Peoples’ struggles and solidarity, not UNFSS, will build just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable food systems

As the UN Food Systems Summit takes stock (the “UNFSS +2“) of what they have achieved in the past two years, one thing is clear: this platform that the monopoly corporations and their allies control will never truly address the structural roots of worldwide hunger and food insecurity. What they peddle is bound to deepen the global food crisis and further impoverish, starve, and oppress the poor, including those who directly produce the world’s food.

The reality of grinding poverty and debilitating hunger that billions of people face daily due to exorbitant food prices amid severe lack of income and access to production means, including land, and destruction of their livelihoods are not what is on the table of the UNFSS and its so-called stocktaking. They may pay lip service to these issues and harp on the critical role of food systems transformation in accelerating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Still, they will hide the truth that monopoly corporations and their desire for control over and profits from our food systems drive speculative food price spikes, displacements and landlessness, environmental and climate disasters, and demolition of domestic food and agriculture sectors and entire local economies.

The UNFSS will bury this truth under its slew of sessions, dialogues, and events because, from the onset, it has carried the agenda and interests of global monopoly corporations in agribusiness, agrochemicals, technology, finance, etc. They have been using various institutions in research, philanthropy, development work and civil society – many of which the corporations set up –  and conspiring with UN food and agriculture agencies and other multilateral institutions to sell their grand deception of food systems change through so-called multistakeholderism.

Multistakeholderism is nothing but monopoly corporations deepening and tightening their control over multilateral governance bodies like the UN and legitimizing such takeover with the supposed participation of other stakeholders, including farmers and other sectoral groups and civil society organizations (CSOs).

But we will not be deceived. As we did through the Global People’s Summit for Just, Equitable, Healthy, and Sustainable Food Systems (GPS) campaign in 2021 to counter the UNFSS and its corporate agenda, we will continue to expose and oppose the nefarious schemes of monopoly capital to control and profit from food systems further.

The so-called national food systems transformation pathways developed by 121 countries at the behest of the UNFSS are pathways for corporations to tighten their grip on national and local food systems. Through these pathways, programs and policies that promote neoliberal reforms, boost the export of monopoly capital, or introduce technology for digitalization and data mining in food and agriculture, among others, are likely given greater opportunities to expand. A cursory look at the national pathways analysis dashboard developed by the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, for instance, shows that 100% of all pathways involve policy and regulation as a means of implementation; finance and investment, 83%; better data, 74%; and trade, 72%.

It is not surprising that among the showcase achievements of the UNFSS after two years are initiatives of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a CEO-led organization of over 200 transnational corporations (TNCs), such as its efforts to harness “public-private partnerships for sustainable rice value-chains and finance.” Or the training program for rural women entrepreneurs funded by Corteva Agriscience, one of the world’s largest agrochemical and seed companies. These and similar corporate initiatives are in the stakeholders’ contribution document to the UNFSS stocktaking.

These initiatives are pathways toward greater corporate monopoly control of our food systems and more hunger, dispossession, and destruction. There is no hope for the future of our peoples and the planet if we allow the UNFSS and the big corporations behind it to steer the global food systems towards this path.

Thus, we must intensify our struggles – from the local to the global level – to completely transform our food systems, decisively break the monopoly control of corporations, and make food systems truly just, equitable, healthy, and sustainable.

Just food systems can only be built on the people’s right to own and effectively control land, seeds, water, and other productive resources. Recognition of indigenous peoples’ self-determination over their ancestral land and diversified food system is critical to promoting just and equitable food systems. No community, social class, or nation shall ever be deprived of access to food because of poverty, wars, or conflicts.

Equitable food systems can only be built on the people’s right to land and livelihoods and decent working and living conditions, which means that the people’s sovereign will must decide food production based on their particular circumstances, priorities, and needs. Women farmers, who comprise much of the global farming population, must be accorded the respect they have earned and their rights protected.

Healthy food systems can only be built on the people’s right to always have access to nutritious and sufficient food. Agroecological food production must be promoted and made widely available and affordable to all to protect the health and well-being of food producers and consumers.

Sustainable food systems can only be built on the people’s right to a healthy planet and environment capable of adequately producing all the food needs of the world’s population. Building a solid foundation for sustainability in our food systems requires food sovereignty and agroecology, people’s rights to land and resources, decent working and living conditions, and a nutritious diet.

Only strong and determined peoples’ movements and communities demanding accountability from governments and corporations and fighting for the needed policy reforms and programs will deliver a radical transformation of food systems – not the UNFSS representing profit-seeking monopolies’ interests and agenda. We must expand and strengthen our efforts to support the national and local campaigns for genuine land reform and rural development, food sovereignty and agroecology, and the peoples’ democratic rights. We can only build a future without hunger, dispossession, and destruction through our collective struggles and global solidarity.

Signed by the following organisations: