Proposal Paper for the 21 century: People’s Right to Feed Themselves and Achieve Food Sovereignty

Completed August 28, 2001, this document summarizes the proposals worked out by the APM networks in fields as various as nutrition, land reforms, international trade, sustainable agriculture, GMOs and land management.

August 2001

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In other languages : Español - français

Summary :

Half the world’s population suffers from some form of malnutrition, and the nutritional situation is growing worse for the poorest. The central question is no longer a matter of resolving technical problems to increase overall production. It is a more complex problem of access to adequate food, which includes issues of sharing and managing land, sanitary and nutritional quality, respect of nutrition customs and cultures, etc. The present liberalization policies are destroying culturally diversified forms of food. Solving these problems requires entering into a new process that deals with and manages these complex issues and involves everyone.

The APM Global Network has gained extensive experience and analytical capacity for ten years. This is the basis used to establish the following objectives, all associated with concrete proposals:

- establishing the « right to food and to nutritional and dietary well-being » mentioned in several internationally ratified documents

- implementing public policies on food security

- access to means of production and to natural resources and their management

- building sustainable food systems

- rejection of patents on living organisms

- a world without agricultural GMOs

- regulating international trade for people’s food sovereignty and security