A/HRC/13/32
land reform returned to the international agenda in 1996 (see A/57/356). In the Rome
Declaration on World Food Security and World Food Summit Plan of Action, land reform
constituted a key part of stated commitments.27 In the declaration of the International
Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development organized by FAO and the
Government of Brazil in March 2006, 95 States recognized that one important way to
ensure the fulfilment of the right to food was to establish appropriate land reform to secure
access to land for marginalized and vulnerable groups, and to adopt adequate legal
frameworks and policies to promote traditional and family agriculture.28
47.
Land reforms in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan Province of China, China and
Cuba have had a significant impact on reducing poverty and hunger and increasing
economic growth (see A/HRC/7/5/Add.3). In India, the states with the steepest declines in
poverty from 1958 to 1992 were those that implemented land reform (see
E/CN.4/2006/44/Add.2). In general, based on the evidence of agrarian reforms instituted in
more than 60 countries since the end of the Second World War, land reform has worked
when reforms have been genuinely transformative and redistributive, when quality land has
really been distributed to the landless and poor peasants and when rural power structures
have been broken. More recently, the move towards transformative and redistributive
agrarian reform has been successfully chosen by the Government of Bolivia (see
A/HRC/7/5/Add.2).
B.
Promotion of different forms of cooperation and association; vertical
and horizontal networks between producers and consumers
48.
To address the ever increasing inequalities caused by the current world trading
system, civil society organizations are promoting new forms of cooperation and association,
vertical and horizontal networks between producers and consumers. The most important
movement in this field is the movement for food sovereignty.
49.
The concept of food sovereignty has been created by La Via Campesina in 1996, in
response to the trade liberalization of agriculture. Since 1996, the concept has gained
support in both rural and urban communities, in the south and in the north. During the
World Forum on Food Sovereignty, held in March 2007 in Nyéléni, Mali, more than 500
representatives of organizations of peasants/family farmers, artisanal fisher folk, indigenous
peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women,
youth, consumers, environmental and urban movements from more than 80 countries
adopted the Declaration of Nyéléni, in which they defined food sovereignty as:
The right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through
ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food
and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at
the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and
corporations. (…) Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and
markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption
based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty
promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights
of consumers to control their food and nutrition.
27
28
FAO, Report of the World Food Summit, 13-17 November 1996, WFS 96/REP.
FAO, C/2006/REP, appendix G.
13
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