We thank you for the opportunity to address this conference of the FAO. We also welcome the address of the Director General of FAO and some of the countries who have emphasised the need to have NGOs and Civil Society organizations in Rome in order to ensure that all stakeholders have the opportunity to provide input into the debates on this crucial issue of hunger and malnutrition.
The Chairperson and all others present here might be aware that the NGOs and CSOs had a consultation as part of the preparations for the World Food Summit: five years later with the support of the FAO on the 11-12 May 2002 at Kathmandu, Nepal. The 120 participants from 13 countries9 in Asia represented a wide diversity of NGOs, CSOs, peasant movements, women's organizations, fisherfolks, landless labourers and plantation workers. Being observers we have closely followed your discussions and suggestions and would like to add our perspectives and suggestions to these urgent issues facing us today.
We would also like to take this opportunity to share with you the outcome of our deliberations and lively debates during the participation of the Consultation. We held our deliberations keeping in mind the UN Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 15 February 2002 on the Right to Food. We would like to reiterate our support towards the Resolution on the Right to Food together with the various countries in Asia and the Pacific who have time and again committed to all citizens on their Right to Food and Life.
Given this scenario, we unanimously call for a Code of Conduct on the Right to Food and Resources taking into consideration the need for genuine agrarian and fisheries reform among other rights to be adopted by the FAO and all governments.
We appreciate the Director-General for bringing to the fore the threats to resource-poor farmers and labourers in Asia and the Pacific of the globalisation process particularly owing to the huge support provide by the OECD countries for the agriculture. Similarly, we are also very concerned about the impact of the globalisation process and particularly the dumping of subsidised food and agricultural products in Asia which is adversely affecting the hundreds of thousands of peasants, women fisherfolk and indigenous people's communities who even as we speak are being displaced and threatened on the issue of life and food.
Only a handful of Transnational Corporations and big businesses have benefited from these policies and programmes. The NGOs, CSOs and people's movements believe that food is not only a commodity of trade but essential for sustenance, crucial to sustainable livelihood and is an important expression of our culture. Food and agricultural production therefore cannot be left to the whims and fancies of a handful of exploitatively profit oriented corporations, but should instead be decided by the very people who are producers of our food.
Therefore, in order to ensure that our rights are protected and dignity restored and respected, we need to recognise food sovereignty as the basis and principle for food production and consumption and in implementation of food and agricultural policies. Food sovereignty has to be realised at all levels with global recognition and commitment by governments through the adoption of an International Convention on Food Sovereignty.
The crucial promise of the 1996 World Food Summit to halve poverty and hunger by the year 2015 has been declared impossible to achieve by the same institutions that adopted it. The programmes and practices aimed at reducing hunger and malnutrition have failed miserably, needless to say owing to the lack of political will.
Our concerns are of those whose lives are threatened by the loss of livelihood, land, water, forests and other resources, who have little or no access to food resulting in hunger, starvation and famine, unemployment and vulnerability to exploitation and oppression.
Corporate agriculture that continues to promote hazardous technologies including pesticides and Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs) threaten health, food safety and the environment. The dominance of corporate control is further entrenched by patents on lifeforms. In short, we see the loss and intensive erosion of rights and dignity of people in Asia.
The struggle for right to food, food security and sovereignty is intrinsically linked with the struggle for political empowerment and participatory democracy.
This struggle must give special focus and emphasis to women's empowerment. The invisibility of women in agriculture, non-recognition of women in food production and their exclusion and discrimination in decision making, has led to the erosion of their rights and their participation in policies and programmes.
Food security and sovereignty is an integral and fundamental part of social justice and genuine national development. Priority must be given to policies and programmes that protect and support agriculture as a sustainable livelihood with agro-ecologically based food production systems. These systems should lead to elimination of agro-chemicals and a moratorium on GMOs.
Representatives of NGOs, CSOs and people's movement present at the Consultation expressed their deep concern regarding GMOs, because even in the absence of independent and extensive health and environmental safety information, the companies benefiting from this technology have produced and commercialised GMOs. Environmental contamination, increase in the use of certain herbicides and consumer boycotts have been reported in those countries where GMOs have been commercialised. Thus, it is clearly evident that GMOs is and will be a major area of concern for our health, environment, culture and biodiversity.
Finally, we would like to urge the governments present here together with FAO to join us in the struggle to protect our rights, crucial for the realisation of our aspirations for food sovereignty and security, which can only be achieved through commitment and coordinated efforts in Asia.
9 Countries represented including Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Korea, Indonesia, India, Japan, Nepal, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand
