Earlier this month, I attended the Canadian Dairy Farmers annual policy conference in Ottawa, Canada. I was to provide a U.S. perspective on the topic of food sovereignty. The Canadian Dairy Farmers represent over 15,000 farmers across Canada.
It was an enlightening and encouraging meeting with some surprising elements. For example, when I arrived there were 60 parliamentarians mulling the floor of the hotel, conversing with the farmers as part of an evening reception. When was the last time 60 congressional representatives showed up to an event in the U.S. to support and talk with small and medium farmers at an evening reception? I was impressed to see this kind of interaction that is now so foreign to the U.S. experience.
The next day, I spoke to a room filled with at least 150 farmers from all over Canada. Also presenting that day was the Canadian Minister of Agriculture, Canada’s lead agriculture negotiator at the WTO, and one of our longtime colleagues from the Brussels based group Collectifs Strategies Alimentaires.
I listened to the Minister of Agriculture publicly present his support for supply management programs in Canada. When was the last time the U.S. government and Congress was willing to even use the term "supply management" for fear of losing credibility in the policy debates toward a new Farm Bill? I also listened to the Canadian trade minister present his optimism that a Doha deal is in our grasp. He reiterated though that much hinges on U.S. offers to cut subsidies. Based on the fact that the U.S. let its Fast Track authority expire and the Farm Bill debate has been so hotly contested, it is hard to imagine how U.S. negotiators can do much to secure a deal – particularly in the context of the national presidential campaign. Wishful thinking does not a deal make...
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the meeting is that the Canadian Dairy Farmers Association has adopted the concept of "food sovereignty" as a platform within its work plan and seeks to build alliances within Canada and with other allies around the world (see definition of food sovereignty included below). I was invited to speak about the potential for developing a platform around food sovereignty in the United States. I will share a few thoughts for reflection.
The first is that food sovereignty itself means very little in the U.S. context. Why would it? The U.S. government does not recognize the Right to Food, which is part of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). We have an historic opportunity to change the discourse around the Right to Food, including food sovereignty in the U.S., assuming that we in this country begin to talk in real terms about what has happened to our food system domestically and how U.S. policies have impacted farmers abroad. IATP’s Farm Bill series has helped to talk about what has happened to food, people and the environment in the U.S. as a result of the deregulation in agriculture.
Although Americans are starting to wake up to our changing environment (Fast Food Nation, Omnivore's Dilemma and such) much of the U.S. public still believes in the fairytale that U.S. food comes from small family farms across the country, that we are feeding the world with our U.S. food aid programs or finally that free trade has stabilized the global food system. In fact, it is just the opposite. We know that U.S. farms have become larger and more consolidated. U.S. farmers have been forced out of agriculture in droves, and our food system and health have been negatively affected because of shifts in domestic farm policy. Much of the world has criticized the U.S. for using its food aid programs to dump overproduced grains on other markets thereby undermining local farmers abroad. And, free trade has reinforced price volatility and corporate concentration of food. Moreover, failed trade and investment policies have hurt rural communities and increased dislocation of people through forced migration.
Now we need to go a step further in 2008, developing our messages in support of alternatives. What does food sovereignty mean and why do we support it? In general terms, Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples:
- to define their own food and agriculture;
- to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives;
- to determine the extent to which they want to be self-reliant;
- [and] to restrict the dumping of products into their markets.
Food sovereignty does not negate trade, but rather, it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of people to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production. ‘Statement on Peoples’ Food Sovereignty’; (Via Campesina)
To me, this is a common sense agenda around which we can all support in the U.S. and abroad.
