THE world's food systems have been failing people for the longest time. Yet, the United Nations (UN) is doing everything to perpetuate the crisis.
A classic example of its failure is the UN Food Systems Summit (UN FSS) that was held on Sept 23. Instead of helping put food on the table of the two billion going hungry, the UN FSS seeks to enrich greedy corporations.
Here is why the UN is so wrong. Start with the World Economic Forum (WEF), a club of the richest one per cent of the world.
In June 2019, the UN signed an agreement with the WEF telling the world that the collaboration would hasten its 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
The agreement grants transnational corporations "preferential and deferential access to the UN system at the expense of states", as FIAN International, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), put it in an open letter to the UN, echoing the concerns of 550 NGOs and public interest groups. It called the UN FSS a WEF takeover of the UN.
Corporate capture of the UN delegitimises the world body and weakens states' decision-making powers. A world body that surrenders its powers to transnational corporations is a danger to its members.
NGOs aren't the only ones complaining. UN rapporteurs, too, are unhappy. One such is Michael Fakhri, UN special rapporteur on the right to food.
In an op-ed in The Guardian timed to appear on the day of the UN FSS, he said the summit might have taken two years to plan but offered nothing to feed families. Granted corporate influence in the UN isn't a new thing, but what makes the WEF partnership a worrying one is that the UN will forever be beholden to transnational corporations.
Take the case of Africa, a target of multinationals and "philanthropic" organisations, like the Gates Foundation, greedy on "greening" the continent.
African countries are mostly nations of smallholder farmers, but the world's multinationals care little for them. What they are after, as one NGO after another is pointing out, is that the multinationals want to embed themselves in a global food empire.
Think land, seeds, pesticides, fertilisers, technology and markets. Family farmers and small-scale food producers are responsible for 75 per cent of the world's food production, if environmentally sustainable agricultural practices are taken into account. On the contrary, the multinationals that make up the global food empire are drivers of ecological disasters.
According to data published by the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples' Mechanism, an NGO, big corporations destroy 75 billion tonnes of topsoil every year.
Not to mention the millions of hectares of forests they cut down annually. Yet, the UN places its faith in such value destroyers.
Small wonder, an alternative to the UN FSS, the Global People's Summit (GPS), sprang into action to expose the corporate capture of food and agriculture through the UN. And its call to action? "Resist. End the global food empire".
The UN must do better. It can begin by bringing the GPS's concerns to the annual meeting of the UN's Committee on World Food Security (CFS) that begins today.
After all, UN FSS was a creation of the CFS. This time, however, the CFS must put people before profit. Otherwise, it will walk into the same wall.