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Info Service on Sustainable Agriculture Systemic Violence Prevalent in Food Systems Leads to Human Rights Violations The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, has given an account of how different forms of violence in food systems harm people and generate the conditions that lead to human rights violations. His findings include the following: Violence in food systems is systemic and the result of human choices. The four forms of violence are discrimination and inequality; bodily harm or assault against a person痴 physical and mental integrity; ecological violence; and erasure. This systemic violence is intersectional, interconnected and re-enforcing and a cause of structural inequality which makes mass amounts of people more vulnerable to violence. Both violence and inequity are part of a global economy that relies on extractive practices that disrupt people痴 social and ecological relationships, undermine human and environmental health, and lead to widespread human rights violations. To create conditions in which the right to food can be fully realized, all forms of violence across all aspects of food systems must be eliminated. The report gives detailed recommendations to Member States. Among them are to eliminate violence in all its forms in all aspects of food systems, transition away from an economy reliant on relationships of dependency and extractivism towards agroecology, devote their national food pathways to ensuring substantive equality for all people and commit to the right to food and the elimination of hunger, despite armed conflict. The full report is available here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5240-conflict-and-right-food-report-special-rapporteur-right-food With
best wishes, VIOLENCE AND FOOD SYSTEMS The right to food is a fundamental and universal human right. Food must be: AVAILABLE, ACCESSIBLE, ADEQUATE Food systems are rife with violence. This violence is what creates inequality and human rights violations in food systems. The term 吐ood systems・describes all actors and activities involved in the production, storage, aggregation, transport, processing, distribution, marketing, disposal and consumption of food. Violence pervades all aspects of food systems at every level. Working people face unsafe working conditions in factories, farms, and kitchens. They confront harassment and discrimination on a daily basis. Food is increasingly ultra-processed with high levels of salt, sugar, and fat making people less healthy and undernourished. The spread of industrial food production has also led to the spread of monocultural food production, which has had disastrous effects on crop diversity and releases high amounts of greenhouse gases. While the overreliance on fertilizers and herbicides has made the soil more barren; it has also made peasants, workers and rural communities increasingly sick. People continue fighting for and defending their land and territories in the face of land grabs and occupation. Armed conflict is on the rise, leading to a rise of hunger and increased risk of famine. Here are four forms of violence in food systems: Discrimination and inequality People usually go hungry because they are denied access to food. Discrimination by denying people access to food, and to means and entitlements for its procurement, is always an instance of violence. Poverty and social exclusion also undermine people痴 access to food. Bodily harm Violence causing bodily harm not only includes direct harm but also denial of access to food by destroying infrastructure or crippling an economic system. Bodily harm is the most tangible result of violence in food systems, and it creates a climate of fear that denigrates individuals and communities, making them vulnerable to exploitation. Five contexts in which food systems systemically produce bodily harm include: malnutrition; famine; sexual and gender-based violence in food systems; unilateral coercive measures; and armed conflict. Ecological violence Food systems are compromising people痴 relationship with the environment, leading them to disconnect from and destroy the very same ecosystems that sustain them. Global food systems emit approximately one third of the world痴 greenhouse gases. The industrial intensive agriculture and export-oriented food policies lead to the loss of biodiversity at a massive scale. Erasure Destroying ancestral farmland or herding, hunting, fishing and foraging conditions is one of the most common way for people to be erased from their homeland. Erasure occurs in food systems by systematically disregarding people痴 right to self-determination and their very existence. Violating food sovereignty, seed sovereignty, outlawing artisanal forms of hunting and fishing. All of this contributes to the erasure of entire communities and cultures.
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