RIGHT TO FOOD AND NUTRITION WATCH

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
mining, climate change, and inadequate government policies. After the monopolization
of agriculture by the State, post-Soviet Ukraine faces re-consolidation through land
grabbing by the agro-industry in early 2016.
NUTRITION IS NOT A BUSINESS: VIABLE ALTERNATIVES
The goal of the Watch is not only to analyze violations of the human right to adequate
food and nutrition, but also to identify and celebrate when this work achieves success
and fosters alternatives to the root social and economic causes of violations. In
addition to the examples mentioned above, and as demonstrated in the November
2014 ICN2, there is growing momentum among peoples’ organizations such as the
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) and the Mongolian Alliance of Nomadic Indi genous
Peoples (MANIP), feminist organizations such as Katosi Women Development
Trust (KWDT) from Uganda, social movements working in the health sector like
the People’s Health Movement, and increasingly broad social movements, to rally
cooperatively for food sovereignty and nutrition for all.
Cooperation and collaboration are key. One of the explanations for food
insecurity in the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), located
in nine nations and four continents, is the common history of migration and
patriarchal states. The influence of migration and patriarchy is now countered at
the institutional level with the promotion of national councils for food and nutrition
security, and at the community level with support for family farms. In São
Tomé and Príncipe and in other CPLP countries, family peasants are organizing
in cooperatives to foster agroecology and participate in the international market of
organic food. Consequently, their income has risen and the environment is being
protected. African countries, including nine Southern African countries cooperating
in the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN) and East, West, and North
African countries, are all sharing strategies to promote, regularize, and expand
food production in and around cities on behalf of urban and rural migrants living
in poverty, especially women. Inspiration for urban agriculture comes from many
sources including regional advances in Kampala (Uganda), Cape Town (South Africa),
Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Nairobi (Kenya). In Brazil land access for urban
food production is a function of the right to food as framed constitutionally
and administratively in the ‘Zero Hunger’ strategy, a safety net component of the
human rights-based National Food and Nutritional Security Policy and Plan. In
China, where the average farm size is one-third hectare, the State has supported
small-scale peasant agriculture, providing the vast population’s needs and presenting
a bulwark against the growing power of agribusiness. At the same time, Chinese
agriculture is at a crossroad involving public discussions of traditional farming
practices and agroecology versus GMOs, gendered rural isolation and urban inmigration,
and the need and role of food sovereignty as a people’s movement seeking
self-determination and the effective accountability of the State.
Collaboration and shared inspiration reinforce public interest civil society’s
engagement against corporate forces that market products at the source of the
non-communicable diseases (NCDs) explosion. In Kenya, where corporate lobbying
sought to weaken regulatory capacity to protect the health of infants and young
children, local, regional, and international sections of the International Baby Food
Action Network (IBFAN) convinced the national government to adopt the Breastmilk
Substitutes (Regulation and Control) Act No. 34 of 2012. This resulted in a rapid
increase in exclusive breastfeeding rates, which maximizes early childhood nutrition
and health. In Mexico, where companies expand soft drink consumption with the
aid of monopolistic practices, price reduction, and tax evasion, civil society groups
jointly launched the campaign “Healthier Eating as Mexicans Eat” (Más Sanos
Peoples’ Nutrition Is Not a Business 83