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	Food system that fails poor countries needs urgent reform by Olivier De Schutter UN special rapporteur on the right to food   The existing food system has failed and needs urgent reform, according to a UN expert who argues there should be a greater emphasis on local food production and an overhaul of trade policies that have led to overproduction in rich countries while obliging poor countries – which are often dependent on agriculture – to import food.   In his final report, Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, offers a detailed critique of an industrial system of agriculture that has boosted food production over the past 50 years, yet still leaves 842 million – 12% of the world"s population – hungry.   "Measured against the requirement that they should contribute to the realisation of the right to food, the food systems we have inherited from the 20th century have failed," he told the UN human rights council. "Of course, significant progress has been achieved in boosting agricultural production. But this has hardly reduced the number of hungry people."   The right to food is defined as the right of every individual to have physical and economic access at all times to sufficient, adequate and culturally acceptable food that is produced and consumed sustainably, preserving access to food for future generations.   De Schutter, professor of law at the University of Louvain, Belgium, was appointed rapporteur in 2008, during a sharp rise in global food prices, and has had plenty of time to diagnose what ails food systems. A major culprit, he says, is the "green revolution", which boosted agricultural production through the use of high-yielding plant varieties, irrigation, mechanisation and subsidised fertilisers and pesticides. The flipside, however, was an extension of monocultures (wheat, maize, soybean), a loss of agrobiodiversity, accelerated soil erosion and pollution of fresh water from the overuse of chemical fertilisers.   A potentially devastating effect of industrial-scale agriculture has been the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, which represent 15% of total manmade emissions. Climate change will affect future agricultural productivity, he warns.   "Under a business as usual scenario, we can anticipate an average of 2% productivity decline over each of the coming decades, with yield changes in developing countries ranging from -27% to +9% for the key staple crops," says the report.   The increasing demand for meat is another area of concern. The UN"s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that annual meat production would have to reach 470m tons to meet projected demand in 2050, an increase of about 200m tons from 2005-07.   "This is entirely unsustainable … Demand for meat diverts food away from poor people who are unable to afford anything but cereals … Continuing to feed cereals to growing numbers of livestock will aggravate poverty and environmental degradation," says De Schutter, who urges governments to discourage meat consumption where it has already reached levels that are more than enough to satisfy dietary needs. He is optimistic that public attitudes towards meat will change in rich countries, but less so about attitudes in emerging economies such as China, where eating meat is akin to a status symbol.   As an alternative to existing systems, De Schutter champions agroecology, a range of techniques including intercropping, the use of manure and food scraps as fertiliser and agroforestry (planting trees). This approach would not only be more environmentally friendly, but would contribute to more diverse diets and improve nutrition. Although easier to implement on smaller-sized farms, agroecology is also applicable to large farms.   Other measures to improve the system would be to abandon mandates for biofuels and cut down food waste in rich countries and post-harvest losses in poor countries.   Changes to support small-scale farmers in poor countries – access to land, support for local seed banks, storage connection to makers – must be accompanied by reform in rich countries, where the farming sector has become highly dependent on subsidies – $259bn in 2012. This has encouraged the expansion of the food processing industry thanks to cheap inputs and facilities such as silos and processing plants.   "Large agribusiness corporations have come to dominate increasingly globalised markets thanks to their ability to achieve economies of scale and because of various network effects … the dominant position of larger agribusiness corporations is such that these actors have acquired, in effect, a veto power in the political system."   De Schutter says he is not completely opposed to agribusiness as it is incredibly efficient in connecting consumers and producers far away from each other.   "It is not desirable to get rid of agribusiness," he says. "It is incredibly efficient, connecting far away consumers and producers, and many needs can only be satisfied by agribusiness. But we need alternative systems to serve different needs. There is an imbalance, as there has been a priority on large-scale farming and underinvestment in local food markets. It is more realistic to have different systems co-exist. Brazil shows you can have huge, efficient farms along exemplary family farms, but you do need high-level political commitment to small farms and a participatory tradition."   De Schutter sees possibilities for change. Rebuilding local food systems, for instance, would decentralise food systems, making them more flexible and creating links between cities and rural hinterlands. He cites urban agricultural initiatives in Montreal and Toronto, Canada, Durban, South Africa and Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where "family farmers" are encouraged to feed urban populations.   At the national level, governments should encourage investment in local food packaging and processing industries. Social protection schemes should be established, says De Schutter, offering a social safety net to protect vulnerable families from falling into poverty. Globally, meanwhile, states should limit excessive reliance on international trade and build capacity to produce the food needed to meet consumption needs, with an emphasis on small-scale farmers.   "The expansion of trade has resulted in the luxury tastes of the richest parts of the world being allowed to compete against the satisfaction of the basic needs of the poor," says De Schutter.   As for the power of agribusiness corporations, states should use competition law to check the abuse of power. "This requires having in place competition regimes sensitive to excessive buying power in the agrifood sector, and devising competition authorities with mechanisms that allow for affected suppliers to bring complaints without fear or reprisal by dominant buyers."   Access the report via the link below:   http://www.srfood.org/en http://www.ohchr.org/EN/issues/food/Pages/FoodIndex.aspx http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/LocalAndSmallScaleFarming.aspx Visit the related web page
	People in desperate need of lifesaving assistance are not getting it by MSF/Doctors Without Borders, Alertnet   Working at the frontline of delivering humanitarian aid, we at Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are acutely aware of the limitations and deficiencies of the international aid response to crises. Some good work is taking place, and lives are being saved, but much more can, and should be done, to reach those people most in need.   In 2016 the World Humanitarian Summit will bring together global experts in aid to consider the structure and funding of humanitarian work in the future.   In advance of this important meeting, MSF is publishing Where is everyone?, a report which diagnoses some of the key issues inherent in the international response to humanitarian crises.   The report is the result of an extensive literature review and 136 interviews with humanitarians from the UN, NGO and academic world over the past two years.   Three in-depth case studies from South Sudan, DRC and Jordan are analysed which identify a number of key findings in relation to the performance of the humanitarian system in responding to all three displacement emergencies examined.   The report makes uncomfortable reading for those of us involved in the aid system. It has highlighted areas in our own emergency response which need improving, findings supported by several internal evaluations undertaken of our own work in Maban and Yida recently, executive summaries of which can be found via the links.   It also highlights shortcomings with the response on the side of the humanitarian system as a whole.   Yet we feel it is important to be honest within the sector about the reality of work on the ground in areas and with populations who are difficult to reach but who are in great need.   We intend this paper to start a real discussion with our colleagues in the aid community – within MSF, with other NGOs, with the UN and with donors, to make us all improve how we respond.   "Risk averse" aid system fails those most in need. (Alertnet)   In a critical report, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)/ Doctors Without Borders says a number of U.N. agencies and international aid groups are often absent from the field in emergencies, especially when there are significant security or logistical problems.   Many agencies often focus on the people who are easiest to reach and ignore the more difficult places, MSF International President Joanne Liu said in the foreword to the report.   "people in desperate need of lifesaving assistance are not getting it – because of the internal failings of humanitarian aid system".   In conflict situations like the crisis in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, Liu said persistent problems remained with the scale-up of the U.N. and international aid groups response, which was "characterised by bureaucracy and risk aversion".   The report, Where is everyone?, follows research into three major displacement emergencies - South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Jordan which is hosting many Syrian refugees.   It said the United Nations funding systems in particular were slow, cumbersome and not well suited to emergency situations.   But it said some aid groups also appeared to lack technical capacities in some cases in areas such as health, water and sanitation, and assistance to victims of sexual violence.   For example, it said the provision of water and sanitation at refugee camps in South Sudan’s Maban county was totally inadequate to meet the needs of tens of thousands of Sudanese who sought shelter there in 2012, contributing to catastrophic mortality rates.   In DRC, MSF said very few agencies were able to provide medical services during emergencies in eastern North Kivu province which has been wracked by violence. Aid agencies seemed to have stopped the practice of negotiating access with all armed actors, limiting their presence to zones patrolled by U.N. troops, it added.   Assistance to people uprooted by fighting in North Kivu was also overwhelmingly concentrated on the 14 percent living in recognised camps. The vast majority of displaced people generally received no help. And camps closest to the regional capital Goma received more help than those in the worse-affected periphery.   In Jordan, humanitarian agencies have also focused attention on the most easy to reach Syrian refugees – those living in the colossal Zaatari camp near the border. Aid agencies have not done enough to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Jordan’s cities, where many live in destitution.   MSF said that in the worst emergencies, when help was most needed, international staff were often rapidly evacuated and programmes were downgraded to skeleton staff or were suspended.   Many humanitarian groups now worked at arm’s length through local non-government organisations or government authorities, acting more as technical experts, intermediaries or donors.   The report highlighted the huge burden placed on local organisations, but said they often lacked the skills to conduct difficult operations. It can also be hard for local organisations to be seen as impartial if they are operating in areas affected by conflict.   MSF stressed it did not exempt itself from the criticism it leveled at others and hoped the report would open up debate ahead of a World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 when experts will consider the structure and funding of future humanitarian work.   U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards said it was reviewing MSF’s criticism, adding: “Anyone who has been in a full-blown humanitarian emergency will know that they can indeed be chaotic and dangerous, especially in the initial phase".   http://www.msf.org.uk/msf-report-where-everyone-responding-emergencies-most-difficult-places http://www.worldhumanitariansummit.org/ http://phap.org/consultations Visit the related web page
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