Prof. Carmen G. Gonzalez Seattle University School of Law 1

 Food Security  Agro-biodiversity  Climate Change 2

 Nearly 800 million people chronically undernourished  2 billion suffer from micronutrient deficiency  26 percent of world’s children stunted due to undernourishment 3

 80 % are small farmers in rural areas of global South  Small farmers grow at least 70 % of world’s food  Women, children, and indigenous peoples disproportionately represented in the ranks of the rural poor 4

 Small number of crops: 12 crops supply 80% of the world’s dietary energy from plants  Narrow genetic base: monocultures have supplanted traditional varieties 5

 Greater resistance to pests, disease, adverse weather events  Source of germplasm to develop new crop varieties  Future sources of food and medicine  More varied and nutritious diets  Climate change adaptation 6

 Increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events  Decline in agricultural yields  Decline in productivity of fisheries  Additional pressure on scarce water resources  Tropical and subtropical regions most affected 7

 Direct emissions: 11-15% global GHGs  Changes in land use: 15-18% global GHGs  Processing, transport, packaging, retail: % global GHGs  Waste: 5 % global GHGs TOTAL: 40-51% global GHGs (excludes emissions from production of fossil fuels to make pesticides & fertilizers and power machinery) 8

 Integrates natural pest, nutrient, soil & water management  Minimizes synthetic pesticides & fertilizers  Enhances and conserves agrobiodiversity, including plant genetic resources, livestock, insects and soil organisms  Uses traditional knowledge and modern science to reduce dependence on external inputs 9

 Reduces fossil-fuel based GHG emissions  Restores degraded soils – enhances productivity & carbon sequestration 10

 Increases soil’s water retention capacity – enhances resilience to floods & droughts  Crop diversity enhances resistance to pests, disease and extreme weather events  Promotes food security  Preserves traditional knowledge  Adopts scientific innovations 11

 Food insecurity due to poverty, not food scarcity  Food insecurity is primarily rural phenomenon  Some of the most food insecure countries are net agricultural exporters 12

 Northern agricultural subsidies, overproduction, export of “cheap” food  IMF/World Bank structural adjustment policies  Food production dropped; dependence on food imports increased  price shocks – food riots 13

 WTO AoA failed to curb Northern subsidies  IMF/World Bank & regional and bilateral trade agreements required lowering of tariffs  Redirection of agricultural production to foreign markets increased market power of TNCs 14

 Speculative investment in agricultural commodities  Biofuels boom  Land grabs in global South: TNCs, Northern investors, middle-income Southern states 15

 Dispossession of small farmers  Interference with food production  Diversion, contamination, depletion of water supplies 16

 Private contract between the host state and the foreign investor – stabilization clause  Bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between the host state and the home state to provide additional protection to the foreign investor 17

 UDHR, ICESCR, ICCPR  Respect: prevent dumping of cheap food and dispossession through land grabbing  Protect: regulate private actors  Fulfill: meet food needs directly 18

 Respect – make sure trade & investment agreements and domestic laws and policies (e.g. biofuels mandates) do not violate right to food in other countries  Protect – regulate TNCs and exercise voting power at IMF/World Bank to prevent interference with right to food of vulnerable populations in global South  Fulfill – food aid 19

 Reform trade, aid, finance, investment, and environmental policies to promote human rights  Eliminate trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in US and EU  Phase out biofuels mandates & other incentives  Curb speculative trading in agricultural commodity markets  Moratorium on land grabbing  Anti-competition law 20