit the ability of Governments to support smallholder farmers and agroecological practices through investment, research funding and legal solutions to land tenure.
- 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
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Second, they allow for a whole-of-government approach, in which various policies in the areas of health care, education, employment and social protection, agriculture and rural development are coordinated. This favours the identification of synergies among programmes that fall under the responsibility of different departments, such as school-feeding programmes that source from local small-scale producers or food-for-work programmes that improve rural infrastructures. This coordinating function is also important in States with a federal structure, to improve alignment among policies pursued at different levels of government: in Mexico, one of the tasks of the Interministerial Commission for the Implementation of the Crusade against Hunger is to promote integrated agreements between entities at the federal and municipal level. Similarly, in an increasing number of States, food policy councils are being established at the local level, either at the initiative of municipalities or by citizens. These multi-stakeholder councils have a key role to fulfil in democratizing the food systems and in identifying synergies among different policy sectors at the local level: national-level strategies can support this by ensuring that such local-level initiatives are strengthened, rather than undermined, by various sectoral policies.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Such a legal framework may allow for the ring-fencing of resources, ensuring that the policies that are integrated within food security strategies will be funded, without being taken hostage by changing political majorities. In Argentina, for instance, Law No. 25.724 establishing the National Programme for Food and Nutrition Security sets up a Special Food and Nutrition Fund for the implementation of the Programme. The Fund is financed through annual budget allocations from the national budget and contributions from external donors. However, the Fund is of "intangible character": if the funds available appear insufficient to achieve the objectives of the Programme, the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers may reallocate any additional funds needed. Similarly, the draft national food security bill prepared by civil society in Malawi anticipates the creation of a specific trust fund to finance food security policies placed under the umbrella of the council that the bill aims to create. In Mali, the 2006 Law on Agricultural Policy created a National Fund for Agricultural Development, to ensure adequate financing of agricultural policies. Similar provisions for special Funds are included in Nicaragua's 2009 Law on Food and Nutritional Security and Sovereignty, although implementation measures still must be adopted.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Lastly, there are a range of measures that, in the circumstances of each case, may be identified as measures that are available to the State and that it therefore must take in order to discharge its duties to fulfil the right to food. For instance, recognizing that "illicit capital flight undermines the capacity of States parties to implement the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and to attain the Millennium Development Goals", the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has called upon States parties to that Charter "to examine their national tax laws and policies towards preventing illicit capital flight in Africa". Similarly, insufficiently progressive levels of taxation or the failure to adopt certain practices that have proved to be effective in comparable contexts may be considered a violation of the duty to fulfil. This would be the case, for example, if a State fails to call upon international assistance in situations of natural disaster or where, for whatever reason, it is unable with its own resources to guarantee the basic freedom from hunger. There is a growing consensus on the appropriate methodologies for concretely identifying when the resources dedicated to the fulfilment of economic and social rights are insufficient. The duty to move "as expeditiously as possible" towards that end is increasingly considered to lend itself to independent monitoring, including by courts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Fisheries and the right to food 2012, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- Past co-management projects have a mixed record. Some have been notable successes, in both developed and developing countries, while others have led to less positive outcomes. Failures in co-management are partly explained by the fact that communities have been involved only in the implementation of policy, rather than in setting objectives of policy and ensuring that policymaking and evaluation are based on local knowledge of fish and marine ecosystems. The failure to integrate fishing communities into the design of policies affecting them, the top-down creation of community-based organizations to carry out functions for the State and approaches that are excessively donor-driven or that are captured by elites have all disappointed expectations. The solution to these difficulties is not to abandon co management, but to build it in a more participatory way, based on the needs of the fishing communities. This in turn will be successful only if the livelihoods of fishers are also better secured, taking into account that the environment in which they operate, and the markets on which they depend, are increasingly risky. Only by linking fisheries management to the broader improvement of the economic and social rights of fishers, in a multisectoral approach that acknowledges how fishing fits into the broader social and economic fabric, can progress be made towards robust and sustainable solutions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Fisheries and the right to food 2012, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur has identified three areas in which the right to adequate food may guide efforts to improve fisheries management: policies aimed at combating overfishing; the management of export-oriented fishing, including access agreement negotiations; and the protection of small-scale fisheries. They are discussed below.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Fisheries and the right to food 2012, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- While the global production figures for wild-capture fisheries provided by FAO appear stable, these data may not always provide a complete picture, given that they exclude unreported and illegally caught fish and that catches by small-scale inland fisheries often go underreported. Moreover, production levels over the past few decades have been achieved partly by shifting fishing efforts to other, normally smaller fish. As a result of fishing down marine food webs (or the increasing dominance of catches by low-trophic-level species), 90 per cent of all large predatory fish species in parts of the world's oceans have disappeared since 1950. In addition, the growth of commercial fisheries since the 1950s has meant that commercial fisheries from traditionally powerful fishing entities (the European Union, Japan, North America and the Russian Federation) have been deployed to almost all areas of the globe, searching for new fishing opportunities as old ones have been exhausted. This geographical displacement has intensified with the rise of new distant-water fishing fleets, such as those of China and the Republic of Korea. Such displacement also occurs at the micro level, given that in many coastal areas of the world fishers are responding to localized depletion by travelling further, spending more time at sea (thereby using more fuel) and migrating to neighbouring countries.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- As a way to improve the resilience and sustainability of food systems, agroecology is now supported by an increasingly wide range of experts within the scientific community, and by international agencies and organizations, such as the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNEP and Biodiversity International. It is also gaining ground in countries as diverse as the United States, Brazil, Germany and France.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- 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. 43
- Paragraph text
- Direct-to-consumer food marketing is an even more innovative way of linking small-scale farmers to markets in conditions that allow them to increase their incomes and at the same time to control their production. Although still relatively marginal, local food systems have made spectacular progress in recent years in a range of developed countries. In the United States of America, direct-to-consumer food sales more than doubled in 10 years, moving from $551 million in 1997 to $1.2 billion in 2007, and the number of farmers' markets rose from 2,756 in 1998 to 5,274 in 2009. In 1986 there were two community-supported organizations, whereas now there are an estimated 1,400 such organizations. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that in 2007, 136,817 farms were selling directly to consumers. Modern community-supported agriculture emerged in Japan with the teikei system, and now shows a strong growth in several countries, including Canada and France, where the network of "Associations pour le maintien d'une agriculture paysanne" now includes 1,200 community-supported agriculture schemes. Although they are often linked to the increased consumer demand for organic products, such initiatives ensure farmers a guaranteed outlet for their produce and stable revenues.
- 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
- 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. 8
- Paragraph text
- A considerable number of small-scale farmers have joined such schemes. In part as a result of the withdrawal or reduction of public extension services over the past 30 years, contract farming often represents the only viable option to improve livelihoods, as such agreements guarantee access to markets as well as to good-quality inputs (often supplied at lower wholesale prices) and technical advice, and facilitate both access to certification schemes and meeting standards. The shift to higher-value crops, improved productivity and the lowering of their marketing and transaction costs may result in higher incomes. Contract farming may also improve farmers' access to credit, either because firms directly provide credit or because banks accept farmers' contracts as collateral. Depending on the particular type of arrangement, contract farming can provide a guarantee that farming revenues will be relatively stable and insulated from market price fluctuations. In addition, firms sometimes pay farmers a premium to ensure that they do not engage in selling outside the contract. As a model of direct procurement, which generally cuts out the middleman, contract farming may also be seen as a winning solution for consumers, firms and farmers alike.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 16
- Paragraph text
- It has been argued that improving security of tenure encourages smallholders to invest in the land, and in principle it could lower the cost of credit by increasing the use of land as collateral. It could also encourage more sustainable farming, particularly through the planting of trees and through more responsible use of the soil and water resources. The real question, however, is not whether security of tenure should be improved, but how. The classical approach has consisted of individual titling, combined with the establishment of cadastres, or land registries, to facilitate and secure transactions related to land. That approach is linked to the idea that security of tenure is primarily a means to promote integration into the market: once property has been legally recognized, it can be alienated or mortgaged so that the beneficiaries can leave agriculture or obtain cash to make the necessary investments in the land. In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s - and more recently, under the influence of the writings of Hernando de Soto, international financial institutions promoted land registration and titling as part of their structural adjustment programmes, in the hope that successful land markets would ensure efficient land allocation and spur economic growth, which in turn was seen as the key to addressing rural poverty and food insecurity.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- The conclusions presented in the present report are based on civil society consultations held in Bamako from 8 to 10 December 2009, in Kuala Lumpur on 23 and 24 March 2010, and in Chennai, India, on 28 and 29 March 2010. They also result from the analysis of 117 cases sent to the Special Rapporteur by non governmental organizations following a public appeal made by the Special Rapporteur on 15 December 2009. The Special Rapporteur expresses his deep gratitude to the Governments that responded to a questionnaire sent on 4 March 2010, including Albania, Belarus, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Georgia, Germany, Guyana, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malawi, Mexico, Montenegro, Norway, Oman, Peru, the Republic of Moldova, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Uruguay. The Special Rapporteur also benefited from expert briefs prepared at his request. Finally, the report takes into account a lesson that can be drawn from the communications sent to Governments or non-governmental entities by the Special Rapporteur and his predecessor: during the period from 2003 to 2009, as an indication of the importance of the issue of land with respect to the right to food, 115 of the 183 communications sent by the mandate-holders concerned rights related to the use of land and the right to food.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph