High Level Forum Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition

Written by Administrator Friday, 18 May 2012 10:10

As part of the CFS programme of reform, the High Level Panel of Experts on food security and nutrition (HLPE) will open their draft reports on key concerns to food security and nutrition to consultation. PCFS is committed to ensuring that the interests of grassroots agricultural organisations and people’s forums are represented in these reports. To this aim, PCFS has made two submissions to recent open consultations hosted by the HLPE.

1. Report on Food Security and Climate Change (Zero Draft)

The Report on Food Security and climate change provided a comprehensive background on the nexus between agriculture, food security and climate change while failing to recognise the structural contributors to climate change.

PCFS calls for more policies to address the major contribution of industrial agric-corporations to climate change and environmental degradation. While the paper recognises the importance of small-scale farmers to agricultural production, it fails to emphasise their greater ecological sustainability over industrial farming practices. PCFS also maintains that small-scale farmers should be put at the heart of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies for effective results.

PCFS also maintains that all climate change projects should not be tied to unstable carbon credit markets.

The full submission on Food Security and Climate Change can be accessed here.

2. Social protection for Food Security (Zero Draft)

The crisis of the global capitalist system in finance, food and climate has placed the world's vulnerable populations in even more difficult times. This situation stresses the need for policies that will address these vulnerabilities under a system that has caused untold suffering and misery for majority of the global population. Social protection systems especially in developing countries are important in supporting people from the external shocks of the vagaries in the market, natural disasters, etal. These should be carefully designed and implemented to ensure support is provided according to the local context and is rights-based. However, PCFS remains concerned that drivers behind social protection mechanisms do not address the roots of poverty and call for complementary transformative policies such as development of domestic productive capacity, land reform, promotion of full employment especially rural livelihoods, and the like.

The full submission on Social Protection and Food Security can be accessed here.