SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
The United Nations Food Systems Summit is a corporate food summit —not a “people’s” food summit
Published
3 years agoon
Although the UN has called the Food Systems Summit a “people’s summit”, it marks a departure from past World Food Summits, which developed innovative, inclusive and participatory global food governance mechanisms anchored in human rights. By contrast, the UNFSS follows a multi-stakeholder approach that, while appearing inclusive, ends up privileging agribusiness and food corporations and is conducted in partnership with the World Economic Forum (formed by the world’s top 1000 corporations). The UNFSS has sidelined civil society and and lacks transparency and accountability mechanisms. In response, civil society groups around the world are refusing to participate in the UNFSS and are instead leading parallel events and actions.
The People’s Autonomous Response to the UNFSS in July has argued that the UNFSS detracts from the real solutions needed to tackle the multiple hunger, climate and health crises. The globalized, industrialized food systems advanced at UNFSS fail most people, and the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation. According to the 2021 UN Report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition, the number of chronically undernourished people has risen to 811 million, while almost a third of the world’s population has no access to adequate food. The Global South still reels from Covid-19, unveiling the entrenched structural power asymmetries, fragility and injustice that underpin the predominant food system.
What we need: Food systems and food sovereignty for the people
Food sovereignty: the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems
Equitable and sustainable solutions already exist—and they need more support. There is much to learn from the networks of solidarity and care that people – often the most vulnerable and historically oppressed – have put in place during the pandemic. Currently, 70% of the world gets food from the peasant food web, which works with only 25% of the resources.
We don’t need “sustainable intensification”, “climate-smart agriculture” or ‘nature-positive solutions,” which often greenwash corporate agendas. Millions of smallholder farmers, fishermen, pastoralists, agricultural and rural workers, and entire indigenous communities practice agroecology, a way of life and a form of resistance to an unfair economic system that puts profit before life. Agroecological farming constantly adapts to local needs, customs, soils and climates. As countless experts have attested, agroecology improves nutrition, reduces poverty, contributes to gender justice, combats climate change, and enriches farmland.
Agroecology, unlike industrial agriculture, embraces and encourages diversity—of crops, people, farming methods, and knowledges—to allow for locally-adapted food systems that are responsive to environmental conditions and community needs.
The movement for food sovereignty is united in our diversity and in our shared opposition to centralized, top-down models of decision-making and agricultural production.
Original Source: unfss2021.org
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DEFENDING LAND AND ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS
Statement: The Energy Sector Strategy 2024–2028 Must Mark the End of the EBRD’s Support to Fossil Fuels
Published
1 year agoon
September 27, 2023The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is due to publish a new Energy Sector Strategy before the end of 2023. A total of 130 civil society organizations from over 40 countries have released a statement calling on the EBRD to end finance for all fossil fuels, including gas.
From 2018 to 2021, the EBRD invested EUR 2.9 billion in the fossil energy sector, with the majority of this support going to gas. This makes it the third biggest funder of fossil fuels among all multilateral development banks, behind the World Bank Group and the Islamic Development Bank.
The EBRD has already excluded coal and upstream oil and gas fields from its financing. The draft Energy Sector Strategy further excludes oil transportation and oil-fired electricity generation. However, the draft strategy would continue to allow some investment in new fossil gas pipelines and other transportation infrastructure, as well as gas power generation and heating.
In the statement, the civil society organizations point out that any new support to gas risks locking in outdated energy infrastructure in places that need investments in clean energy the most. At the same time, they highlight, ending support to fossil gas is necessary, not only for climate security, but also for ensuring energy security, since continued investment in gas exposes countries of operation to high and volatile energy prices that can have a severe impact on their ability to reach development targets. Moreover, they underscore that supporting new gas transportation infrastructure is not a solution to the current energy crisis, given that new infrastructure would not come online for several years, well after the crisis has passed.
The signatories of the statement call on the EBRD to amend the Energy Sector Strategy to
- fully exclude new investments in midstream and downstream gas projects;
- avoid loopholes involving the use of unproven or uneconomic technologies, as well as aspirational but meaningless mitigation measures such as “CCS-readiness”; and
- strengthen the requirements for financial intermediaries where the intended nature of the sub-transactions is not known to exclude fossil fuel finance across the entire value chain.
Source: iisd.org
Download the statement: https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/ngo-statement-on-energy-sector-strategy-2024-2028.pdf
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Will more sovereign wealth funds mean less food sovereignty?
Published
2 years agoon
April 13, 2023- 45% of Louis Dreyfus Company, with its massive land holdings in Latin America, growing sugarcane, citrus, rice and coffee;
- a majority stake in Unifrutti, with 15,000 ha of fruit farms in Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Philippines, Spain, Italy and South Africa; and
- Al Dahra, a large agribusiness conglomerate controlling and cultivating 118,315 ha of farmland in Romania, Spain, Serbia, Morocco, Egypt, Namibia and the US.
Sovereign wealth funds invested in farmland/food/agriculture (2023)
|
|||
Country
|
Fund
|
Est.
|
AUM (US$bn)
|
China
|
CIC
|
2007
|
1351
|
Norway
|
NBIM
|
1997
|
1145
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADIA
|
1967
|
993
|
Kuwait
|
KIA
|
1953
|
769
|
Saudi Arabia
|
PIF
|
1971
|
620
|
China
|
NSSF
|
2000
|
474
|
Qatar
|
QIA
|
2005
|
450
|
UAE – Dubai
|
ICD
|
2006
|
300
|
Singapore
|
Temasek
|
1974
|
298
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
Mubadala
|
2002
|
284
|
UAE – Abu Dhabi
|
ADQ
|
2018
|
157
|
Australia
|
Future Fund
|
2006
|
157
|
Iran
|
NDFI
|
2011
|
139
|
UAE
|
EIA
|
2007
|
91
|
USA – AK
|
Alaska PFC
|
1976
|
73
|
Australia – QLD
|
QIC
|
1991
|
67
|
USA – TX
|
UTIMCO
|
1876
|
64
|
USA – TX
|
Texas PSF
|
1854
|
56
|
Brunei
|
BIA
|
1983
|
55
|
France
|
Bpifrance
|
2008
|
50
|
UAE – Dubai
|
Dubai World
|
2005
|
42
|
Oman
|
OIA
|
2020
|
42
|
USA – NM
|
New Mexico SIC
|
1958
|
37
|
Malaysia
|
Khazanah
|
1993
|
31
|
Russia
|
RDIF
|
2011
|
28
|
Turkey
|
TVF
|
2017
|
22
|
Bahrain
|
Mumtalakat
|
2006
|
19
|
Ireland
|
ISIF
|
2014
|
16
|
Canada – SK
|
SK CIC
|
1947
|
16
|
Italy
|
CDP Equity
|
2011
|
13
|
China
|
CADF
|
2007
|
10
|
Indonesia
|
INA
|
2020
|
6
|
India
|
NIIF
|
2015
|
4
|
Spain
|
COFIDES
|
1988
|
4
|
Nigeria
|
NSIA
|
2011
|
3
|
Angola
|
FSDEA
|
2012
|
3
|
Egypt
|
TSFE
|
2018
|
2
|
Vietnam
|
SCIC
|
2006
|
2
|
Gabon
|
FGIS
|
2012
|
2
|
Morocco
|
Ithmar Capital
|
2011
|
2
|
Palestine
|
PIF
|
2003
|
1
|
Bolivia
|
FINPRO
|
2015
|
0,4
|
AUM (assets under management) figures from Global SWF, January 2023
|
|||
Engagement in food/farmland/agriculture assessed by GRAIN
|
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SPECIAL REPORTS AND PROJECTS
Farmland values hit record highs, pricing out farmers
Published
2 years agoon
November 21, 2022UNCCD COP16: NGOs issue a stark warning and call for urgent actions to deal with the escalating threats of desertification, land degradation, and drought.
A bail application for the 15 EACOP activists failed to take off, and they were remanded back to Prison.
Land grabbers evict 360,000 Ugandans in 2024
Forced Land Evictions in Uganda: Tenure and food insecurity on the rise…
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Breaking: There has been an alarming Rise in Forced Land Evictions in Uganda; over 360,000 Ugandans were Displaced in the First Half of 2024.
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