From commitment to action: we call for Food Justice Now! – Peoples’ Manifesto on the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition

 The Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realisation of the Right to Adequate Food in the context of food security and nutrition (RtFG) negotiated by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and endorsed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in November 2004, are a global consensus document. They guide States on how to implement their legal obligations on the Human Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition (RtFN), as outlined in General Comment 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 

From 2004 to 2024

Since the endorsement of the RtFG, various internationally negotiated instruments and authoritative interpretations, based on the Guidelines have further clarified and expanded the guidance and recommendations to advance the right to food. It is essential to integrate them at national level, so that, through specific public policies and programmes developed with broad popular participation, they can they can ensure effective and universal access to the Human Right to Adequate Food at the local and territorial levels. 

The instruments and interpretations that together form the advanced normative framework on the RtAF are key tools for the struggles in our territories; they remind decision-makers that our Right to Adequate Food and its interconnected rights are not for sale! This advanced normative framework recognizes our collective rights, such as the rights to seeds. It reaffirms Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders and recognises their right to self-determination. It firmly acknowledges rural women’s food sovereignty. And recognises the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Box 1. Essential parts of this advanced normative framework are:

• Basis of the advanced normative framework is the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights  and its General Comment 12 interpreting the Right to Food and Nutrition. 
• the UN Declaration on the Rights Of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) which became a milestone for the recognition of collective rights, including the rights to seeds and to food sovereignty; 
• the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) which clarifies the specific rights of Indigenous Peoples and affirms them as rights-holders to elevate their struggle to recognize their sovereignty; 
• the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women General Recommendation 34 on rural women, firmly acknowledging their food sovereignty;
• ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment,
• ILO Conventions 155 and 187that recognize a safe and healthy working environment as a fundamental principle and right, the UN General Assembly Resolution on Social and Solidarity Economy, and
• ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples
• the Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines), 
• the recognition of the Right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, 
• and the substantive body of CFS policy agreements, for instance, 
  • CFS Voluntary Guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGT), 
  • CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Gender Equality and women`s and girl´s empowerment (GEWGE), 
  • CFS policy recommendations on connecting smallholders to markets, 
  • CFS Policy recommendations on social protection for food security, 
  • CFS policy recommendations on Strengthening Collection and Use of Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) Data and Related Analysis Tools to improve decision-making in support of the progressive realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the context of National Food Security,
  • CFS policy recommendations on Water for Food Security and Nutrition.
  • CFS Framework for Action on protracted crises (CFS- FFA).

Obstacles to achieving the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition

In 20 years the world has seen both a series of achievements and increasing obstacles to the realisation of the Right to adequate Food (RtFN). Among those, civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations assess the following as the most pressing issues that need to be addressed toward a structural transformation of food systems. 

Systemic food crises. Deepening vulnerabilities, discrimination and structural inequalities, food price inflation, climate change, droughts, famines, pollution, rising indebtedness, conflict, occupation and war, and progressive corporate capture of food systems, are all acute and chronic casues and consequences of the current food system. 

Increasing weaponization of food and water. Expanding armed conflicts, wars, occupation and genocide in the world are increasing the use of food and water as weapons of war. Millions of people are at risk of famine due to human-made wars. In 2023, 135 million people in 20 countries faced a food crisis due to war and protracted conflicts. Conflicts are embedded in a wider context of protracted crises, often caused by a combination of occupation, insurgency, disasters, climate change, inequality, inequity, pervasive poverty, and governance factors.

Corporate power, authoritarianism, and exclusion of people from policy and decision- making on food issues.  In recent years we have witnessed shrinking opportunities  for citizen and civil society participation and corporate capture of public decision-making and intimidation. Authoritarianism has also increased, silencing the voices that resist the impositions by the corporate model that benefits a few wealthy corporations and individuals. 

To shift from treating food as a commodity to recognising it as a human right, we call for the decolonisation of food systems and political action of States and the UN to make the following changes:

• From prioritising global markets to supporting territorial markets: End export-led policies and dependency on imports of food and agricultural-input; prioritise healthy and diverse food production for domestic consumption instead of cash crops for exportation; ensure remunerative prices for small-scale food producers; and build public food reserves.
• From industrial agriculture and exploitation of natural resources to agroecology, climate-resilient food systems, and popular agrarian reform: Guarantee access, ownership, and management of natural commons by the people; redistribute land and wealth; harness Indigenous and traditional knowledge in food production; address the needs for climate mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage in food systems; phase out fossil-fuel-based inputs including pesticides; and diversify food systems.
• From corporate concentration and power in the food system to food sovereignty: Reform trade and market rules; regulate speculation and cancel debt; advance social and solidarity economy; oppose carbon markets and false solutions to the food, biodiversity, and climate crises (e.g. ‘climate-smart agriculture,’ ‘nature-based solutions,’ and ‘bioenergy with carbon capture and storage’); and counter the corporate-driven digitalisation of agriculture.
• From violence in food systems and the weaponisation of food to ensuring peace and the right of peoples to self-determination and justice: Hold violators accountable for breaches of the RtFN in crisis situations; Ensure human rights-based monitoring and peoples’ self-determination in maintaining their food systems in areas of conflict and colonial occupation and in rebuilding their food systems; and secure funding for the provision of humanitarian support to ensure food security for people in conflict zones.
• From patriarchal power structures to gender justice: Apply an intersectional lens to gender justice and promote the self-determination of gender-diverse people and women in food systems.

Challenges to democratic decision-making in global food governance

• Corporate capture and shrinking space for meaningful social participation in the FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations was the first space in which people's movements gained some ground, at the time of the World Food Summits. Since 2003, small-scale food producers and consumers interact with FAO through the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC), but a formal mechanism for meaningful civil society and Indigenous Peoples' engagement is still missing.

Recent years have seen an increase in "showcase participation models" supported by FAO, like the World Food Forum (WFF) and the controversial UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). While these platforms invite civil society participation, especially from youth and Indigenous Peoples, they are heavily influenced by corporate interests and fail to respect the participatory conditions outlined in the strategy for partnerships with civil society organizations approved by FAO Member States in 2013.

Simultaneously, FAO increasingly encourages private sector engagement and investment without implementing effective corporate accountability mechanisms or practicing public transparency regarding its private sector engagements and funding. This corporate-friendly approach, evident in priority areas like "Digital Agriculture," contrasts sharply with the lack of structured engagement with small-scale food producers and social movements based on the mutually agreed principles outlined in the FAO Strategy for Partnership with Civil Society.

• Lack of adequate support by the Rome-Based Agencies (RBAs) for the CFS

As specialized UN agencies for food and agriculture, the RBAs –FAO, WFP, and IFAD– have a key responsibility for promoting the uptake of CFS policy outcomes. This includes a strengthened operational support to the CSIPM, as recognized in the FAO Council in June 2024.

However, the FAO has adequately integrated and promoted the uptake of only a very few of the CFS’ policy agreements, namely the CFS Right to Food Guidelines and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs). Despite FAO’s increasing work in conflict situations, similar efforts are not seen for promoting the CFS Framework for Action on Protracted Crises.

• Lack of policy coherence in the United Nations

To fully realise the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition (RTFN), policy coherence within UN bodies and processes is key. Although decisions made on trade, finance for development, digitalization, corporate accountability, nutrition, as well as the Rio conventions on biodiversity (CBD), climate change (UNFCCC) and desertification (UNCCD), have far-reaching implications for the RTFN, they do not integrate in their approaches the Right to Food and other human rights more broadly.

The Committee on World Food Security

The Right to Food Guidelines are more than a document—they inspire transformative change toward greater equity and dignity in the food systems. They’ve helped democratize decision-making in global food governance, by giving people the possibility to participate in shaping policies that affect them.

These guidelines played a crucial role in the 2007/2008 reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), leading to the creation of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism (CSIPM). The CFS continues to stand as the only body that ensures recognizes the primacy of the voices of those most affected by food insecurity, and those contributing the most to global food security, by ensuring their autonomous participation in its policy processes.  

This space fosters a UN that truly defends human rights. While progress is being made, particularly in linking food security to climate action, challenges remain. To achieve equitable global food governance, issues like accountability, conflict of interest, and power imbalances between nations must be addressed.

How civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations envision the way towards democratic and human rights-based global food governance

1. Democratic and human rights based decision-making and accountability at all levels, by:
   • ensuring that the voices of people and countries most affected are placed at the core of decision-making places;  
   • providing adequate conditions for meaningful participation at all levels, through peoples’ autonomous self-organisation, recognising the agency of social movements and Indigenous Peoples’, and acknowledging their sovereignty and their struggles at global and local levels as key elements in food governance;
2. Implement clear criteria for preventing conflicts of interest, mitigating power asymmetries among countries, and power concentration in the food system, and ensure human rights-based rules for participation.
3. Regulate corporate influence by implementing safeguards against corporate influence within food systems, including conflict of interest protections and accountability frameworks. 
4. Enhance the accountability of member states to their citizens at national level, including their responsibility for implementing and monitoring the Guidelines and the RtFN.
5. Democratize the UN by creating participation structures for affected groups within all UN bodies, modeled on the inclusive approach of the CFS. We call for the UN, including the Rome Based Agencies, to contribute to policy coherence on the RtFN, avoiding the fragmentation of global food governance. Specifically, we call for the following:
   • Strengthen the role of the CFS: the convening power of the CFS must be respected and enforced, ensuring that it remains the central platform for addressing the structural causes and multiple dimensions of global food crises. 
   • Coordinate across UN bodies: all UN bodies should recognize the RtFN and its implementation framework when addressing agricultural and food-related issues. For example, the critical role of climate justice in attaining the right to food and real food systems change for people and the planet should be acknowledged by the three Rio Conventions on biodiversity, desertification, and climate, and national climate policies and international negotiation outcomes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).