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"WE ARE WHAT WE EAT"
This is how Vandana Shiva underlined the need for a better agriculture, environmentally sustainable and respectful of local cultures and traditions.
By Luca Cristaldi
VIS – Piroga – Lilliput Roma
Paradoxically, the FAO World Food Summit opened with the approval of its final declaration… this is not a joke.
The Summitės opening was in fact the acclamation of the final document called "International Alliance against Hunger". As if the international alliance against terrorism was not enough…
The NGO Forum expressed its concern for this working method, unfortunately already tested during the Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development. Present delegations have no space whatsoever for discussion nor for text amendments.
Sergio Marelli, President of the Italian NGO Committee, stressed how useless it is to invest huge amounts of resources in a Summit where recommendations for governments cannot even be discussed.
Well, to tell the truth delegations will be allowed to write their ideas and "annex" them to the declaration already approved by FAO – i.e. "Do criticise, but the document stays where it is".
There are also those who are actually satisfied by the final declaration (or better "initial declaration"), our (Italian) Minister for Agriculture Gianni Alemanno, for example. During his speech he stressed the need to promote an international alliance against hunger as a further weapon against terrorism. He said to be overwhelmed by the consensus over the declaration. Lastly, he accused the NGO/CSO Forum, or better, the "No Global", to be "ideologically abstract" and inconsistent…
We have finally understood that, whoever we are, we are the "No Global"…
Our history, experience, battles for international co-operation and solidarity, for the right to have water and food… it is all deleted by a definition that certain politicians and the media use to undermine and discredit every activity and proposal.
"We have in recent year put forward many proposals" said Antonio Onorati, focal point of the Forum’s International Committee, "as we are still doing today in Rome. The truth is that our ideas have no counterpart. The document is weak. It only refers to the objectives stated in 1996, it is not binding for governments and it does not consider access to food as a fundamental right".
We cannot absolutely be happy with the FAO Summit. Only 34 out of 182 Heads of state and government participated, 20 of which from the African region. And we cannot be happy with the fact that the proposal put forward by the NGO Forum in 1996 – supported by the Italian and German governments – for the adoption of an International Code for the Right to Food, for the protection of one of the fundamental rights of mankind, has been rejected (with the US, Norwegian and Swiss negative vote)
The Forum has stressed the fact that transgenic food is not a solution to hunger but only a system to support multinationals like Monstanto. This concept has a particular relevance if we consider that the UN Secretari General Kofi Annan actually expressed positive feelings on GMOs.
The gap between the FAO Summit and the NGO Forum is large and clear.
Vandana Shiva, President of Navdanya and important voice against one-way globalisation, gave her contribution to the Forum. "There are many positive local experiences that show the possibility to implement a better agriculture for real" she said, "environmentally sustainable, respectful of local cultures and traditions, able to guarantee healthy products. All this, however, needs substantial changes in national and international trade policies, in the use of technologies and in intellectual property rights. We need investment in localisation rather than in globalisation, in food safety rather than in its export, in the guarantee of quality to citizens – farmers and consumers – rather than in corporate interests of trade".
