Women respond to the Food Crisis: We are part of the solution

During the last months, the whole world has been suffering the crisis in food price. According to recent figures today 1.4 billion persons live under the new poverty line of USD 1.25, and the majority of these are women and girls. Some 850 million persons around the world suffer from hunger and 820 of those 850 million live in developing countries, areas that are likely to be more affected by climate change. These figures are linked to the rise in food price because world provision of cereals in 2007 was 420 million tons, a historical minimum since 1983. According to an OECD report, a third of the rise in agriculture prices foreseen for the next nine years is caused by biofuels.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, more than 50 million people still haven’t got access to adequate food. Child malnutrition, with is negative biological, social and economic effects, is currently affecting more than 9 million children and the achievements in the fight against poverty and indigence are in risk due to lack of food. The problem of poverty and hunger in the region is related to worth wealth distribution and land concentration in the world. This results from the neoliberal economic policies of extreme privatization and reduction of national investment imposed by the international financial institutions This situation has had more relevance in Haiti, Argentina, Peru and Mexico and the UN agencies in the region foresee a 5% rise in food prices that will increase indigence in almost one point.

According to FAO, “Latin America and the Caribbean have a 31% surplus in food resources. The region’s problem of hunger is therefore not one of production but, rather, one of access to food” . Beyond economic trends, climatic or protectionist factors that have an important impact on the current crisis, the main problem of this food crisis is the lack of access to land and properties and consequently to food, particularly among rural and indigenous women and household heads.

This situation is worsened when neutral policies are implemented that underestimate and ignore the role and contribution of rural and indigenous women in food production and through development strategies that have no gender perspective, with a negative impact on women’s living conditions and their possibilities of contributing to food production and rural, local and regional development
Food crisis and the rise of prices can bring unpredictable political consequences. If prices continue rising, 10 million more people are in risk of becoming poor and a similar number of poor people could increase.

In view of this situation, we, peasant organizations, and organizations of rural and indigenous women, feminists organizations and other women’s networks concerned with overcoming poverty and reaching gender equality report that the current food crisis is the result of the failure of the structural and macroeconomic policies implemented during the last 30 years under the leadership of the international financial institutions (IMF, WB, IDB and the WTO). In Latin America and the Caribbean these policies have in brief:

• reduced the policy space of developing countries to define their own development and rural strategies;
• Promoted the exportation of national and local agriculture production without considering the need to cover the national demand first.
• Promoted free trade agreements in unequal basis for developing countries, that raised vulnerabilities of several sectors and social groups, with clear negative effects in rural women in several countries.
• Supported financial speculation on food and a state that has no longer the role as controller of imports and exports.
• Have promoted the massive production of agro-fuels.
• Have ignored the role in promoting agricultural adapatation and of land property of the peasant an rural communities where the role of women is key.
• Have prioritized the servicing of the foreing debt in detriment of public domestic investment with a gender perspective in the national agricultural sector.
• Promoted national poverty reduction strategies without considering inequality differences and discriminations.
• Promoted the reduction of the role of the state in all policies, particularly in rural development and market regulation, but also in social policies.

Through the above-mentioned actions they have contributed to worsening the difficult living conditions of millions of peasants, and, particularly, for the most vulnerable groups: women, indigenous women and boys and girls.

The immediate solution to this crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean can be developed through short and medium term actions, we cannot let the solution for the long term because it will be too late.

We call for the following urgent actions in the short term:

• Establishment of national agricultural policies with a gender perspective and with a significant budget as part of a broader programme of national investment, prepared with the participation of all stakeholders.
• Development of policies and strategies with gender perspective that take into consideration the role, responsibilities and rights of men, women, according to age and ethnicity.
• Immediate implementation of support programmes and economic subsidies, in the countries of the region, addressing the poorest sectors of the population, including school lunch programmes, delivery of food packages, particularly for women who are household heads, employment programmes.
• Implementation of the process of land reform and actions to overcome legal and economic obstacles so that women can have access to resources and benefits such as access to land, water, credit and all the inputs for basic production.
• Development of flexible micro-financing programmes that respond to debts contracted by indigenous and rural women.
• Development and support of programmes and actions based on traditional knowledge, particularly in what refers to conservation and exchange of native seeds.
• Developed countries must reach their commitment to allocate 0.7% of their GDP in Official Development Aid (ODA) and make explicit work plans to achieve this commitment; and moreover they should commit to reach 10% of ODA for gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2010 and 20% by 2015, setting out in the action plan of donors, recipient countries and the DAC strategies for reaching the target, monitoring performance and evaluating impact.
• The international community must commit to advance in the gaps of MDG8 and its negative effects in poverty, inequality, and the current financial, food, energetic and climate change crisis that particularly affect women.

We call for the following actions in the medium term:

• Promote studies and analysis to visualize the impact of food crisis and the strategies for sustainable livelihoods for rural, urban poor and indigenous women.
• Support investment in family agriculture and improve markets, promoting the fair trade approach to enable the marketization of women smallholders’ products.
• Eliminate export barriers with the objective of encouraging small farmers to increase their cropping areas.
• Review the criteria for aid allocation and debt relief, including the inequality dimension and considering the particularities of middle income countries, where women confront the multiplier effect of inequalities and discrimination.

Signatures (as of September 19, 2008)

Action Aid
AWID
Feminist Task Force, GCAP
Gender and Education Office (GEO) from ICAE
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For any questions and to add your signature, please write to ana@icae.org.uy

Please note: Action Aid will hand in the declaration (today) to the High-level Event on the Millennium Development Goals at UN Headquarters (taking place in New York, September 25, 2008) convened by the UN Secretary-General and the President of the UN General Assembly. However you can still sign the declaration.

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