Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators. Developing new tools for new agricultures Miquel Ortega-Cerdà and Marta G. Rivera-Ferre miquel. ortega@uab. cat , martaguadalupe. rivera@uab. es

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?

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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 situations The “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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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 decisionmaking process: rational model, discursive model, strategic model, . . .

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? “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”.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators What food sovereignty is? 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Methodology Pyramidal structure with three levels: 5 categories (the previously explain 5 Food Sovereignty main themes), 35 sub-categories and 128 indicators

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Methodology Selection of sources of information Creation of the international committee 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 Results dissemination International commitee Review of existing indicators International committee Akylbek Kumala. La Vía Campesina Asia Beatriz Gascó Verdier. The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Bello Mamadou. La Vía Campesina África Fausto Torres. La Vía Campesina Centro América Fernando Fernández. La Via Campesina Europa Ferrán García. Veterinarios sin Fronteras Xavier Such. UAB Peter Rosset. Centro de Estudios para el cambio en el campo Mexicano (CECCAM) Shalmali Guttal. Focus on the global South Tarcila Rivera. La Vía Campesina América del Sur.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators 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

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results Pyramidal structure with three levels: 5 categories (the previously explain 5 Food Sovereignty themes), 35 sub-categories and 128 indicators

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results CATEGORIES Access to resources Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption Agricultural policies SUB-CATEGORIES ACCESS TO RESOURCES Infraestructures and basic services Seeds Land Industrial equipment Financial services Water and water systems Social Capital Marine resources Animals Forestry resources

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results CATEGORIES Access to resources Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption Agricultural policies SUB-CATEGORIES OF PRODUCTION MODEL Population and employment Agricultural inputs Production diversification and agricultural biodiversity Economic characteristics Emissions and degradation of the natural basis of production Land use Sustainable and agro ecological production

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results CATEGORIES Access to resources Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption Agricultural policies SUB-CATEGORIES OF TRANSFORMATION AND TRADE International trade Production and manufacturing Agricultural producers price Role at the global agricultural market Final distribution structure The priority of production for local consumption. The concentration of power and market share in few corporations for some key food-chain products and processes.

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results CATEGORIES Access to resources Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption Agricultural policies SUB-CATEGORIES OF FOOD CONSUMPTION Food vulnerability Food consumption and nutritional quality Dietary composition Food effort Foreign dependence in food consumption Culturally appropriated food system Initiative Food Security Statistics

Design and implementation of international food sovereignty indicators Results CATEGORIES Access to resources Production model Transformation and trade Food consumption Agricultural policies SUB-CATEGORÍES AGRICULTURAL POLICIES Government spending distribution of Government spending agricultural spending Official Development Participation of producers in the agricultural Assistance to agriculture and trade decision-making process Tariffs in international trade of Agricultural products Peasant’s migrations and violations of human rights related with peasants The producers’ social organization

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.

Thanks for you attention! Miquel Ortega-Cerdà miquel. ortega@uab. cat 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)”. Utrecht, 07 July 2009.