Right to Food – Tread Softly

“The fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger” is established in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the branch of international law inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Right to Food as policy – explained by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization

A rights-based approach to food security imposes obligations on national governments to establish non-discriminatory and non-political laws to ensure that their populations have access to adequate food. Strategies to assist governments to eradicate hunger and malnutrition are set out in the Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems and Nutrition, formally approved by the Committee on Food Security in 2021.

Politicians are themselves aware that a citizen who is unable to feed the household may be provoked into direct action. This sensitivity was demonstrated when the FAO Cereal Price Index doubled in the year to April 2008. Food riots in 23 developing countries prompted a global crisis, culminating in the organisation of the 2009 World Summit on Food Security.

Food Riots and Food Rights A research project explores how failure to respect the right to food is one aspect of global inequality that provokes riots.
from Institute of Development Studies

The FAO reports that over 100 countries include either a direct or implied reference to the right to food in their constitutions. Poverty reduction in many Latin American countries has been attributed to political commitment to the right to food. India’s Right to Food Act, passed into law in 2013, represents a significant milestone in the drive towards eradication of global hunger.

Further potential progress was embedded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved at the UN General Assembly in 2015. In the preamble, world leaders stated that: “we resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere.”

However, the latest global hunger count of 690 million demonstrates that the gap between such ideals and reality remains too wide. Campaigners continue to remind world leaders that food security is a right for which governments are accountable, rather than a gift of charity to the poor.

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more Food Security briefings (updated March 2021)
Food Security Definition and Global Divide
Sustainable Development Goal for Food
Causes of Food Insecurity
Governance of Food Security
Solutions to Food Insecurity
Source material and useful links

Recent news and opinion about Food Security

Rice export bans are a food crisis risk for Asia

19/9/2023: Global rice prices have risen to a 12-year high since India, the world’s largest rice exporter, embarked on a policy of reducing exports. Across Asia, nations are attempting to control the cereal grain’s prices, sowing the seeds of a potential food crisis

Source: CNA

A plea for a UN summit on the global food crisis

25/8/2023: Launched by Hungry for Action, a coalition of civil society organizations is calling for an emergency meeting of world leaders to address the global food crisis during the UN General Assembly next month. The campaign argues that a combination of conflict, climate change, rising food prices and punishing debt burdens has led to 735 million people going hungry, 122 million more than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Inter Press Service

Does India’s rice market disruption threaten food security?

20/8/2023: The general election in India scheduled for the spring of 2024 has politicians’ eyes focused on stabilising staple food prices, a probable explanation of the rice export ban in July. It is uncertain if India, the current G20 chair, can provide leadership on calming an increasingly turbulent world food economy.

Source: East Asia Forum

We need a new recipe to combat hunger

7/8/2023: The UN has reported that 122 million more people are going hungry than in 2019, erasing years of progress. It’s time to admit that the industrial food system is starving people. Half the calories consumed around the world come from just three staple crops, shipped around the world by a handful of powerful trading firms. This is profitable, but it is not robust.

Source: Inter Press Service

Rice market in turmoil as India curtails exports

6/8/2023: Rice prices have soared to the highest in a decade as India limits exports and erratic weather wreaks havoc on Asian rice fields. This is likely to worsen food insecurity in many countries that rely on rice as a staple. Last year, India exported about 22 million tons of rice to 140 countries, comprising roughly 40% of the global cereal trade.

Source: DW

UN Security Council: Food insecurity tops agenda

3/8/2023: A draft communique presented by the US Secretary of State calls on the UN Security Council to "take action to end the use of food as a weapon of war." The collapse of the Black Sea grain deal poses a serious threat to the food security of many lower-income countries already grappling with hunger and economic crises.

Source: DW

How to mend the world’s broken food systems

24/7/2023: The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit launched a global drive to transform the way humanity grows, processes and transports food. Prior to the second summit, a senior official from the UN Environment Programme discusses mounting concerns about the planet’s long-term ability to feed a fast-growing human population.

Source: UN Environment Programme

How will the end of the Ukraine grain deal hurt Africa?

19/7/2023: Russia has quit a deal that allows the safe passage of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Could this move exacerbate the hunger crisis in parts of Africa, a major wheat importer?

Source: DW

SDG hunger goal slumps further behind 2030 target

12/7/2023: The UN flagship global food security report has found that in 2022 between 691 million and 783 million people were hungry, 122 million more than in 2019 before the pandemic. The world is being pushed further away from meeting the UN's near hopeless goal to eliminate hunger by 2030.

Source: Devex

One year of the Black Sea Initiative: key facts

10/7/2023: For almost a year, the UN-brokered Black Sea Initiative agreed by Russia, Türkiye, and Ukraine has allowed millions of tonnes of grain to leave Ukraine’s ports. The Initiative has helped reverse spiking global food prices, which reached record highs shortly before the agreement was signed.

Source: UN News

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