My Daily Inquirer

CSO STATEMENT ON 31st FAO APRC
Our Calls for the Future of Food Sovereignty in Asia

We, 130 representatives of small food producers including farmers, fisherfolks, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, rural women, and youth, cooperatives, labor movements, consumers and NGOs from 20 countries worldwide met from March 10 to 11, 2012 for the CSO parallel consultation to the 31st FAO-Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam.

We are aware of the complex issues confronting food, agriculture and rural development in the face of intensifying economic, social and environmental crisis Asian region and the world. The global capitalist crisis has caused worst suffering especially for many people in Asia, including small food producers, women and indigenous peoples.

This profit-driven and unsustainable development model has gravely afflicted the region’s marginalized and vulnerable communities. Asia, despite being a food basket of the world, is home to 700 million people who depend largely on agriculture but are faced with endemic poverty, hunger and malnutrition, poor health and vulnerability to environmental disasters.

This gathering enabled us to collectively take stock of the wide range of issues such as challenges on food security and nutrition, domestic and foreign land grabbing, food price volatility, corporatization of agriculture, trade agreements, climate crisis, and food governance and, from a grassroots, people-centered perspective, come up with recommendations which we forward to the 31st Food and Agriculture Organization – Asia-Pacific Conference.

OUR CONCERNS
1.Multiple crises have afflicted the world in the last few years. The food and climate crises have resulted to the destruction of the food systems through market-led driven and unsustainable food productions and consumptions promoted by governments, corporate sector and multilateral bodies. Speculation in food, land, and water by the futures market, corporate agriculture and armed conflicts have further eroded the food sovereignty of many communities resulting in the destruction of food systems, food insecurity, landlessness, poverty and hunger.
2.Corporate globalization triggered by oligopolistic capitalism has brought us to this situation. This is an intensification of cyclical forms of recession due to unsustainable development, chemical intensive agriculture, overproduction, and global speculative markets. In Asia’s rural areas, corporate agriculture and globalization policies and processes at local, national, regional and international levels, are destroying our food sovereignty, poisoning our land, waters, common property and natural resources and driving small food producers to bankruptcy and loss of their land and livelihoods. Unsustainable industrial policies have led to loss of jobs and have negatively impacted vulnerable developing countries that became net importers of food.
3.In search for greater profits and cheap food, corporations and sovereign states are into large-scale investments in agriculture that led to landgrabbing in many countries in Asia. To date, there are at least more than 400 cases of landgrabbing through long-term leases and direct acquisition, of which many are taking place in the region. These are resulting to human rights violations, displacement of rural communities and irreversible damage to the environment.
4.Governments that host these land grabbing deals are often poor and in desperate need of investment, have weak capabilities or lack commitment to protect its people from related economic, social, and environmental risks. Thus, small food producers and other marginalized communities that depend on common property resources are displaced (forced migration to urban areas), creating resource conflicts and greater threat to food sovereignty.
5.The negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure have just concluded and this offers a crucial opportunity for governments and other actors to re-examine existing national investment policies especially in the face of massive foreign land grabbing and food crisis. However, this VG is only recommendatory in nature and is not legally binding. As we closely analyze the final version which has yet to be disclosed, venues for consultation and information sharing must be provided to look into how this addresses land grabbing.
6.Meanwhile, unsustainable industrial and agricultural production has gravely contributed to the climate crisis. The issue of climate change is a matter of ecological and social justice. Its worst impacts are felt by the most marginalized communities, especially women and children who are the least responsible for it. Developed countries share a disproportionate responsibility for historic greenhouse gas emissions due to unsustainable industrial model and chemical-intensive agriculture. False solutions to the climate crisis, such as techno-fixes using harmful technologies such as GE and pesticides will further worsen the situation. Agroecology as one of the adaptation strategies by farming communities are gaining ground but the lack of policy and actual support from the governments are apparent. The climate crisis cannot be adequately addressed without dismantling the current neo-liberal and profit-driven political and economic model which in fact is its cause and driver.
7.Corporate-driven policies and collusion among agro-transnational corporations, governments, and international agencies to implement these have resulted in driving small food producers into greater poverty and robbing them of their inherent right to seeds, breeds and other productive resources.
8.The Rio+20 Summit offers an opportunity for the world’s governments and peoples to seriously come up with alternatives to the current development model that has caused untold poverty and suffering for the largest majority of the global population. The highly corporatized Green Economy blueprint for development is a false solution to the crisis and is not reflective of the interests of rural communities. The Summit must be on occasion to push for a genuine, people-centered sustainable development.
9.New mechanisms in the global governance of food and agriculture, while offering new opportunities, need policy coherence among all players. During the 35th Session of the Committee on Food Security in October 2009, the Members approved the reform of the CFS, which has enhanced its role for greater coherence in the global food policies. The CFS has a mandate to formulate a Global Strategic Framework to improve coordination among a wide range of stakeholders.
OUR CALLS
We call on FAO member states to:
10. Implement genuine people-led land, agrarian, pasture, fisheries, forest and rural development reforms. Stop domestic and foreign land grabbing. Investigate the cases of land grabbing and develop policies to balance investment vs. agricultural land for food and conservation of small-scale family farming using agro-ecological model through participatory planning processes. Implement the agreements under ICARRD and initiate processes towards implementing and monitoring the Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure.
11.Investigate land and sea related human rights violations and prosecute guilty parties; and release peasant and fisheries leaders arrested for defending their rights.
12.Work for the protection of agricultural, fisheries, pastoral, and forest lands as well as common property resources and putting an end to conversion of agricultural land to other uses. The full free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) processes should be fortified to protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities against takeovers. Customary rights of indigenous and ethnic minority communities are inalienable and should not be overridden by other national laws.
13.Initiate and institute the adoption of environmentally and economically sustainable food production models that lead to dynamic local economies. Commit to increase the annual national budget to enable, support and sustain sustainable family farms, fisheries, forests and pastoralism to ensure food sovereignty, as per recommendations of the International Assessment on Agricultural Science Technology and Development (IAASTD).
14.Develop and implement policies supporting small holder food producers in food production that provides a good, living income including active participation in value chains and small scale enterprises led by small farmers, fishers, indigenous people organizations, and cooperatives. Strengthen and support small holder food producers organizations and cooperatives to be able to use these opportunities. Support should include institutional development, infrastructure support, research and development, and capacity building. Along this, governments should recognize the important role of youth in agriculture and increase investments to support their active participation in agriculture and rural development.
15. Ensure the regulation and monitoring and accountability of national and multinational corporations and stop free trade agreements (FTAs) that harm rural livelihoods, undermine food sovereignty and destroy ecosystems.
16.Ensure gender budgeting at all levels and the promotion of gender responsive policies at local and national level to ensure women’s control of and access to land, forest, water, marine resources, sea, seeds and other productive resources and their participation in all levels of decision-making.
17.Work for policy implementation that recognizes the role of rural women, their indigenous knowledge and skills and the protection of women and children’s health from exposure to highly hazardous chemicals/pesticide and stop the dumping of banned pesticides/toxic chemicals from developed countries to developing countries.
18.Promote community-centered seed conservation and improvement, with an emphasis on women regaining their role as seed conservers, as well as community-based marketing systems and farmer-led innovation. Prohibit intellectual property rights on plant, animal and other living organisms. Prohibit the production of genetically engineered seeds, breeds food and fish stocks. Partnerships with private corporations that give them access, ownership and/or control over common goods/resources should be avoided by public and international R&D institutions as they pose a threat to public welfare.
19.Develop and implement policies on climate change based on food sovereignty through improved and appropriate technology, favouring the rights of small food producers especially those facing danger or distress from floods, storms, piracy, and harassment. All measures to address climate change must ensure climate, social, environmental, and gender justice, common and differentiated responsibility, and food sovereignty. GMOs are not the answer to climate change. At least 50% of all climate funds should be allocated to adaptation of small food producers. There should be no donor conditionalities attached to the funds.
20. Regulate food commodity market speculation and develop and implement policies aimed at stabilizing food supply and prices at national and regional levels such as strategic food reserves, that are primarily sourced domestically, and price control mechanisms to address food price volatility. Moreover, ensure decent living wages of farm workers and social protection and safety nets (specifically for failed crops) for the poor and marginalised communities.
21.Refrain from actions that lead to new conflicts of any kind and should create an environment enabling constructive dialogues to promote peace and security towards the realization of the right to food.
22.Put in place national/regional mechanisms to strengthen small food producers/CSOs participation and engagement in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of food and agricultural policies.
WE CALL ON FAO TO:
23.Set up mechanisms for its national offices to strengthen their engagement with wider civil society in their programs, and to support the call for an increase in national budget allocation of member countries to smallholder sustainable agriculture, fisheries, forestries and pastoralism to ensure food sovereignty. The FAO-APRC should call for the involvement of small food producers and CSOs in defining workplan and in its implementation and monitoring, especially at the national level.
24.Call on member countries to institute policies aimed at curbing and stopping food speculation such as setting up position limits and banning commodity index funds among others. Additionally, FAO should support governments in strengthening food reserves to stabilize supply and prices of food staples.
25. Work at ensuring that the Global Strategic Framework (GSF) contributes to the progressive realisation of the right to food, and guarantee food sovereignty especially of the most vulnerable groups such as landless farmers, fishers, women and indigenous peoples and minority groups. The GSF must include strong monitoring mechanisms to hold transnational corporations accountable for their role in respect to agro-fuel production, land grabbing and the displacement of food crops. In addition, the document should provide guidelines for governments on how to strengthen coherence between national and global food policies.
26.Initiate a process of consultation on principles for responsible agricultural investment (different from the RAI developed by the World Bank, IFAD, FAO, UNCTAD) as soon as the Voluntary Guidelines are approved during the special session of the CFS in May 2012, as mandated by the 37th Session of the Committee on World Food Security. The consultation should be as broad and inclusive as possible to ensure the participation of the governments and organizations of the people most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition.
27. Ensure the participation of farmers’ organizations and CSOs, with special attention on women’s equal representation in the relevant committees and official consultations especially in the context of the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives and the 2014 International Year of the Family Farming. Implement the FAO Guidelines on the Right to Food and Farmers Rights to seeds. The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries should be improved to make it more regionally-relevant and commodity-specific. Pursue the implementation of the agreements in the ICARRD.
28. Initiate processes to reconcile, monitor and report various international treaties and conventions that pertain to natural resource management and agriculture in view of protecting small-scale food producers and their community rights. In relation, FAO together with member governments should encourage and support the broad participation of sectors especially farmers’ organizations and CSOs in the processes leading to Rio+20.
29. Facilitate and ensure greater participation of civil society groups in CFS and other FAO processes, and allocate greater resources for these processes as we welcome FAO support for improved CSO participation at all levels.
30. Strengthen its work in the region and national offices in Asia-Pacific specifically on gender and women, youth, sustainable food, agriculture, fisheries, peasant, forestry and indigenous people programs. Moreover, it should strengthen its work in helping farmers’ organisations on adoption of sustainable ecosystem approaches against climate change stresses such as drought, floods and extreme weathers.
CSO Commitments
We, the civil society participants in this gathering, are committed to working together to make our governments, FAO and other international policy making bodies to respond to the needs of the rural poor and marginalized. We will continue our efforts to make our governments and intergovernmental agencies accountable to the needs of the region's peoples through principled engagement in various processes and in the monitoring and evaluation of their work. We will contribute to the deliberations on the substance and methodologies of the various agricultural policies and investments for agriculture at national, regional and international levels. Both as individuals and organizations, we will intensify our efforts in empowering local communities to contribute towards food sovereignty and benefit from sustainable development efforts in the Asia- Pacific region and we will not waiver in resisting programs and policies that work against the interest of the rural poor and marginalized.
From the CSO delegates of the CSO Parallel Meeting to the 31st h FAO Asia Pacific Regional Consultation 10-11 March 2012.

Source:
Gilbert M. Sape
Programme Coordinator
Food Sovereignty and Ecological Agriculture
Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific
Mobile: 63.920.978.1027 (Philippines)
Skype: gilbertsape
E-mail (direct): gilbert.sape@panap.net

Water and Food Sovereignty
Statement of the Asia Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty (APNFS)
on the occasion of the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France
March 17, 2012


At the conclusion of the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, we – smallholder farmers, fishers, women, civil society organizations and rural development advocates from the Asia Pacific Network for Food Sovereignty (APNFS) – hereby declare the World Water Forum, a dismal failure in upholding the people’s right to water and food. It remains an elitist and undemocratic jamboree of corporations and capitalists whose real agenda is to make profit from the water industry. While its Ministerial Declaration sees the “involvement of food security stakeholders, especially producer organizations, in water policies,” the voices of the marginalized and vulnerable such as smallholder farmers, workers, women and indigenous people remain minimal in the occasion.

The Marseille World Water Forum recognizes that water is key for agriculture, rural development and food security. However, what we witnessed at the Forum is the complete opposite.

While the Ministerial Declaration expresses its intention to ensure water and food security especially of local communities, smallholder farmers, women and indigenous peoples, its main policy agenda is directed to push for water governance reforms that may further undermine people’s access to water and food. It subscribes to a multi-stakeholder approach to water governance such as the integrated water resource management (IWRM) that is being vigorously pushed by the World Bank and its regional counterparts like the Asian Development Bank. Through their IWRM projects in client countries, international financial institutions (IFIs) are pushing for the commodification of water and the adoption of policies and institutional frameworks that allow increased control of private corporations over water resources and territories.

Water commodification has been pushed through the WB-sponsored Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) models. The IMT or Participatory Irrigation Development, for all its adherence to participatory approaches, is found to have led to the deterioration of irrigation systems and canals due to inability of poor cash-strapped farmers to pay for high irrigation tariffs much less to spend free labor for irrigation maintenance. More recently the World Bank has introduced volumetric pricing as part of its continuing irrigation policy reforms that definitely will increase the price of irrigation water tenfold, depriving poor farmers of the precious element needed for food production and of their source of income. Further, with the introduction of cost efficiency in water use and management, the IFIs have clearly favored big industrial agriculture and plantations, mining operations, golf courses and beverage corporations such as Coca-cola that can pay more for water than the smallholder farmers and indigenous peoples.

The strategy of Private Sector Participation (PSP) or Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), whatever one calls it, in irrigation also opens the sector, which to date has remained under the purview of the State, to entry of the corporate private sector. Instead of increasing the state’s role in providing cheap and accessible irrigation for farmers, PPP circumvents the right to water of smallholder farmers. Experience tells us that companies that are involved in water and energy sector will always make sure the quickest return of their investments and the maximum possible profit, making freshwater for agriculture, with a high price tag, no longer a human right for smallholder farmers.

We believe that the commodification of freshwater through such schemes will not solve the problems and challenges of ensuring food security. Worse, it will further contribute to the growing inequality and poverty faced by smallholder farmers.

We are likewise gravely concerned that water is being promoted in Marseille as the engine of the green economy. Together with the pro-market solutions offered by the 6th World Water Forum to ensure water and food security, the green economy being pushed in the Rio + 20 Summit will result to greater privatization of water resources through policies and programs that will promote cost efficiency in water utilization and management, large dam projects in the guise of green energy and agrofuel production that will further undermine the smallholder farmers and women’s access to land and water.

We also recognize that the twin problems of water scarcity and food insecurity should not only be addressed at the international level. Governments of both the developed and developing countries should do their respective parts to ensure that all rights, as enshrined in various international covenants, are enforced and protected.

Hence, we call on governments of developed countries, especially those which sit in the governing bodies of IFIs and with business interest on water and agriculture, to stop imposing harmful neoliberal solutions to the water and food crisis, including land grabbing.

We also call on governments of developing countries to increase their support to agriculture and irrigation by allocating more public funds for agricultural inputs and infrastructures such as irrigation, and by empowering smallholder producers, including women and indigenous peoples and enlarging their voices in agriculture and food policy-making. We urge them to refocus agriculture out of its present export-oriented, monoculture and industrial farming model towards food sovereignty to ensure genuine food security. We demand the democratization of land ownership in favor of smallholder farmers and the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral domain.

Further, we demand that governments uphold the fundamental and inalienable human right to water and sanitation.

Instead of backing up this event, the United Nations should organize its own Forum where every stakeholder is represented and has a voice. We urge the member states to implement their obligations to respect, fulfill, and protect the human right to food, water and other economic and social rights. Without water, there will be no food. Without water and food, there will be no life.


Source:
Arze Glipo
Regional Coordinator
Asia-Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty (APNFS)
87 Malakas St., Pinyahan, Quezon City, 1100 Philippines
Telefax:-+632-9250987
www.apnfs.net

Effects of Kissing:

Long kisses are beneficial to our circulatory system. When kissing, our pulse rate is quickening up to 110 beats per minute. This is a great training for our cardiovascular system.

After kissing, the lungs work harder, resulting in 60 inhales per minute compared to regular 20 inhales. Such “ventilation” is a good preventive measure against lung diseases.

Some dentists believe that kissing is a preventive measure against dental caries. Indeed, kissing stimulates the flow of saliva that eliminates acid coat on the teeth.

Kisses that last more than three minutes help us fight stress and its effects. Long kisses trigger the chain of biochemical reactions, which destroys stress hormones.

Those who kiss their partner goodbye each morning live five years longer than those who don’t.

Kissing is great for self-esteem. It makes you feel appreciated and helps your state of mind.

Kissing burns calories, 2-3 calories a minute and can double your metabolic rate. Research claims that three passionate kisses a day (at least lasting 20 seconds each) will cause you to loose an entire extra pound.

Kissing is a known stress-reliever. Passionate kissing relieves tension, reduces negative energy and produces a sense of well being, lowering your cortisol ‘stress’ hormone.

Kissing uses 30 facial muscles and it helps keep the facial muscles tight, preventing baggy cheeks! The tension in the muscles caused by a passionate kiss helps smooth the skin and increases the circulation.

Kissing is good for the heart, as it creates an adrenaline which causes your heart to pump more blood around your body. Frequent kissing has scientifically been proven to stabilize cardiovascular activity, decrease blood pressure and cholesterol.

Those who kiss quite frequently are less likely to suffer from stomach, bladder and blood infections.

During a kiss, natural antibiotics are secreted in the saliva. Also, the saliva contains a type of anesthetic that helps relieve pain.
Kissing reduces anxiety and stops the ‘noise’ in your mind. It increases the levels of oxytocsin, an extremely calming hormone that produces a feeling of peace. #repost

Source: https://www.facebook.com/adminJillian

Nairobi, 18 January 2012 - The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in partnership with TreeHugger, is pleased to launch the third World Environment Day (WED) blogging competition.
The winner will receive a free trip to Brazil - the host of this year's World Environment Day on 5 June 2012 - to write, blog and tweet about WED events in the country.

Bloggers are invited to enter the competition via online submissions of blog articles on the Green Economy. This ties in with the overall WED 2012 theme - Green Economy: Does It Include You? - which aims to highlight opportunities for moving towards low carbon, resource-efficient and socially inclusive sustainable development.
To enter, bloggers can post a link to Green Economy stories on the UNEP Facebook page http://facebook.unep.org with this comment, "I just entered to win a trip to Brazil for UNEP's World Environment Day 2012. Read my blog post and discover how the Green Economy includes you."

Entries must be made between 16 January and 12 February 2012.

To increase your chances of winning, post your story on Twitter with the hash tag #WED2012, and encourage friends to comment, 'like' the post on Facebook, and retweet your post across Facebook and Twitter.

The top ten bloggers, selected by a UNEP-TreeHugger jury, will be invited to a take part in a second round of blogging - a blogdown!

The winner of this blogging showdown will be determined by an online community via the World Environment Day website. Shortlisted bloggers will be awarded one vote for every 'like' that their entry receives online.

The blogger who accumulates the most votes by the end of April 2012 will win the competition and be invited to travel to Brazil to blog about World Environment Day.

The short-listed and winning posts will be published on TreeHugger and the World Environment Day websites.

What's included in the prize?

Flights, accommodation, visa costs and travel within Brazil to WED events will be covered.

Timing:

World Environment Day is on 5 June 2012. The competition winner will be flown to Brazil for three days, beginning June 3rd and ending June 6th 2012.

Costs:

Entrants will be expected to ensure they are able to travel to Brazil during the period above and to cover any other costs (e.g. vaccinations).

For all terms and conditions, please visit: http://www.unep.org/wed/blog/

More information on the Green Economy can be found at: www.unep.org/greeneconomy

For more information, please contact:

Enock Chinyenze, United Nations Environment Programme, Phone: +254 20 762 1551, E-mail: enock.chinyenze@unep.org