Download Realizing the human right to adequate food in times of climate

Realizing the human right to adequate food in times of climate change
Marcos Filardi
What is utopia good for?
You walk and you walk and you never reach it…
You walk and you walk and you never reach it…
What is utopia good for, then?
To keep on walking
Eduardo Galeano
Abstract
The paper provides an overview of the state of the world food insecurity, and describes how climate change will have adverse
effects on the access to adequate food of those who are already the most food-insecure, increasing the number of hungry,
malnourished and the likelihood of new famines. It then highlights the advantages of seeing development, climate change and
food from a human rights perspective, and explores their interconnections from a human rights approach. With this background,
six critical issues over the relationship between climate change and the adequate human right to food are considered.
Prevention, mitigation and adaptation are presented as human rights obligations. Those obligations are regarded as
extraterritorial, which implies that developed countries are bound to control that their companies contribute to reducing the
emissions in other countries. It explores the impacts of climate change on human displacement and proposes solutions to
addressing the challenges. It develops over the advantages of a carbon tax, localized food systems and food sovereignty as a
guiding policy to tackle both hunger and climate change. It also reviews the debate on bioenergies, and provides the reasons
why the precautionary principle should apply to their development. It ends up with the conclusions, presenting sustainable food
production and equal access to adequate food as the challenge of our generation.
I- A food-insecure world
In 1985, human beings achieved world food sufficiency: for the first time in history, there was
enough food for all. That same year, though, one million Ethiopians died of starvation.
Twenty five years later, at the present stage of development of agricultural production, the
Earth could feed 12 billion human beings properly, providing food equivalent to 2,700 calories a
day for every individual. 1 However, in this world of riches, 1.02 billion people are
undernourished. Two regions, Asia and the Pacific and Africa, account for almost 90% of the
world hungry, with 642 and 265 million, respectively. 2 And, at the same time, one billion
1 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, September 7, 2001,
E/CN.4/2001/53.
2 FAO, State of Food Insecurity in the World, Economic Crisis, Impacts and lessons learned, FAO, Rome, 2009, p. 8.
people suffer from obesity worldwide. Every year, 5.6 million children die before they reach the
age of 5. Every day, some 18,000 children die of hunger and malnutrition.3 Every seven seconds,
one child abandons this world because he simply does not have enough to eat.
Undernutrition accounts for nearly 10% of the global burden of disease, and between one sixth
and one quarter of the burden of disease are related to childhood and maternal undernutrition.
In developed countries, with low mortality rates, diet-related risks accounts for between one
tenth and one quarter of the burden of disease.4 Hunger-related diseases almost invariably
entail serious disability: underdevelopment of brain cells in babies, blindness caused by vitamin
A deficiency, etc. Chronic hunger and permanent, serious malnutrition can also be a hereditary
curse: every year, tens of millions of seriously undernourished mothers give birth to tens of
millions of seriously affected babies, referred to as “born crucified” by Régis Debray.5
In 1996, the World Food Summit Plan of Action established that food security exists when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to
meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
It is clear, then, that we live in a chronically-food-insecure world.
II- Impacts of climate change on an already food-insecure world
If the scenario described above is grim enough, climate change will make matters worse.
The IPCC estimates that crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid-to-high
latitudes for local mean temperature increases of up-to 1 to 3 degrees C, depending on the
crop, and then decrease beyond that in some regions. At lower altitudes, especially seasonally
dry and tropical regions, crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small local
temperature increases, which would increase the risk of hunger. Globally, the potential for food
production is projected to increase with increases in local average temperature over a range of
3 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 19 January 2007, A/HRC/4/30.
4
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, World Health Organization (WHO),
Geneva, 2005, p.2.
5 UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, September 7, 2001,
E/CN.4/2001/53.
1-3 degrees C, but above this is projected to decrease. Regional changes in the distribution and
production of particular fish species are expected due to continued warming, with adverse
effects projected for aquaculture and fisheries. Agricultural production, including access to food,
in many African countries and regions is projected to be severely compromised by climate
variability and change. The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield
potential, particularly along the margins of semi arid and arid areas, are expected to increase.
This would further affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition in the continent. In some
countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% by 2020. Local food
supplies are projected to be negatively affected by decreasing fisheries resources in large lakes
due to rising water temperatures, which may be exacerbated by continued overfishing. New
studies confirm that Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate variability and
change because of multiple stresses and low adaptive capacity.6
The IAASTD arrived at the same conclusions, expressing that the preponderance of global
agricultural studies shows that climate change is not likely to diminish global agricultural
production by more than a few percent, if at all, by 2050; some regions may benefit ( i.e., North
America, Europe) and some regions may suffer ( i.e., the tropics). Any losses would be on top of
substantial gains in world. Two regions that are likely to experience large negative impacts of
climate change on agricultural production are Asia and Africa.7
FAO added that rising sea levels will threaten food production and livelihoods in countries with
large areas of low-lying land, such as Bangladesh and Egypt. 8 It also analyzed the impact of
6
IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,
Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, ML Parry and others (editors), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 7-22; see also Parry, Martin,
Climate Change and World Agriculture, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, 1990, p. 128-132.
7
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), Global
Report, Island Press, Washington DC, 2009, p. 286-287.
8
FAO, World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030, Summary Report, 2002; see also Gregory, J. S. - I. Ingram, M,
“Climate Change and Food Security”, in Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 360, No. 1463, Food
Crops in a Changing Climate, The Royal Society, Nov. 29, 2005, p. 2140.
climate change on livestock, stating that it is likely that some of the greatest impacts of climate
change will be felt in grazing systems in arid and semi-arid areas, particularly at low latitudes. 9
Undoubtedly, then, the acceleration of environmental degradation and climate change has
direct effects on agricultural productivity and food security of over one billion people living in
poverty in developing countries.10
As a consequence, according to one estimate, an additional 600 million people will face
malnutrition due to climate change, with a particularly negative effect on sub-Saharan Africa.
Poor people living in developing countries are particularly vulnerable given their
disproportionate dependency on climate-sensitive resources for their food and livelihoods.11
Therefore, there is sufficient scientific consensus that the two regions that contributed the least
to climate change and that are already the most food-insecure –Africa and Asia and the Pacificwill suffer the most, with a disproportionate negative impact on the poorest among the poorest
within those regions, namely pastoralists and subsistence farmers.
Hunger, malnutrition and famine, then, are likely to increase as a consequence of climate
change.
III- A human rights-approach to food, development and climate change
Food, development and climate change are intimately connected to each other. First,
permanent, serious undernourishment and malnutrition prevent men and women from
developing their full potential and becoming economically active, condemning them to a
9
FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2009, FAO, Rome, 2009, p. 63-64; for a detailed study of the
impact of climate change on fish production, see Brander, K.M, Global Fish Production and Climate Change,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 104, No. 50 (Dec. 11, 2007),
pp. 19709-19714.
10
Altieri, Miguel – Koohafkan, Parviz, Enduring Farms: Climate Change, Smallholders and Traditional Farming
Communities, TWN, Penang, Malaysia, 2008, p. 4.
11
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the Relationship between climate change and human rights, 15 January 2009, A/HRC/10/61; for a
detailed study on the impact of climate change on pastoralists and subsistence farmers, see Verdin, James –Funk,
Chris- Senay, Gabriel and Choularton, Richard, “Climate Science and Famine Early Warning”, in Philosophical
Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 360, No. 1463, Food Crops in a Changing Climate (Nov. 29, 2005), pp. 2166.
marginal social existence. They are decisive factors in the underdevelopment of many third
world economies.12 At the same time, our food production systems and our development
policies, if they are not sustainable, contribute to climate change, and reversely, will be severely
affected by it.
It took a long time, though, to start perceiving food, development and climate change from a
human rights perspective.
But, what are, ultimately, the advantages of such an approach?
When it comes to food, it has been said that a right-to-food based approach complements food
security considerations with concerns for dignity, the acknowledgement of rights, transparency,
accountability, and empowerment. It is based on an a priori commitment to the value of human
dignity and makes the individual an agent of change in a way that enables him or her to hold
governments accountable and to seek redress for violations of his or her rights. Realizing the
right to food is part and parcel of rights-based approaches to development that aim to
implement all human rights obligations that states committed themselves to under human
rights law.13 For this point of view, development is seen as the progressive satisfaction of all
human rights and human rights are seen as the fundamental objective of development. By
equating human rights and development in such a comprehensive way we end up, from a
human rights perspective, understanding development as the realization of human rights; and
from a developmental perspective, conceiving human rights as standards to be achieved
through the development process. In this way, development and human rights become two
sides of the same coin. 14
12
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General
Assembly, September 7, 2001, E/CN.4/2001/53.
13
Rae, Isabella – Thomas, Julian – Vidar, Margaret, “The Right to Food as a Fundamental Human Right: Fao´s
Experience”, in Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb – Acharya, Shabd and Davis, Benjamin (editors), Food Insecurity,
Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure, United Nations University –Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007, p. 270271.
14
Zalaquette, José, “The Relationship between Development and Human Rights”, in Eide, Asbjorn and others
(editors), Food as a Human Right, The United Nations University, Tokyo, 1984, p. 150; see also Guha-Khasnobis,
Basudeb – Vivek, S, “The Rights-based approach to Development: Lessons from the Right to Food Movement in
India”, in Guha-Khasnobis, Basudeb – Acharya, Shabd and Davis, Benjamin (editors), Food Insecurity, Vulnerability
and Human Rights Failure, United Nations University –Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2007, p. 322.
Both the right to adequate food and food security, outlined above, emphasize the economic
access of individuals or households to food. The right to food additionally focuses on the
economic access to income or food-producing food resources. Moreover, the value added by
the rights-approach is that it addresses obligations and responsibilities of all duty bearers. This
gives individuals and groups a claim vis-à-vis the state and states acting together to respect,
protect and fulfill their access to adequate food. 15
In brief, the adoption of a human rights framework facilitates the transfer of food issues from
the purely technical and academic arenas to the serious political agenda. The myth of the
political neutrality of any given food policy strategy is thereby exposed. Finally, and most
importantly, focusing on the right to food provides a rallying point around which to mobilize the
starving masses. For, in the final analysis, appropriate policies will be adopted not as a result of
technocratic altruism but only in response to widespread and insistent popular outrage. For
that reason, an emphasis on the role of law must not be permitted to obscure the importance
of viewing the concept of the right to food essentially as a mobilizing force, as a rallying point,
through which people themselves are encouraged to assert their rights by making use of all
appropriate legal and extra-legal means.16
Similarly, since the adverse effects of climate change might have a negative impact on the
enjoyment of human rights, 17 human rights standards and principles should inform and
strengthen policymaking in the area of climate change, promoting policy coherence and
sustainable outcomes. Looking at climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity in human
rights terms highlights the importance of analyzing power relationships, addressing underlying
causes of inequality and discrimination, and gives particular attention to marginalized and
vulnerable members of society. The human rights framework also stresses the importance of
15
Windfuhr, Michael – Jonsén, Lenie, Food Sovereignty, Towards Democracy in Localized Food Systems, ITDG
Publishing, Warwickshire, UK, 2005, p. 24.
16
Alston, Philip, “International Law and the Human Right to Food”, in Alston, Philip – Tomaevski, K (editors), The
Right to Food, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Utrecht, 1984, p. 61.
17
Organization of American States, Resolution of the General Assembly, AG/RES. 2429 (XXXVIII-O/08), Human
Rights and Climate Change in the Americas, June 3, 2008; see also Amnesty International, Appeal for Action,
Upholding Human Rights While Confronting Climate Change, 29 September 2009.
accountability mechanisms in the implementation of measures and policies in the area of
climate change and requires access to administrative and judicial remedies in cases of human
rights violations.18
To sum up, the rights-approach is the one that offers the best prospects to defend the interests
of those most in need of protection, namely the hungry, the malnourished and those likely to
be worse-affected by climate change.
IV- Critical issues over the relationship between climate change and the human right to
adequate food: fresh inputs for the debate
It is not the object of this paper to analyze the legal sources of the human right to adequate
food, its scope and the nature of the obligations of states to protect, respect and fulfill it,19 but
to offer fresh inputs to the discussion of critical issues over the relationship between this right
and climate change.20 The six issues I propose for the debate are:
1) Prevention, mitigation and adaptation as part of the obligations to respect, protect and fulfill
the human right to adequate food
18
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the Relationship between climate change and human rights, 15 January 2009, A/HRC/10/61, par.
80-83; see also World Bank, Framing the Issue, Social Dimensions of Climate Change, World Bank, Washington DC,
2008, p. 24. It is also worth acknowledging, in this point, the inputs from a human rights perspective made before
the COPs of the International Framework on Climate Change by the President of the Maldives.
19
For these issues, see Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural Right, The Right to Adequate Food (art. 11), 5/12/1999, E/C.12/1999.5 (General
Comments); FAO, Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the
Context of National Food Security, adopted by the 127th Session of the FAO Council, November, 2004 and the
reports to the General Assembly of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food; for an
authoritative scholarly analysis, see Abjorn Eide, “The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living including the right
to food”, in Eide, Asbjorn –Krause, Catarina and Rosas, Allan (editors), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, 1995, p. 99-105
Since climate change has an adverse impact on the enjoyment of the human right to adequate
food, the states that are parties to the human rights instruments that recognize this right and
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Protocols have the duty
to prevent new emissions, reduce the current level of emissions and develop policies to adapt
to climate change and variability, as part of the human rights obligations they assume towards
the individuals under their jurisdictions. In doing so, they are bound to guarantee that
individuals and corporations under their jurisdictions comply with the commitments. If they fail
to do so, they can be challenged through the domestic courts and, if domestic remedies fail,
brought to the international monitoring systems available under those human rights
instruments.
2) Extraterritorial obligations to prevent and mitigate
Today, transnational corporations often have revenues many times greater than the revenues
of the Governments of the countries in which they are operating. As financially powerful
lobbying groups, corporations can also exert great control over laws, policies and standards
applied in their industries, which can result in looser regulation and negative impacts on health,
safety, and the price and quality of food. 21
Although, under human rights treaties, the primary responsibility to ensure human rights will
always rest with the national Government, in the current climate of globalization and strong
international interdependence, the national Government is not always able to protect its
citizens from the impacts of decisions taken in other countries. All countries should ensure that
their policies do not contribute to human rights violations in other countries. Therefore, states
have an extraterritorial obligation to respect, which requires States to ensure that their policies
and practices do not lead to violations of the right to food in other countries. The
extraterritorial obligation to protect requires States to ensure that their own citizens and
companies, as well as other third parties subject to their jurisdiction, including transnational
corporations, do not violate the right to food in other countries. The extraterritorial obligation
to support the fulfillment of the right to food requires States, depending on the availability of
21
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 28 August 2003, A/58/330.
resources, to facilitate the realization of the right to food in other countries and to provide the
necessary aid when required. 22
This approach prevents double standards: through the dislocation of production, developed
countries could have stiff environmental regulations at home while their companies polluted in
developing countries. From the proposed perspective, states can be held internationally
responsible if their companies do not contribute to reduce emissions in other countries.
3) From Aid to Compensation
Industrialized countries, defined as Annex I countries under the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change, have historically contributed most to manmade greenhouse gas
emissions. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are distributed very unevenly,
disproportionally affecting poorer regions and countries, that is, those who have generally
contributed the least to human-induced climate change. 23
In terms of climate change in the next few decades, which largely cannot be avoided,
industrialized countries are arguably duty-bound to compensate countries for the damage
inflicted by past emissions.24
Therefore, elemental climate justice mandates that “under the polluter pays principle”, the
commitments envisaged in the Framework Convention and its protocols be seen as
compensation for damages and, thus, not channeled through the traditional bilateral aid
channels but rather through funds administered by those most-affected.
22
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 24 January 2005, E/CN.4/2005/47.
23
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the Relationship between climate change and human rights, 15 January 2009, A/HRC/10/61.
24
Mueller, B, 2006, Adaptation Funding and the World Bank Investment Framework Initiative, quoted in Dietz,
Simon –Hepburn, Cameron and Stern, Nicholas, Economics, ethics and climate change.
4) New ways of compensation: Climate-change induced human displacement, resettlement
quotas and the application of the non-refoulement principle to hunger refugees.
The First Assessment Report of the IPCC (1990) noted that the greatest single impact of climate
change might be on human migration. The report estimated that by 2050, 150 million people
could be displaced by climate change-related phenomena. It is estimated that climate changerelated displacement will primarily occur within countries and that it will affect primarily poorer
regions and countries. Persons affected by displacement within national borders are entitled to
the full range of human rights guarantees by a given State. Persons moving voluntarily or
forcibly across an international border due to environmental factors would be entitled to
general human rights guarantees in a receiving State, but would often not have a right of entry
to that State. Persons forcibly displaced across borders for environmental reasons have been
referred to as “climate refugees” or “environmental refugees”. The Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration and other
humanitarian organizations have advised that these terms have no legal basis in international
refugee law and should be avoided in order not to undermine the international legal regime for
the protection of refugees. The Representative of the Secretary-General on human rights of
internally displaced persons has suggested that a person who cannot be reasonably expected to
return (e.g. if assistance and protection provided by the country of origin is far below
international standards) should be considered a victim of forced displacement and be granted
at least a temporary stay. 25
Since climate change is likely to increase hunger and malnutrition, the discussion over the legal
protection of hunger refugees should be brought back, with a new light.
Especially when famine strikes a whole country or a whole region, refugees from hunger have
no other choice but to flee across international borders. Hunger is an immediate threat to their
25
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights on the Relationship between climate change and human rights, 15 January 2009, A/HRC/10/61; for
the UNHCR approach towards the issue, see UNHCR, Climate Change, Climate Change, Natural Disasters and
Human Displacement, a UNHCR perspective, August 14, 2009; see also Myers, Norman, “Environmental Refugees:
A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century”, in Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 357, No. 1420,
Reviews and a Special Collection of Papers on Human Migration (Apr. 29, 2002), The Royal Society, p. 611.
lives and those of their families. They are fleeing out of a state of necessity, not out of choice. 26
The increasing criminalization of migration will simply lead to further violations of the right to
life and the right to food. Legal protection must be extended to refugees from hunger. National
Governments always bear primary responsibility for respecting the right to food, but if people
flee their countries for their lives, they should not be sent back to situations of hunger that
threaten their lives. He believes that, only by recognizing their obligations to the world’s hunger
refugees, will all Governments finally take seriously their responsibility for eradicating global
hunger. 27
In light of the above, I propose that countries in Annex I of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change should allow for annual quotas for the resettlement in their countries of the
poorest citizens of the countries most likely to be adversely affected by climate change, as part
and parcel of compensation measures under a climate justice approach. Also, as stated before,
if individuals escaping from hunger reach the jurisdictions of those states, they should be
allowed to remain, and not be returned back, through the application of the non-refoulement
principle.
5) Precautionary principle to biofuels
For the IAASTD, crucial controversies with respect to bioenergy use include whether bioenergy
can provide net energy gains, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cost-benefit ratio,
environmental implications and the effects on food crop production.28
Rushing to turn food crops — maize, wheat, sugar, palm oil — into fuel for cars, without first
examining the impact on global hunger is a recipe for disaster. It is estimated that to fill one car
tank with biofuel (about 50 litres) would require about 200 kg of maize — enough to feed one
person for one year.29
26
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 22 August 2007, A/62/289
27
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 19 January 2007, A/HRC/4/30.
28
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), Global
Report, Island Press, Washington DC, 2009, p. 290.
29
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 22 August 2007, A/62/289, par. 21.
The pace of agrofuel development has significantly contributed to the increase in the price of
certain agricultural commodities on international markets, threatening the enjoyment of the
right to adequate food. It has been estimated that the number of people suffering from
undernourishment could increase by 16 million for each percentage point increase in the real
price of staple food; the food crops currently used to produce ethanol are also the crops that
form the largest part of the diets of poor people, maize, sugar cane, soy, cassava, palm oil and
sorghum provide around 30 per cent of mean calorie consumption of people living in chronic
hunger. Under current conditions, however, and owing to the sudden brutality of the price
increases and our degree of unpreparedness, the negative effects far outweigh the positive
ones, and this should be carefully monitored. Second, since the production of agrofuels
(particularly of bioethanol, which currently constitutes the largest proportion) tends to
reinforce the concentration of land and the development of large-scale agricultural
exploitations, it puts additional pressure on small-holders, and poses a threat to the use of land
by indigenous peoples. It increases the competition for cropland and for water resources, and
represents a threat to biodiversity. Third, since their demand is concentrated in industrialized
countries, whereas the production of agrofuels is more efficient and cost-effective in
developing countries given their natural comparative advantage in their production in the
absence of market-distorting measures, agrofuels encourage a form of economic development
based on the expansion of cash crops, further pitting the interests of a small minority of actors
producing crops for exports against the interests of both other agricultural producers and the
other sections of the population, for which the result may be further inflation of food prices.
The conclusion that emerges from the findings (see Annex II) is that the current path in the
development of agrofuels for transport is not sustainable, and that if such development goes
unchecked, further violations of the right to food will result.30
Particularly, agricultural wastes and crop residues could be used. Common crop residues that
can be used include maize cobs, sugar cane bagasse, rice husks and banana leaves. In this way,
30
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Building Resilience: a Human Rights Framework for World Food and
Nutrition Security, 8 September, 2008, A/HRC/9/23, par. 28.
biofuel production could be complementary to existing agriculture, rather than competing with
it, and would not require massive diversion of food, land and water resources away from food
production. Food prices would therefore remain stable, but farmers would have profitable ways
of disposing of agricultural waste products, benefiting both consumers and producers.31
6) Global carbon tax, localized food systems and food sovereignty as part of the solution
The way we have been producing our food especially in the last fifty years has contributed
greatly to climate change. The so-called Green Revolution, through the intensive use of fossilbased fertilizers, pesticides and mechanization, turned out to be not green at all. Transport of
food to the industrial processing units, the processing itself, labeling and packaging and new
transport to the distribution centers and retailers, increased the carbon foot print on the way.
Through globalization of the food chain, food items move from one corner to the other of the
globe, and this increases the carbon footprint. This model of producing our food is simply not
sustainable, and climate change is demanding change on the way we produce our food. As part
of our mitigation policies, we should shift to localized food systems and to pursue food
sovereignty as a policy to address both hunger and climate change.
So far, the climate change and environmental costs of the food items we consume are not
expressed in their price, so they end up being cheaper for the urban consumer than organic
ones.
One way to change this is to create a carbon tax, by which each item shall be taxed according to
its carbon footprint, which will be transferred to the final price. The higher the carbon footprint,
the higher the price the consumer will have to pay. As a consequence, we could drive a climate
change-responsible demand. Consumers will think it twice before buying, say, mangoes from
the other corner of the world, and will probably start demanding locally available products,
fueling on the way the local systems and the local communities.
Of course this poses serious challenges of implementation, but this should not prevent us from
considering the potential, and limitations, of this measure.
31
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Report to the General Assembly, 22 August 2007, A/62/289.
In other words, the alternative to both the green revolution and globalization is the biodiversity
intensification of farming, which can only be done on small farms. Biodiversity intensification
leads to internal intensification and internal integration of farms with diverse local markets.
This is the real liberalization of agriculture since it frees the earth from the violence of
agrichemicals, it frees diverse species from the assault of poisons and toxins, it frees the farmer
of bondage through debt and royalties, it frees the local consumers from having to compete
with global agribusiness to get access and entitlement to food. For both sustainability and
justice, the alternative, based on internal intensification and internal liberalization, is
essential.32
V- Realizing the human right to adequate food in times of climate change: the challenge of our
generation
We, human beings, require an adequate, correct and regular supply of nutrients that constitute
our food. Yet the food supply that comes to us is filtered through economic processes which
deny an adequate supply of food to many while delivering a large overdose to a lucky few.
Intervention in these socio-economic processes in any meaningful manner to guarantee an
adequate food supply to the many will probably require deep structural changes. Such
structural changes are governed by the internal social dynamics of the different societies and so
are largely dependent on action by personnel within those societies.33
Our earth has the potential to feed us all, but it will lose it if we continue with business as usual.
Climate change demands change from all of us.
Sustainable production of food and equal access to adequate food for all is, then, the challenge
of our generation. Will we live up to it?
32
Shiva, Vandana, “Globalization of Agriculture, Food Security and Sustainability”, in Shiva, Vandana – Bedi,
Gitanjali (editors), Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, The Impact of Globalisation, Sage Publications India
Ltd, New Delhi, 2002, p. 64.
33
Wallerstein, Mitchel B. 1981. “Interdisciplinary Dialogue on World Hunger”. United Nations University. Tokyo, in
Eide, Asbjorn and others (editors), Food as a Human Right, The United Nations University, Tokyo, 1984, p. vii.
References:
Abjorn Eide, “The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living including the right to food”, in Eide, Asbjorn
–Krause, Catarina and Rosas, Allan (editors), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht, 1995, p. 99-105
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