Farmers Not Invited to Food Summit?

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49278


World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis.

Small-scale producers from the Amazonian rainforest, from Africa, the Pacific islands and the Himalayas gathered in Rome for the Peoples’ Food Sovereignty Forum (Nov. 13-17), held in parallel to the FAO meetings, to discuss the serious effects of the crisis in their communities.

Small farmers and other small food producers number more than 1.5 billion in the world, the civil society forum estimates. "They produce more than 75 percent of the world’s food needs through peasant agriculture and small scale livestock production, and with artisanal fishing," organisers say.

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Indigenous knowledge and practices have the potential to improve local and global food security, farmers’ organisations say, but they still struggle to be recognised.

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Farmers’ issues are not so distant from those the FAO and participant governments will be discussing. What is different is their perspective. "Those whom the World Trade Organisation (WTO), The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider as victims are in fact the real protagonists, they are able to produce enough food for themselves, if they are allowed to," Onorati said.

Among the causes of food insecurity for indigenous communities, farmers point to the loss of land, territories and resources, and the non-recognition and violation of their indigenous rights.

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"Investment companies are trying to do the same just to make money, so you see governments and industries coming in and throwing farmers off their lands, especially where they don’t have secure titles; this affects women first, especially in Africa."

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According to Weibe, local agriculture and local markets can even cool the planet. "Real genuine agrarian reform, which has been put on hold for decades, would do far more for the climate that any deal that could result from the upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen," she said.
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[Horse with no Name]

1. You can be sure that the farm corporations are represented

"very well".

[dgibby]

2. Is Max Baucus running the food summit?

Sounds like health care reform meetings, you know, where everyone except proponents of single payer were invited.

[Blue State Blues]

3. K & R n/t