The street outside the FAO was transformed into a farmers market today. It is not the usual site for a market, but was set up as a simple message to those attending the sessions on World Food Security. The message has two parts: the first is that farmers must be at the center of discussions about food security; the second is that food should first and foremost be produced for local markets and only then focus on international exports.

As I walked through the stalls of the market I felt like I might be back in Winnipeg. I found myself looking for local specialties and walked out with some incredible parmesan cheese and a bottle of olive oil. Both were purchased directly from the farmer. Since starting work on Food Justice at the Foodgrains Bank three years, I have found that connecting to those who grow my food is a really good way of understanding my own place in the increasingly complex global food system. I must admit that I am too often disoriented by the choice between the average 40 thousand items found in our supermarkets, and the policy conversations like those that are happening in Rome this week – it is so complex… I find that simply connecting to a farmer at the local market is a way of grounding the other, more disorienting, experiences that I have with food.

I tell you all this because I spent the day working with a group of NGOs and farmers organizations who are trying to get “more” international support for small-scale farmers and rural livelihoods in the South. Aid for agriculture, in the context of the total amounts of Official Development Assistance (ODA), was around 20% until the 1980s. Currently, it is somewhere less than 10%. With upwards of 70% of the population in developing countries living in rural areas, the importance of a focus on farmers and agriculture – those who grow food - cannot be overstated. Funding for projects that help to enhance their soils, provide spaces for them to gather and learn from one another, create local markets, and sustainably manage their land are crucial. There is an emerging sense that increasing the amount of aid for agriculture is now being talked about by many organizations at the national and international level, so perhaps the first goal of the More and Better campaign is at hand. We won’t be celebrating just yet.

Most participants in today’s session said that regardless of the amount of aid that is coming, there is an urgent need to focus on what “better” aid for agriculture looks like. What kind of agriculture are we talking about? The farmers that are gathered here in Rome are clear that they want to make this choice. As projects are proposed to development organizations like the Foodgrains Bank, how ought we to assess the kinds of agricultural work we undertake with partners in the South? To help organizations answer all of these questions, participants of the More and Better campaign agreed to the following list of principles for “better” agriculture.

Better aid for agriculture should:

1. Support the programs and policies developed by the recipient communities and countries
2. Work with local communities and social organizations
3. Build on local culture and knowledge
4. Promote diversity
5. Embody a culture of participation
6. Recognize that gender is a central issue
7. Support social, economic and ecological sustainability

If it surprises you that these principles do not form the basis for all agricultural development projects around the world, I invite you to take a look at a paper where I have been exploring the questions of aid for agriculture in the context of soil fertility in sub-Saharan Africa.

“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