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Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- The constitutional jurisprudence of India provides for the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights based on "the right to life". This constitutional right was central to the case of People's Union for Civil Liberties ("PUCL") v. Union of India. In mid-2001, public food and employment programmes failed to provide food to deprived people in the impoverished and drought-stricken State of Rajasthan. The Supreme Court of India was petitioned by PUCL to compel the Government to respond to the hunger emergency. In response to the submissions, the Supreme Court held that the right to food was enshrined in the Constitution under the right to life provision in article 47, which requires that the State undertake measures to improve the nutritional state of the population. The Court handed down a series of resolutions which commenced in 2001 requiring State governments in India to implement food distribution programmes for the most disadvantaged. The Court's resolution had a considerable impact on the realization of the right to food in India, and provides an example of the influential role played by the judiciary in encouraging a legislative body to develop human rights legislation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Effects of pesticides on the right to food 2017, para. 95
- Paragraph text
- Agroecological farming can help secure livelihoods for smallholder farmers and those living in poverty, including women, because there is no heavy reliance on expensive external inputs. If properly managed, biodiversity and efficient use of resources can enable smallholder farms to be more productive per hectare than large industrial farms (A/HRC/16/49).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2017
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Most of the world's poor who live and work in rural areas are employed in the agriculture sector. Globally, 20 - 30% of the 450 million waged agricultural workers are women, as are 30 % of those employed in the fishing sector and this number is increasing. Yet, women face difficulty in engaging in market behavior when cultural norms make it socially unacceptable for women to interact with men.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Women's property ownership is a significant indicator of poverty, and a key factor in securing increased participation in household decision making. Granting women the autonomy to make everyday choices has been proven to improve reproductive health, family nutrition, and child welfare. Land ownership also helps strengthen women's roles in community affairs and women's bargaining power.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- The modernization of food supply chains, together with the implementation of agricultural policies focused more on the production of commodities than on food, has led to the marginalization of local food systems over recent years (A/HRC/13/33, paras. 6-9). This trend must be reversed. Small-scale food producers must be provided with greater opportunities to sell on the local markets, which they can more easily supply without having to be dependent on large buyers. Furthermore, the poorest consumers, who now often rely on large retailers or fast food outlets to feed themselves, must have the possibility to purchase food that is fresh and nutritious, and therefore healthier. These include the urban poor, but in developing countries they also include many small-scale farmers, who often are net food buyers and combine other activities with their role as food producers. Local food systems can be rebuilt through appropriate investments in infrastructure, packaging and processing facilities, and distribution channels, and by allowing smallholders to organize themselves in ways that yield economies of scale and allow them to move towards higher-value activities in the food supply chain. This would support rural development and the reduction of rural poverty, and slow down rural-to-urban migration.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Under asset transfer schemes, productive assets, such as small livestock, are provided to poor households to support their income generation activities. Bangladesh's Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction - Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR) programme, launched in 2002 by the non-governmental organization Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC), demonstrates the benefits of adopting a gender-sensitive approach. For instance, it takes into account the fact that female-headed households are often more labour-constrained (both due to "care" responsibilities of women and the lower ratio of income earners to dependents in those households) and provides assets, such as poultry, which require less labour to maintain and become a source of income. BRAC also seeks to strengthen the beneficiary's capacity to use the assets productively, and encourages the political empowerment of the poor. The programme provides for the establishment of seven-member Village Poverty Reduction Committees, comprising representatives of BRAC, beneficiaries of CFPR, as well as respected individuals drawn from the landed and wealthy elites of the local community. Instead of aiming to reduce the power of the local elites as part of the priorities of poverty-reduction interventions, the programme seeks the active involvement of local notables in order to enlist their support.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Gender
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Women's access to employment in the industry or the services sectors of the economy requires improved access to education for girls; and infrastructural and services investments that relieve women from part of the burden of the household chores that women shoulder disproportionately. Millennium Development Goal 1, on the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, includes a target (1.B) to "achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people," an implicit recognition that women, due to discrimination and lack of educational opportunities, are generally disadvantaged in access to employment. In September 2010, Heads of State and Government at the High-level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development Goals pledged to invest in "infrastructure and labour-saving technologies, especially in rural areas, benefiting women and girls by reducing their burden of domestic activities, affording the opportunity for girls to attend school and women to engage in self-employment or participate in the labour market," as well as to remove "barriers and expanding support for girls' education through measures such as providing free primary education, a safe environment for schooling and financial assistance such as scholarships and cash transfer programmes".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Youth
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Acroecology and the right to food 2011, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Agroecology is knowledge-intensive. It requires the development of both ecological literacy and decision-making skills in farmer communities. Investments in agricultural extension and agricultural research are key in this regard. While agricultural spending is among the four top contributors to increasing rural welfare, along with public spending in education, health and roads, agricultural research has the greatest overall impact on poverty and agricultural productivity in developing countries. Agricultural research had "the largest impact on agricultural production and second-largest impact on poverty reduction (after rural education) in China, and the second-largest impact on poverty reduction in rural India (after investment in roads)." Research in agroecological practices, in particular, should be prioritized, because of the considerable and largely untapped potential of such practices. Modern science combines with local knowledge in agroecological research. In Central America for instance, the coffee groves grown under high-canopy trees were improved by the identification of the optimal shade conditions, minimizing the entire pest complex and maximizing the beneficial microflora and fauna while maximizing yield and coffee quality. However, perhaps because such practices cannot be rewarded by patents, the private sector has been largely absent from this line of research.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- 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. 12
- Paragraph text
- States should also support farming communities by providing certain goods and services required to achieve an adequate standard of living through farming. Although private investors may provide some of the same goods and services, leading some commentators to view contract farming as a means to ensure the more efficient distribution of such goods and services, it would be misplaced to view contract farming as a substitute for the indispensable role of the State in this regard. Guideline 2.6 of the Voluntary Guidelines on the right to food recalls the duties of the State where poverty and hunger are predominantly rural. It is expected that States, for instance, will provide technical assistance to farmers through public agricultural extension services, ensure access to reliable and assured credit for small-scale farmers at reasonable rates and help to create basic price support mechanisms for small-scale farmers. Contract farming should not become a driver of the privatization of extension services, or serve as an excuse for Governments to neglect their duty to support farmers with the provision of public goods, since it is precisely the most marginalized farmers who would suffer most from the retreat of State support.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 72d
- Paragraph text
- [The Special Rapporteur recommends that States:] Provide mechanisms that offer adequate, effective and timely remedies in cases of violations of the right to food, in particular to groups such as communities living in remote rural areas, communities living in situations of extreme poverty, persons with disabilities and indigenous communities, either through collective or public interest remedies;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Integrating a gender perspective in the right to food 2016, para. 3
- Paragraph text
- Notwithstanding the legal framework designed to protect them, women experience poverty and hunger at disproportionate levels. Institutionalized gender discrimination and violence still impose barriers that prevent women from enjoying their economic, social and cultural rights and specifically the right to adequate food and nutrition, and the status of women and girls has not substantially improved, despite recurrent calls for the inclusion of a gender perspective to development programs and to social policies.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Gender
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- Changes in food production and quality affect market prices and, in turn, price increases affect accessibility to food, especially for the poor. Socially vulnerable groups may have to alter their diet, substituting less nutritious and lower-quality food items and. as a result, diminishing dietary diversity owing to dependence on a few staple foods.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Fisheries and the right to food 2012, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- Many fish are also rich in micronutrients, especially the smaller fish that are accessible to people living in poverty. The consumption of fish therefore not only helps to combat hunger, but also can address hidden hunger, or micronutrient deficiency. In addition, the seasonal availability of fish in rural communities is often different from crops, meaning that fish can help to reduce seasonal vulnerability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Year
- 2012
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Women’s right and the right to food 2013, para. 25c
- Paragraph text
- [Three concerns have emerged:] Where compliance with the conditionalities requires women to leave the household, it may present an opportunity for them to obtain information about their rights and about practices that can improve nutritional outcomes within their household, and enable them to broaden their social network. But the cultural norms that reduce the mobility of women and their time poverty could make their participation in such programmes impossible.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2013
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 19
- Paragraph text
- Poverty and inequality are drivers of obesity and micronutrient deficiency, in addition to undernutrition. Low-income populations are particularly vulnerable to obesity. Processed foods tend to be highly accessible and relatively cheap and can be stored for long periods without spoiling. In the United States of America for instance, low-income neighbourhoods often lack food retailers that sell fruits, vegetables, whole grains and alternative low-fat options. Unable to afford healthier food options, individuals may become overreliant on poor-quality foods, essentially being forced to choose between economic viability and nutrition and exposed to "double malnutrition".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- In the Rome Declaration on Nutrition, adopted in 2014, States recognized that the root causes of malnutrition were complex and multidimensional. They include social, economic, political and cultural determinants. Poverty, social exclusion, gender inequality, low socioeconomic status and lack of control over productive resources, for example land-grabbing and seed patenting, are all major contributors to malnutrition. Similarly, malnutrition is aggravated by poor sanitation and the absence of safe drinking water and adequate housing, as well as a lack of education, health and social protection services.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 2
- Paragraph text
- The underlying causes of malnutrition are complex and multidimensional, and access to nutritious food is often a key indicator of socioeconomic inequality. Women and children are particularly sensitive to malnutrition, while poverty, gender inequality and lack of access to adequate sanitation, health and education services are aggravating factors. Today's food systems, which are dominated by industrial production and processing, as well as trade liberalization and aggressive marketing strategies, are fostering unhealthy eating habits and creating a dependence on highly processed, nutrient-poor foods. Unequal access to and control over resources, as well as unsustainable production and consumption patterns, which lead to environmental degradation and climate change, also contribute to the malfunctioning of food systems.3
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2016
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Development-induced displacement is an increasingly widespread phenomenon with devastating impact. An estimated 15 million people each year are forced to relocate and resettle as a result of such interventions. Despite some of the more recent efforts to highlight land dispossession, as yet global institutions have been unable to discourage the practices and processes that undermine land rights, prevent equitable access and establish the context for large and small-scale displacements. The expanding mining sector has contributed to strong economic growth in some countries, with mining and oil concessions dramatically increasing in countries. The industry has however also generated social conflict in many States, particularly in rural areas, with mining activities coming into direct competition with small-scale agriculture. Indigenous peoples are particularly vulnerable as they are often forced to leave their land and sources of livelihood. A lack of engagement and opportunities for participation in decisions that affect their lives has left many communities in situations of dire poverty and without access to adequate food and nutrition.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Movement
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- Access to public information in relation to the adoption of new laws or amendments to existing legislation is crucial for ensuring justiciability. States are obliged to ensure that this information is made readily available and easily accessible for everyone without discrimination. Particular effort should be made to disseminate information in a format that is user-appropriate, taking into consideration the individual needs of persons with disabilities, and those with low levels of literacy. Migrants and minority groups should not be prevented from accessing information owing to linguistic barriers, and materials should be adapted accordingly. Logistical and financial barriers should also be addressed by taking into consideration the difficulties faced by those living in remote rural areas and those living in poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Persons with disabilities
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- In 2013, a coalition of NGOs Guatemala sin Hambre engaged in strategic litigation to claim the right to food of children suffering from chronic malnutrition and living in conditions of extreme poverty. The judgements were delivered in April 2013 by the Child and Adolescence Court of the Zacapa Department which, based on the facts, found violations of the right to food, the right to life, the right to housing and the right to an adequate standard of living. Specifically with regard to the right to food, the court grounded its reasoning on article 51 of the Constitution, which protects the right to food for children, as well as on article 11 of the Covenant and article 25 of the Universal Declaration. To define the right to food and the obligations that stem from it, the court cited general comment No. 12.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- The challenges are huge and each region is facing its own climate change issues. Approaches to food security and adaptation to climate change must be mutually supporting; they must have the common objective of empowering socially and economically excluded groups to reduce their vulnerability and increase their resilience. Climate change is leading to significant increases in the price of food; therefore, because the poor in the global South devote up to 80 per cent of their budget to food, the economically disadvantaged are much more vulnerable in this regard than those in the developed world. Public and private investments that improve options for the poor, such as improved agricultural production technologies, better-adapted financial instruments, diversified income opportunities, broader economic adjustments, the creation of specialized markets for the poor, development of local knowledge and expansion of irrigation and storage infrastructure will likely be critical in adapting food security to a changing climate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- While more affluent countries are better able to cope with the effects of climate change, nations with a higher proportion of people living in poverty may not have access to necessary infrastructure and resources and their populations have fewer opportunities to diversify their livelihoods and reduce their dependence on agriculture. Within this group of vulnerable populations, small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples, particularly women who depend on climate-sensitive natural systems for their food and livelihoods, are expected to be particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change on their food security.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Women
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- Developing countries are likely to be the hardest hit by climate change not only because of their geographical location but also because of the way people earn their livelihoods. The majority of people living in poverty in developing countries dwell in rural areas and many of them depend on agricultural activities to provide food for their families and generate income. Both aspects have implications for non farm rural households, either through the availability of food, which can cause fluctuations in local prices, or as an indirect source of employment.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has expressed with high confidence that, despite regional variabilities, climate change is likely to have an overall negative effect on yields of major cereal crops across Africa. Climate change is expected to interact with non-climate drivers and stressors to exacerbate vulnerability of agricultural systems on the continent, particularly in semi-arid areas. Global projections suggest that the number of people at risk of hunger will increase by 10-20 per cent by 2050 and that 65 per cent of them will be in sub Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is often cited as the most impoverished region in the world because hunger is most prevalent there, affecting 25 per cent of the population. Other African nations, including the Central African Republic and South Sudan, are similarly vulnerable to food insecurity, with the latter currently on the brink of famine.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Moreover, childhood undernutrition and stunting will increase, provoking a rise in nutrition-related deaths in children in developing countries. Calorie availability in 2050 is likely to decline throughout the developing world, resulting in an additional 24 million undernourished children. It is expected that health losses will occur mainly in areas that are already food insecure. Climate change exacerbates undernutrition and undermines efforts to reduce poverty and resilience, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. A recent drought-triggered famine in Somalia spurred food crises in neighbouring countries, illustrating the possible consequences of more frequent extreme weather events.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- Indeed, it is now time to move from generous intentions to action. The eradication of hunger and extreme poverty is now placed at the top of the political agenda, and through the new sustainable development goals, monitoring will be strengthened at a global level. Grounding these efforts explicitly in the right to food will encourage all the actors involved in the implementation of these goals to acknowledge their duties towards those who are marginalized economically and politically disempowered, and to address the political economy of food systems - in other terms, the question of who decides, on the basis of what information, and under which accountability mechanisms.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- 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. 42
- Paragraph text
- 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.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Finally, food and agricultural policies should address the distributional issues that result in large groups of the rural population in developing countries being too poor to satisfy their basic needs. Small-scale food producers and the landless rural poor, including many farmworkers who barely survive from their labour on large plantations, represent a majority of those living in extreme poverty. Yet, the promotion in the past of export-led agriculture, often based on the exploitation of a largely disempowered workforce, operated at the expense of family farms producing food crops for local consumption. This resulted in a paradoxical situation in which many low-income countries, though they are typically agriculture-based, raw commodity-exporting economies, are highly dependent on food imports, sometimes supplemented by food aid, because they have neglected to invest in local production and food processing to feed their own communities (A/HRC/9/23, annex I, para. 5). It also led to increased rural poverty and the growth of urban slums, and to the inability of governments to move to a more diversified economy: whereas such a diversification requires adequate infrastructure, a qualified workforce, and a consumer market allowing producers of manufactured goods, or service providers, to achieve economies of scale, none of this can happen when half of the population is condemned to extreme deprivation. Thus, the lack of support for small-scale farmers has not only weakened own-production as a means of access to food. It has also had severe impacts on the two other channels through which the right to food can be realized, as it has reduced employment opportunities in the industry and services sectors, making it impossible for governments to finance social protection schemes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- 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. 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
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- With the Millennium Development Goals reaching their target date in 2015, the international community is currently reflecting on the progress made to date. The establishment of the Goals reflects the most significant collective effort ever made at the international level to tackle extreme poverty and hunger. While significant progress has been made over the past 14 years, much remains to be done. As mentioned above, the international community is discussing the possible successor framework in the form of the sustainable development goals, which are currently under negotiation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph