Blog drafted by the coordination and facilitation team of the CSIPM Working Group on Building Resilient Food Systems
In the days still remaining, how much will this human-rights based Committee move towards an understanding of resilience by and for the rights-holders, the ones most affected by global shocks, and those who grow most of the world's food?
On 6 July, CSIPM delegates gathered in Rome for what was meant to be the final round of negotiations on the CFS Policy Recommendations on Building Resilient Food Systems. Five days later, on Friday 10 July, the week closed without an agreed text. The quote above, from Precious Phiri, a CSIPM Coordination Committee member and Zimbabwean smallholder farmer, reflects the wider frustration many of us experienced throughout this negotiation process. This blog builds on Precious’s words to give an account of what unfolded in the Resilient Food Systems policy negotiations, the wider challenges we, as CSIPM, have confronted in this process, and what it means for the CFS and other inclusive spaces that advocate for the right to food.
First, though, a note of appreciation, gratitude and heartfelt thanks to the CSIPM delegation, working group members, coordination and facilitation team, secretariat and allies who have supported this policy convergence process. Resilience is a broad, diversely understood topic, and building common ground around it has demanded a genuinely deliberative, open process within CSIPM itself. That process has played out online in Working Group (WG) calls, and during long hours in a high-stress environment in Rome, where tense moments and difficult conversations added to pressure everyone is already carrying. This is exactly the kind of space CSIPM tries to be: one that brings different voices, perspectives and experiences together, while recognizing that this diversity is what makes the CSIPM’s collective points rooted in the reality of rights holders’ daily lives. A special recognition to everyone who has been active in supporting this WG: despite the external challenges and Member States’ reluctance, the CSIPM maintained the experiences of resilience alive in the room, and can move into the next steps of this process proud of what we have achieved in an ever-more adverse context for multilateralism.
‘Reluctance’ by a group of Member States reflects wider fractures in global geopolitics with a direct impact on global food governance. Despite the CFS having spent over a decade building consensus on different considerations needed for the realization of the right to food, such as agroecology, access and control over natural resources, territorial markets, gender equality and more, some Member States refused to accept previously agreed language.
Instead, they sought to reduce, water down, and actively diminish the strength of the policy language on the table. What compounded CSIPM’s frustration was that, regardless of how CSIPM presented our arguments, they were not heard by several Member States; we could quote existing agreed language, we could draw on CSIPM testimonials from rights holders, we could try and put rational, pragmatic arguments forward: non-negotiable positions were drawn regardless of existing human rights obligations, relevant pre-agreed CFS language or scientific recommendations through CFS’s own expert body HLPE-FSN.
This included the active erosion of rights-based language, including efforts to undermine the right to food in conflict and occupation and a reluctance to denounce the use of food as a weapon of war. This was also seen in the conflation of agroecology with other “innovations,” the promotion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations above all other considerations, and the dismissal of core themes from the HLPE report* on building resilient food systems.
On agroecology and “other innovations” (for which, it should be said, CSIPM’s acceptance of the term “other innovations” in the first place was already a compromise), some Member States insisted on pairing “sustainable intensification” alongside agroecology every time it appeared. Without convincing technical arguments, they broadly dismissed the transformative role agroecology can play and its demonstrated contribution to resilience, reflecting the deepened political entrenchment of industrial agriculture and corporate interests across the global food governance landscape.
There was also an effort by Member States to undermine the rights of Indigenous Peoples.The Indigenous Peoples’ constituency in the CSIPM delegation demonstrated tireless and articulated work during the negotiations to speak directly to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), General Assembly and agreed language on Indigenous Peoples’ rights against the worrying trend undermining 30 years of struggle for the recognition of their rights. The comma between “Indigenous Peoples” and “local communities,” which has been the stretched compromise allowing for recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ specific, distinct rights under international law has been challenged again this year in the CFS as a bottom line by some states (who do not want to see Indigenous Peoples recognised within their own borders).
The same attempt of erosion was applied to the right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, recognized under international human rights law specifically for Indigenous Peoples. The excessive amount of time spent in the attempt at re-opening UN General Assembly language by a handful of Member States makes it hard not to read this active erasure of Indigenous Peoples’ rights as a trend that puts at risk next year’s CFS workstream on Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems.
All of this reflects a wider pattern: an attack on rights-holders, democratic process and inclusive spaces by some Member States. Instead of moving forward in the understanding of resilience of food systems, there was a shared perception that the room was subject to going backwards in some of the foundations of the United Nations, including the right for all to be free from hunger.
There are also other examples seen over the negotiation process that clearly show the deep divide in how some Member States understand resilience itself. We say “some” deliberately, in recognition of the states who continue to advocate for the right to food, for CSIPM’s participation, and for the role of the CFS. But among those pushing the opposite line, we saw a consistent emphasis on international trade and WTO obligations, despite recent events, from the Strait of Hormuz war to COVID-19, having laid bare exactly how fragile a food system built on global trade dependency really is. Alongside, sat a concerning disregard for the HLPE report’s core concepts: ‘equitably transformative resilience’ (ETR) and ‘agency,’ both of which are critical to see the right to food upheld, but remain largely absent from the negotiated text.
This is but a snap-shot of what has been an intense, exhaustive and long negotiation process to date. But, what does this all mean? Precious’s intervention captured the fatigue and frustration that CSIPM, and some Member States alongside us, are feeling in this process: previously negotiated language treated as freshly contentious, sustained obstruction from some delegations, and rights-based language eroded and questioned across the text. It remains an active discussion within the CFS Bureau and Advisory Group whether negotiations on the Building Resilient Food Systems policy recommendations will conclude before CFS 54 in October, or carry over into 2027.
For now, the Working Group has committed to staying in this process: we will keep advocating for language on resilience that defends rights and advocate for rights-holders.
We do however need to continue asking the hard questions: in a global political landscape that is ignoring and actively flaunting the rule of law, human rights and international norms each day, how far are we prepared to let our priorities be ignored and undermined?.
“Nothing about us without us” still remains at the heart of the CSIPM, how much is this still a reality at the CFS?
*The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) is the independent science–policy interface of the CFS, bringing diverse evidence and interdisciplinary perspectives to ground CFS negotiations. Its report Building Resilient Food Systems set the foundation for the CFS policy convergence process discussed in this text. Available at: https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/publications/hlpe-20
- Join the CSIPM Working Group on Building Resilient Food Systems to follow-up the CFS policy convergence process.
- Explore the testimonies from rights holders across regions showing how resilient food systems have long been built in territories.
- Watch Precious Phiri’s statement during the CFS negotiations in July 2026.
- Learn more about the CSIPM Working Group on Resilient Food Systems .