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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
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