Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Dear Sir,

 A brief is written below for FSN.

INTRODUCTION

 Human Right to Adequately Certified Religious Food to about quarter of the world population is jeopardized under current prevailing situation in the world. About 2 billion Muslim population spread over 57 Islamic countries (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation-OIC) and otherwise as minority migrants in other countries like Europe, EU, USA ,Australia, Canada etc. require availability, continuityand affordability of certified Halal food for the faithful & purified  observance of their religion. According to UNO charter, it is a stated responsibility of all countries, nation states to provide adequate, nutritious, safe and secure food supply at affordable price to its citizens as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and several other international instruments. However, about a quarter of the world’s Muslim population (~1.8 Billion) need that their food be religiously Halal (pure) compliant. Halal Food is is certified  that the food products purchased are fit for Muslim consumption. The certifying bodies are organizations that generally charge a certification fee to certify a product as Halal. Basically the certification ensures food item has been prepared, handled, processed, truthfully labelled, packaged and transported as per the Islamic and Sharia laws for Muslim consumption. The consumers has to fully rely on the certification of the product, especially when, due to globalization, supply chains are long and not always completely transparent for the religious consumer. In most religious food consuming societies, the religious food production & consumption is considered as a pious way of life to wash sins and a practice of religious compliance. Therefore provision of Halal food does not only touch upon the consumer rights as such but also upon their human rights, where the right to practice religion is important and one of them. It has been noticed over the years that religiously prepared food can be rejected because of lack in transparency of countries related to the religious requirements and sometimes also due to more strict interpretations (Tafseer) of religiously prepared food. These circumstances can prevent food from reaching its destination, and on occasions even lead to the death of people in need of religious food. Below are two diagrams showing the distribution of different important religions worldwide and the comparative growth rates of religions in the world.  

Fig. 1. RELIGIONS STATICS -DISTRIBUTION OF RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD

Fig. 2. COMPARATIVE GROWTH RATES OF RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD.

  THE  ISSUE- Human Right to Adequate Religious Food and Nutrition,

 Provision of certified credible religious food to all religious performing persons in the world is at stake which amounts to the denial of their human rights. Factors related to and affecting the provision of religious food across the board are varied. There are Sunni and Shia sects among Muslims which may have  further subdivision and variations in Tafseer/Explanations.  Tafseer in Arabic means a scholarly discussion and consensus building of disputed matters  of Islam which have arisen due to modern science or philosophical thought in the world. Like Genetically Modified Foods (GMF) with genetic transfer across species is controversial issue.

 Halal Muslim Food Certifying Bodies (HCB) are either derived directly from the government organisations or can be government-regulated or accredited entities. Most of the Islamic countries are food deficient and need to import their food from other countries as “HalalCertified Food” but most food imported into the Muslim countries is coming from non-Muslim foreign countries like Thailand, The Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, India etc. about which Halal meat is most contested food.

The commercial scale of global Halal food trade, about 13 % of global food trade (~3 trillion US Dollars), with fast annual growth has created huge interest in this business. Therefore an effective resolution of the issue is badly needed. ISO Geneve has established a Technical Committee (TC 425 Halal) to deal with Halal trade and compliance matters at international level. The Committee is considering the Halal Food Rules, prepared by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Jeddah. Myself has been Pakistan expert member in this program.

Halal meat has to be from permitted animals via Halal slaughter method, without the preslaughter stunning procedure for immobilization. But it is not acceptable to animal welfare lobbies as it confronts European animal welfare laws. Procedure also adds extra cultural and commercial burden on food trade regulatory regimes. It may be noted that pig and blood in any form is prohibited in Islam.

Dear Colleagues,

I agree with your activities for the 20th anniversary of the Right to Food Guidelines.

Guidelines are very important, but I think, that we have strongly to consider the global population growth (from about 8 billion now up to about 10 billion people in 2050 or later) and the dramatic climate change all over the world.

I think that we need some rules for more moderate population growth and a more efficient food production all over the world under consideration of the climate change. Plant breeding (incl. new methods) and cultivation of new varieties to farmers around the world should be

an objective of our work.

Best regards

Gerhard Flachowsky

Braunschweig, Germany

Dear Sir/Madam,

In principle, I strongly agree that  access to food should be a component/part of human rights and needs to be promoted well. But, I always feel it as luxury for developing countries particularly in Africa and Some Asian countries since the majority of the population under starvation/hunger mainly due to bad economic governance. How do we think of ensuring access to food with the sense of basic human rights in a country trapped in a vicious circle of poverty? But it needs concerted efforts I suggest in the following 

a. Create regular awareness for governing bodies, citizens on access to food as human rights and encourage to exercise it 

b. Establish strong performance monitoring system and take responsive/corrective measures 

c. Design innovative and home based pro-poor development interventions in all matters (access to finance, market,  resources, social capital and etc.)

d. Affordable cost for quality foods

 Shirega Minuye

Senior Researcher

 Ethiopia, Addis Ababa

Уважаемые коллеги!

Благодарим Вас за призыв к представлению материалов к Двадцатой годовщине Руководящих принципов в отношении права на питание – призыв к представлению материалов о реализации права человека на достаточное питание.

Направляем на Ваше рассмотрение материал на тему "Международная торговля продовольствием и право человека на питание".

Требуемый шаблон прилагается.

С уважением,

Дмитрий Булатов,

Национальный союз экспортеров продовольствия (Россия), www.prodexport.ru

Dear Sir/Madam,



In line with the theme of the 20th anniversary of the Right to Food Guidelines, associated with the call for contributions on realizing the Human Right to Adequate Food in the International Food Security Context (RTFG), please find attached the contribution personal.



With best regards,



Mr.Benone-Ion PASARIN



 ROMANIA

20 years, 15 years, binding, voluntary guidelines to ensure the R2F - and yet, no progress! Rather, in respect of SDG2/Indicators 2.1.1 and 2.1.2, “[t]he world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030. If recent trends continue, the number of people affected by hunger would surpass 840 million by 2030.” (Food Coalition: A Covid-19 Response, FAO (2021).

Worse, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022, "[t]he world is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. The distance to reach many of the SDG 2 targets is growing wider each year."

One major reason for this multilateral governance failure is that many governments support their farmers at the expense of unsubsidised farmers in poor developing countries. They do so within or outside their so-called Amber Box entitlement to distort trade, negotiated in the Uruguay Round. Regrettably, what economists call dumping is not incompatible with the rules of the WTO Subsidy Agreement (ASCM). However, it violates the "do no harm" principle under Public International Law which IS binding on all states under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969…).

But nobody seems to care. And the WTO is unwilling and incapable of addressing the #1 problem for improving WTO Law in respect of the R2F.

WTO is a part of the problem: what we need is not MORE but BETTER trade!

Please find attached:

The Form on the experiences;

An article in Sociology and Anthropology "Fair Prices to Achieve a Living Income for Small Farmers and Its Relation to Local Food Purchase Programs"; 

"Fair Producer Prices", Paper to the 93rd Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Society (AES), University of Warwick, April 2019, and

The paper that is about a different way of calculation in the production chain and is taken from my book ‘The Economics of Human Rights: Using the Living Income/Fair Price Approach to Combat Poverty’.

Kind regards,

Ruud Bronkhorst

Title of your submission

Fair Prices

Geographical coverage

Global

Country(ies)/ Region(s) covered by your submission

Contact person

Name: Ruud Bronkhorst

Organization: InfoBridge Foundation www.infobridge.org

Email address: [email protected]

☐  Government

☐  UN organization

☒  Civil Society / NGO

☐  Private Sector

☒  Academia

☐  Donor

☐  Other (specify)

Awareness of the

Right to Food Guidelines and

CFS policy agreements

How did you become aware of the Right to Food Guidelines (e.g., CFS meeting or event, other UN Organizations, internet, colleagues, government, civil society organization)?

FAO, government

Have you taken any actions to make the Right to Food Guidelines known to your colleagues, partners or other stakeholders?

☐ No

☒ Yes

Not exactly the Right to Food Guidelines, but the Human Right to Adequate Food. This basic human right is the basis of my work and publications about ‘fair’ prices.

What would you recommend to Member States, UN Agencies and /or other stakeholders to make the Right to Food Guidelines more widely known?

All Member States, UN Agencies and/or other stakeholders should be reminded of the fact that the Right to Food is a legally binding right, following articles 23 and 25 of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, adopted by the United Nations, and is guaranteed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Use of the

Right to Food Guidelines

The Right to Food has been stressed during lectures and trainings.

Have your say where it matters!

(i) Experiences and good practices

• Sufficient income by payment of Living Wages and Living Income, made possible though the payment of Fair Prices, make the realization of the right to food for everyone possible, leading to less hunger, less child labor, and better education and health for all.

(ii) Gaps, constraints and challenges

• Small producers often do not get sufficiently paid for their products, meaning that they cannot pay their laborers a Living Wage.  In agriculture this results in food insecurity for both farmers and agricultural laborers, as well as child labor.
• Companies are reluctant to pay Living Wages to their workers, and governments are reluctant to impose this obligation on companies, be it by fear of losing income, lack of legislation or by the impossibility to put their legislation into force.
• The connection between the payment of fair prices to small, marginal farmers and climate change, is not sufficiently recognized. In order to adapt to changes in climate, farmers must have sufficient income to be able to pay for the investments needed to change to other crops and/or ways of production. Sufficient income to cover the needs of adequate food and investment costs are essential to prevent small farmers to pay the toll for climate change.

(iii) Lessons learned and suggested recommendations

- Lessons learned

   - In my report of 2006 ‘Effects of structural food aid in the form of local purchase and sales of rice on rural development’ (https://infobridge.org),  I mention that farmers in Burkina Faso who sold to WFP, told that they were paid much later, and the food was bought at the current market price, which was insufficient for them. Fortunately WFP has adjusted its policies since then.

Recommendations

1. Producers should receive a ‘fair’ price for their products. This implies that we must get rid of the notion that the market price is the right price. We must work towards a system where basic human rights are the basis for prices. One of the means to do so is intervention in the production chain to cut out any excessive profits, because that way a raise in workers wages does not lead to much higher consumer prices. On the whole it asks for a serious review of the current price system.
2. Payment of Living Wages to workers and the possibility for producers to earn a Living Income by the payment of Fair Prices.
3. Pression on states and companies to apply the Right to Food Guidelines.
4. Make the subject of fair prices to small farmers an important discussion point in climate discussions by stressing the need for small farmers to have sufficient income to achieve both food security and be able to make the necessary investments to adjust to climate change.

(iv) Concrete plans

- In Europe the European Commission has drafted a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDD) Directive that establishes a corporate due diligence duty. The core elements of this duty are identifying, bringing to an end, preventing, mitigating and accounting for negative human rights and environmental impacts in the company’s own operations, their subsidiaries and their value chains.

-  Application of  Living Income Reference Prices:

* Fairtrade Int. https://www.fairtrade.net/issue/living-income-reference-prices

 * GIZ (Krain Eberhard, John Osei Gyimah, Ignatius Pumpuni, Nana Yaw Kwapong-Akuffo and Martin Kuntze-Fechner : ‘Analysis and Report of a Baseline Study for a Living Income (and Other Benchmarks) in Cashew- and Cocoa-Growing Regions of Ghana’), GIZ, 2021

* Cocoa Barometer 2022 https://cocoabarometer.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Cocoa-Barometer-2022.pdf

Link(s) to specific references

https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/doing-business-eu/corporate-sustainability-due-diligence_en

Link(s) to additional information

• Bronkhorst, Ruud (2020): ‘The Economics of Human Rights: Using the Living Income/Fair Price Approach to Combat Poverty’, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020
• More publications on Fair Prices: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ruud-Bronkhorst

• Fountain, A.C. and Hütz-Adams, F. (2020): Necessary Farm Gate Prices for a Living Income: Existing Living Income Reference Prices are Too Low, Consultation Paper for the 2020 Cocoa Barometer / January 2020 https://voicenetwork.cc/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/200113-Necessary-Farm-Gate-Prices-for-a-Living-Income-Definitive.pdf

Human Right to Adequately Certified Religious Food to about quarter of the world population is jeopardized under current prevailing situation in the world. About 2 billion Muslim population spread over 57 Islamic countries (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation-OIC) and otherwise as minority migrants in other places like Europe, EU, USA ,Australia, Canada etc. require availability, continuity and affordability of certified ritual Halal food for the faithful, purified  and credibly certified observance of their religion. According to UNO charter, it is a stated responsibility of all countries, nation states to provide adequate, nutritious, safe and secure food supply at affordable price to its citizens as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and several other international instruments. These UNO conventions about right to food are not being implemented due to variety of reasons thus causing hunger, disease or even death in some cases. The issue of the provision of ritual Halal food needs to be discussed in detail and to be taken care of, by the UNO, global humanitarian, financial,  commercial, regulatory and trade organisations to assess, identify, recognise and address the implications for a way out at national & international level. 

I can make a full and detailed presentation on the topic / issue , if required.

Dear colleagues,

The Voluntary Guidelines - a unique document in many respects with a lot of stories around its development which has enough substance for an interesting book about the functioning of international policy and with some funny parts - for example about boat trips on the river Spree.

We all knew in the moment of the final vote on the Guidelines that we all had achieved a historical step against hunger in the world. To see how national governments in the following years inspired by the Guidelines introduced the Right to Food in their constitutions, how Brazil was using the Guidelines as a blueprint for their successful FOME ZERO program, all this gives the mothers and fathers of the Guidelines the certainty that every minute they invested in its creation was worth it.

The first copy of the Guidelines was printed 5 minutes after its adoption and all important actors signed the first page.

This historic copy covers today the wall of my office in Moscow and tells me every day that agriculture and food security need peace everywhere on our planet.

Let us use the 20^th anniversary of the Guidelines to renew the fight against all obstacles that are in way to the realization of the Guidelines on the Right to Food!

FYI: that was my speech in 2008

Presentation by Mr Martin Nissen Embassy of Germany, Paris, France on the opening of the Right to Food Forum Rome, 1 October 2008

Dear Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Mr. Ghanem,

Thank you very much for your nice introduction offering me the fatherhood for the Voluntary Guidelines. It is good to be back here and to see so many colleagues who became friends in the four years we were working together at the Voluntary Guidelines - a unique document in many respects with a lot of stories around its development which has enough substance for an interesting book about the functioning of international policy and with some funny parts - for example about boat trips on the river Spree. We all realized that the fight against hunger had been a failure in many parts of the world because of a lack of political will - both in industrial countries as well as in poor countries highly affected by hunger. And we were aware that other examples in some countries existed - worth to be integrated in the Guidelines. Our idea was it would be very helpful to combine an approach based on the human right to food with a manual for governments, international organizations and the civil society how to fight hunger in a multi-dimensional way. With other words: we had to describe the instruments and the necessary interaction with others tools. At that time I think every one of us had the experience being asked by head-shaking colleagues and friends: so what you want is that every hungry person can go to court to sue his government for food. My answer was always: I want that governments can be sued for necessary action to use internationally proven tools to prevent hunger in their country. Most times the reaction was interesting, the shaking head turned to one side indicating: that sounds reasonable. The necessity to create a comprehensive approach to fight hunger with the integration of actors from many other sectors - this necessity was simply proven by the fact that single-targeted development cooperation projects to tackle the hunger problem mainly resulted in failures. When we started the deliberations there was a good description by the former World Bank director of agriculture who said: when I look at the agricultural projects in the last decades I see a big cemetery. The deliberations on the Guidelines became very fruitful because of the special way to integrate the contributions of civil society and the other international organizations. I remember a lot of rather sharp discussions even in between the group of supporters of the Voluntary Guidelines about the question how pragmatic or dogmatic we should follow the elaborations written by human rights experts for the WFS 1996. The nature of FAO as a body which is based on common ground between the member states made it of course finally necessary to find a lot of compromises. But in the end of the deliberations most of us were impressed that we agreed upon a text which really can serve as a manual for those governments who want to fight hunger and malnutrition. And as such it gives a strong instrument against political excuses from those who want to hide the fact that they don’t have the necessary political will to improve the nutritional situation in countries suffering from hunger. We needed a lot of people with a clear vision, with a high profile of credibility and ability to convince others to manage this process. I see that many in the audience understood this remark as a compliment in their direction. This is exactly what I wanted to express. There were political coincidences within the time of discussing the Guidelines, which had nothing to do with this process, but which had a very important impact how the deliberations changed their direction at a certain time. As I already mentioned enough stuff for a good book… Another precondition for the Guidelines was the existence of a substantial financial funding. We needed a lot of money to organize the work on the Guidelines. The meetings here in Rome, the national studies to support the elaborations, the coordination of the work of the NGOs and the secretariat based here in Rome wouldn’t have been possible without the funding from several governments like those of Switzerland, Norway and Germany. Our objective to create the Guidelines as a manual of the successful tools to eradicate hunger and malnutrition was never to create a paper, but a tool which should be used in many countries in the world. And I am very interested to hear from you about the usefulness of this tool. Thank you for your attention

---

Martin Nissen

Head of the of the Food and agriculture department

German Embassy in Moscow

Bonjour, voici notre modèle de présentation remplie et notre proposition de projet

bonne lecture et en cas d'autres question relatives à l'organisation FACHA asbl nous sommes pret a vous repondre à temps voulue

merci

ALIMASI NGWENA, Coordinateur