The Right to Food and Social Justice in the Emerging World Food System

The global food system is under severe stress as a result of growing demand for non-food agricultural commodities, soil degradation and climate change, and persisting poverty both in rural and, increasingly, in urban areas. It needs reshaping. But productivist approaches that focus exclusively on improving efficiency of agricultural production shall fail, if it is not combined with a concern for social equity and for environmental sustainability. This presentation will propose a vision based on the scaling up of local experiences that have proven to be workable, and that combine these different imperatives. This vision emphasizes the role of local food systems and the strengthening of rural-urban linkages, as a way both to improve the incomes of small-scale farmers and access to nutritious food for urban consumers. It shows the potential of agroecological ways of improving agriculture, by a better use of natural resources and by an understanding of farming that is cyclical rather than linear. And it stresses the importance of governance reform in the food systems, by institutions that allow people to reclaim control over the food systems and to hold governments accountable, at all levels, for the impacts of their policies.