These activities will start on October 8th before the plenary session of the Committee on World Food Security of the FAO which will take place from October 11-16.

There, representatives of the international grassroots movement La Via Campesina will be present together with other civil society organizations to demand “real solutions for the worldwide permanent food crisis, as well as concrete measures to tackle the problems of speculation with food commodities and land-grabbing”, according to a statement issued by the peasant movement.

Social movements and organizations will discuss at the Forum of Civil Society Organizations the proposals which will be then submitted to the governments. They said that with the reform of the Committee on World Food Security the civil society is more permanently consulted but they warn that the full participation of small-scale producers is not yet guaranteed.

“At this moment our food policies are controlled by the views of rich donor countries, undemocratic institutions such as the World Bank and agro-multinationals with exorbitant lobby budgets” La Via Campesina states.

The peasant movement also pointed out that financial speculation and land grabbing should be prevented by the Committee, and new mechanisms to regulate agricultural markets should be adopted.

“The Committee can become a space for the implementation of food sovereignty, but should address real solutions and listen to small farmers’ voices and not provide legitimacy to processes pushed by a corporate-driven search for benefits” La Via Campesina concludes.

Photo: http://www.blogto.com/author/joshua/