Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators. Developing new tools for new agricultures Miquel Ortega-Cerdà and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre

Design and implementation of international food

sovereignty indicators. Developing new tools for

new agriculturesMiquel Ortega-Cerdà

and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre

[email protected] , [email protected]

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators. Developing new tools for new agricultures

Index Introduction Why we are working on indicators? Objectives What food sovereignty is? Methodology Preliminary results Conclusions

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators

Introduction In last decades, the agri-food system has

suffered different types of crisis (social, environmental and sanitarian). Sharp increase of international prices of main

agricultural products (2006-2008). It had it peak in July 2008. FAO = 850 million hungry people

Economic crisis + still high prices in poor countries = 1020 million people hungry. FAO, June 2009.

How can we fulfil the right to food?


Introduction The “clasical” solution:

More technological industrialization of agriculture Less public intervention More international trade The creation of humanitarian food networks during

the worst food crisis situationsThe “European” perspective:

Multifunctionality: the recognition of environmental and social functions of agriculture

Environmental conditionality, etc.

Food sovereignty Botton-up approach suggested by small and

medium producers. Less academic and institutional research support


Introduction. Why indicators?

All kind of political positions need: Analysis, communication and evaluation tools to

support their proposals Legitimacy at the political level

•Indicators are usefull!!Their function and characteristics may depend on conceptual framework adopted to analyze the decision-making process: rational model, discursive model, strategic model,...


Main objectives

Develop an international panel of indicators coherent with the Food Sovereignty discourse that can be used as a reinforcement tool for this political proposal at the international level

Detect some of the problems in the food and agriculture panels of indicators used by the main multilateral institutions in order to properly analyze Food Sovereignty main conceptual issues.


What food sovereignty is?

Historically:

A concept introduced by La Vía Campesina. Publically formulated for the first time in 1996

during the World Food Summit in Rome


La Via Campesina

“International movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers that defend the values and the basic interests of its members.”

Autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation.

Their members are from 56 countries from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas and represent more than 200 million producers.

It is the most important active organization of small and medium-size agricultural producers at the international level



“Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies”.



Five key themes:

Resource Access Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption and right to food Agricultural policies and Civil Society Organization

+ gender and indigenous rights



Resource Access:

Ensure that small and medium-size producers have enough access and control to basic natural and social resources.

It includes proposals in relation with land, seeds, financial services, water, fertilizers, public services, etc.

The resource access and management proposals include sustainability, indigenous rights and gender perspective as transversals axis of work.



Production model:

Food Sovereignty tries to increase local and familiar production.

It proposes a diversified production model trying to develop the local and traditional knowledge’s.

The production systems must be sustainable and culturally appropriated to their unique circumstances.

It supports endogenous development processes and the right to produce food.



Transformation and trade:

Food Sovereignty defends the right of farmers, agricultural workers without land, fishermen, shepherds, and indigenous people to sell their food product to feed local population.

This requires protecting and regulating the national agricultural and livestock production, to shield the domestic market from the dumping of agricultural surpluses and low-price imports from other countries, and to promote as much direct distribution from producers to consumers as possible.



Food consumption and right to food:

Food Sovereignty defends the right of citizens to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriated food.

This food should be produced by local producers with agroecological techniques.



Agricultural policies and civil society organization:

Food Sovereignty defends that the producer has the right to know, participate and influence in the public policies related with the Food Production and Consumption.


Methodology

Pyramidal structure with three levels: 5 categories (the previously explain 5 Food Sovereignty main themes), 35 sub-categories and 128 indicators


Methodology

Selection of sources of information

Review of existing indicators

Creation of subcategories using indicators a bottom-up approach

Identification and definition of new sub-catogories using a discourse

analysis of La Vía Campesina

Final selection of indicators for each subcategory

Creation of the international committee

Results dissemination

Akylbek Kumala. La Vía Campesina AsiaBeatriz Gascó Verdier. The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC)Bello Mamadou. La Vía Campesina ÁfricaFausto Torres. La Vía Campesina Centro AméricaFernando Fernández. La Via Campesina EuropaFerrán García. Veterinarios sin FronterasXavier Such. UABPeter Rosset. Centro de Estudios para el cambio en el campo Mexicano (CECCAM)Shalmali Guttal. Focus on the global SouthTarcila Rivera. La Vía Campesina América del Sur.

International committee


Methodology

Sources of information: Institutions, agencies and programs related with the United Nations: UNEP,

FAO, UNDP, etc. Some of the analyzed databases are: FAOSTAT – including the FAOSTAT sub-database family and the databases available from the FAOSTAT website, UNDATA, Millennium Indicators, World Development Indicators, etc.

World Bank Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) World Trade Organization See Around Us World Resource Institute Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) Etc..


Methodology

Some of the used criteria for selecting indicators:

Accuracy and relevance for the Food Sovereignty discourse. Preference for the indicators used and published by multilateral

institutions. Preference for the indicators calculated for several countries. Preference for the indicators with long time series data.

More than 350 groups of indicators have been analyzed


Methodology

International committee selection criteria:

Knowledge and experience in the Food Sovereignty promotion at the international level.

Regional diversity. Members from the five regions were La Vía Campesina works.

Institutional variety: University, NGOs, Multilateral organizations, peasants organizations and social movements.

Gender equality: We promoted the participation of both men (6) and women (4).

Sectorial representation: including indigenous people, women and livestock keepers. Unfortunately we could not find on time anyone representing the fisheries sector


Methodology

International committee functions:

Check if all the relevant sources of information are considered by the researchers at stage 1.

Analyze the proposed sub-categories, obtained from the bottom-up approach, and propose, modify or change them in case they consider it is needed.

Make a review of the final proposal of indicators, suggesting changes and including new ones if they consider that this should be done to achieve a comprehensive description of Food Sovereignty discourse.

Ensure the quality of the process and the documents that are generated during the process


Results

Pyramidal structure with three levels: 5 categories (the previously explain 5 Food

Sovereignty themes), 35 sub-categories and 128 indicators


Results

Food Sovereignty

Accessto

resources

Production model

Food consumption and right to

food

Agricultural policies

Infrastructures and basic services

Access to land, forestry and fisheries

Access to animals

Access to Water and water systems

Access to Industrial equipment

Access to seeds

Access to Financial services

Capital stock

Agricultural population and agricultural employment

Land use

Production

Agricultural inputs

Emissions and degradation of the natural basis of production

Economy

Agricultural biodiversity

Sustainable and agro ecological

production

International trade

Production and manufacturing

Agricultural producer prices

Role in the global agricultural market

Local production and distribution

Food vulnerability

Food consumption and nutritional quality

Dietary composition

Food effort

Foreign dependence in the food

consumption

Culturally appropriated

food

Government spending

Government spending distribution

Official Development Assistance to agriculture

Tariffs Agricultural products

Participation of peasants in the agricultural and trade decision-making processes

Peasants social organization

Peasants migrations

and human rights

Transformation and trade

Final distribution

structure

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty

indicators Results

Access to resources

Production model


Food consumptio

n


CATEGORIES

SUB-CATEGORIES ACCESS TO RESOURCES

Infraestructures and basic services

Land

Water and water systems

Animals

Industrial equipment

Social Capital

Seeds

Financial services

Marine resources

Forestry resources


Results

SUB-CATEGORIES OF PRODUCTION MODEL

Population and employment

Economic characteristics

Agricultural inputs

Production

Emissions and degradation of the natural basis of production

Sustainable and agro ecological production

Production diversification and agricultural biodiversity

Access to resources

Production model


Food consumptio

n


CATEGORIES

Land use


Results

SUB-CATEGORIES OF TRANSFORMATION AND TRADE

International trade

Agricultural producers price

Production and manufacturing

Final distribution structure

Access to resources

Production model


Food consumptio

n


CATEGORIES

Role at the global agricultural market

The concentration of power and market share in few corporations for some key food-chain products and processes.

The priority of production for local consumption.


Results

SUB-CATEGORIES OF FOOD CONSUMPTION

Food vulnerability

Dietary composition

Culturally appropriated food system

Food consumption and nutritional quality

Foreign dependence in food consumption

Food effort

Access to resources

Production model


Food consumptio

n


CATEGORIES

Initiative Food Security Statistics


Results

SUB-CATEGORÍES AGRICULTURAL POLICIES

Government spending

Tariffs in international trade of Agricultural

products

Official Development Assistance to agriculture

The producers’ social organization

Government spending distribution of agricultural spending

Peasant’s migrations and violations of human rights related with peasants

Participation of producers in the agricultural and trade decision-making

process

Access to resources

Production model


Food consumptio

n


CATEGORIES

Diseño e implementación de indicadores internacionales de Soberanía Alimentaria-IISA

Conclusions

We are finishing a “Food sovereignty” indicator panel to be used at the international level.

In the process of elaboration we have detected some blanks in the indicators panels used by the most important international institutions. We have also found that there is a need to develop some new indicators –and systems of gathering data to support them – in order to better understand the increasing global dimension of the food system. National perspective alone is not enough.

We have also observed that with the current information is not possible to properly integrate key social information in the currently food-related indicators. In particular, there is not enough information to better capture the gender perspective or the indigenous communities role in the food system, as well as the perspective of the rural youth.

All these aspects are basic to develop Food Sovereignty based policies, so we consider that it is important to develop future initiatives to solve the present limitations.

This paper has been founded by the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development – AECID by the

Project “Búsqueda y análisis de indicadores socioeconómicos internacionales para evaluar el grado de

soberanía alimentaria de un país o región (IISA)”.

.

Thanks for you attention!

Miquel Ortega-Cerdà[email protected]

Utrecht, 07 July 2009

Documents

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators. Developing new tools for new agricultures Miquel Ortega-Cerdà and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre