“I am not optimistic about the prospects of reducing hunger in the world until you bring the farmers into the conversation.”

With these words Jack Wilkinson, a farmer from northern Ontario and president of the International Federation of Agriculture, brought the first full day session to a close. The massive plenary hall erupted in applause.

I am forever amazed at the way in which we, as a world community, come together to talk. In a time where violence continues to be used as a mechanism to resolve “problems” our ability to sit down around a table together should not be taken for granted. At the United Nations, this dialogue is almost always between, and among country delegations. In the case of the meetings this week, these delegations are largely made up of civil servants. Our Canadian delegation is made up of officials from the federal departments of Agriculture, Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency. Not a single elected world leader was in attendance.

However, despite the absence of the elected officials, some very positive changes in process emerged at the meetings today. For the first time the table was broadened, and some chairs were brought around to allow international non-governmental organizations, indigenous peoples, farmers’ organizations and social movements from around the world to fully participate in the sessions. This is interesting because these are the people with dirt under their fingernails and who are closest to the real work of ending hunger. They are the small-scale farmers who are growing the food and whose livelihoods are directly linked to the discussions. They are also the people involved in creating spaces for farmers to learn from one another, as well as the citizens who are challenging their governments to create policies that support sustainable food systems that ensure all people can realize their human right to food. In their statement from the floor, Switzerland used a part of their 5 minutes at the microphone to commend the organizers for including civil society in the conversation.

Like an extended dinner table, the conversation is more vibrant and interesting when there is a diversity of voices. Despite a chairperson who struggled to include all of the voices, and the resulting brief walkout of a frustrated group of small-scale farmers representing La Via Campesina, the roots of a real conversation are growing. It will take great care to ensure it continues.

After a long wait Henry Saragalin, and Indonesian farmer and member of Via Campesina addresses the assembly

It is a fascinating dynamic that is unfolding. When faced with the rising number of hungry people, elected leaders seem to have pulled back from the task at hand, and civil society has stepped forward to engage in the dialogue about solutions on an equal footing. The emerging common ground from all who are gathered here today is that people and governments need to engage more seriously in the work of creating policies around food and agriculture that will allow everyone to have enough to eat. Strangely, governments have not shown a great interest, or capacity to engage their citizens in this kind of dialogue. While I am excited to see a broader range of voices participating in these meetings, I am left troubled by the disappearing voice of elected governments. It appears that there is space opening for organizations like the Canadian Foodgrains Bank to engage Canadians in challenging our government to take a more active role. In fact, we have already started.

Check the Food Justice page for more information on how you can participate in ending hunger.

Kenton Lobe

Go back almost half a century – in 1961 the member governments of the United Nations talked of there being no child going to bed hungry within 10 years. Ten years ago, at the World Food Summit, the talk was of ‘halving the number’ of hungry people in 20 years – one in two hungry children would have to stay that way in 2015. The UN has now announced that based on the current trend, we will be lucky if one hungry child in four will go to bed no longer hungry. The longer we wait, the more distant the goal becomes.

It does not have be this way!! It could have been different with a little effort – keeping promises made for development aid, setting trade rules that really help poor people to feed themselves, providing debt relief for governments to reduce poverty in their own countries, encouraging developing countries to adopt policies to promote agriculture and rural development. Canada promised 0.7% of our national income for relief and development aid, reached 0.5% in 1990 and has now backtracked to 0.3%. Our government has betrayed Canadians’ interest to help those hungry children.

Our government will work hard to avoid the shame of this failure. They are sending only a low level delegation to this 10th anniversary of the World Food Summit. Perhaps the calculation of Canadian politics considers that ‘no one will notice’. For those of you who want speak out, this is a time to be heard. This miserable result is a shame for all countries but we must start with our own.

Some actions you can take:

1. Letter to Your Newspaper – write a letter to the editor your local newspaper speaking of our government’s broken promise. We have included some key facts that you can use in the box above. Delivery it either Wednesday or Thursday and you are more likely to make it into the Saturday paper when people have more time to read.
2. Call your Member of Parliament – ask your MP to raise the question in Parliament as to why the Canadian government has walked away from its promises to the hungry of the world. You can find their contact details here.

Some quick messages that you may want to include:

• Canada joined 190 other countries in promising to reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015. The Canadian government developed an Action Plan to achieve Canada’s part but the plan was never implemented.
• Canadian Aid for agricultural and rural development, a vital part of reducing hunger, was reduced drastically during the 1990s and has only begun to increase over the past two years. Further increases will make a difference but they will take time to take effect and that time is running out and will need to be support the small farmers that often make up 65-75 % of developing country populations.
• Canadian food aid, the first response to acute hunger crises, has been cut back steadily over the past decade from 400,000 tonnes in 1996 to 200,000 tonnes in 2004.
• Canada has worked at the World Trade Organization to whittle down any developing country proposals to trade rules that favour their small farmers and the critical role they play in building local food security.

Stuart Clark