They call it 'food saftey'.

Common Dreams

And a special thanks to the Canuk who opened my eyes to so much R.A.S. Special shout out!

A story of waste and hypocrisy

(As reported by the Daily Mail)


Journalists ask same questions, get same answers:
Times Online
BBC

Charity calls for honesty:
Save the Children

"We also think that while the current food crisis is pushing millions of families to the edge of survival, it is completely unacceptable for these summits to lavish hospitality on their guests. The next major global meeting should take the Chateau Grillet and cavier off the menu. World leaders need to fulfil their promises before they fill their stomachs."

See also Democracy Now! (clip here and programme top left)

In Rome a summit on food where farmers are unwelcome is under way

Farmers bringing message to the Food Crisis Summit in Rome
expelled
"Stop corporate control over food!"
Rome, Italy, 3 June 2008
videos on http://wsftv.net
Farmer and civil society leaders carrying out a peaceful action today in
Rome, Italy at the FAO Summit on the Food Crisis were forcefully removed from
the premises. At around 1:30pm farmers and representatives of civil society
organisations staged an action at the press room to deliver a message that
millions of additional people are joining the ranks of the hungry as the
corporations that control the global food system are making record profits.
The issues of corporate control and speculation, which are leading causes of
recent spikes in food prices, are not being discussed by the government
delegations and the international agencies meeting in Rome to debate solutions
to the crisis.
"We are outraged that such fundamental aspects of the food
crisis were nowhere on the agenda for the Summit," says Paul Nicholson, member
of the International Coordinating Committee of Via Campesina and one of the
farmer leaders who was expelled from the Summit.
The 10 people involved in
the action carried posters contrasting the record profits of agribusiness
corporations during the lastest reporting financial quarter of 2008 with the
estimated 100 million people in the world who now, alongside 800 million or so
others, are hungry because they cannot afford to eat. Profits for Monsanto, the
world's largest seed company, were up 108 per cent, while Cargill and Archer
Daniel Midlands, the world's largest food traders, registered profit increases
of 86 and 42 per cent respectively. Profits for Mosaic, one of the world's
largest fertiliser companies, rose 1,134 per cent.
The action was necessary
to bring to the world's attention that the main causes of the world food crisis
are not being dealt with and that the world's food producers-- the farmers,
fisherfolk, agricultural workers and indigenous people-- have been shut out of
the discussion. In previous high-level FAO events, civil society was given more
space to express its views and to have a dialogue with the delegates. For this
Summit, civil society was blocked from meaningful participation in the
preparation and in the event itself.
"We are concerned that this Summit will
only reinforce corporate control of the food system and lead to a further
destruction of the way of life of indigenous peoples and their survival,"
says Saul Vicente Vasquez of the International Indian Treaty Council and
one of the supporters of the action. "It is time for indigenous people and other
food producers to take charge of food policy."
Those involved in the action
have been meeting with other civil society organisations at the Terra Preta*
civil society forum, parallel to the FAO Summit.
A video of the action and
the suppression of the action will soon be available on http://wsftv.net. During
the action, the security guards seized a banner reading: "Stop corporate control
over food!".
----
For further information about the action, please
contact:
Isabelle Delforge: +39 349 161 0296
Henk Hobbelink: +34 639
329047
*Information about Terra Preta and a statement from the forum can be
found at www.foodsovereignty.org

Via Campesina at the FAO summit in Rome

Via Campesina

FAO opening: Via Campesina farmers to the heads of states: Time to change food policies!
Tuesday, 03 June 2008
Press Release

(Rome, 3 June 2008) Now that the FAO expects that hunger will affect an extra 100 million people by the end of the year, heads of states and leaders from around the world are gathering in Rome for the FAO "High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy".
The international peasant's movement Via Campesina welcomes this sudden high level interest in food and agriculture production, but reminds governments and international institutions that the current climate and food crises are not the result of any sudden natural disaster. They are the fruit of decades of policies of trade « liberalisation » and of the vertical integration of production, processing and distribution by corporate agriculture.
Therefore, governments today have to take full responsibility for the current crisis and take resolute actions to solve it.
Even though they produce food, most family farmers suffer from the current high food prices alongside urban workers. Many of them do not own the land they farm, they produce for export or to pay off they debt, so essentially they work as agricultural labourers.

For decades, countries have been forced to open their markets and import food. They have lost their capacity to feed themselves which has made them excessively dependent on the world market's prices. This has contributed to the recent hunger riots in various parts of the world.

Under the principle of « free trade », food is now considered a commodity like any other, subject to profiteering and financial speculation. The current price hikes are mainly due to speculation by major traders and investors because food production is now competing with agrofuels, which worsen the crisis, as does climate change.

Moreover, governments have dismantled the agrarian policies that sustained food production and instead have supported transnational companies producing seeds, pesticides, fertilisers and food to strengthen their control over the food chain. The development of industrial agriculture has destroyed the environment, overexploited soils and greatly contributed to global warming (generating from 17.4 to 32% of green house gases). Meanwhile, family farmers have been pushed from their land and driven into poverty. Based on that experience, farmers and small food producers are now rejecting the promises of the so called « New Green Revolution » and « miracle » seeds such as GMOs.

Small family farmers and food producers in the Via Campesina deplore the fact that the participation of civil society at the FAO high level conference is being denied. They are telling heads of states today that it is high time for governments to focus on small scale sustainable food production and local markets. This will allow soils to regenerate, conserve fuel and reduce global warming. It will also give jobs to millions of farmers, fisher-folks, pastoralists and all those who are feeding the people of the world.

- Notes to the media

Via Campesina farmers from the following countries are currently available in Rome for interviews: Mexico, Spain, Indonesia, Togo, Mali, USA, Brazil, France, South Korea, Paraguay, Nicaragua and Argentina.
Speakers at the Press Conference in Rome on 3 June, 2008
- Guy Kastler, Confédération Paysanne, Via Campesina
- Boly Faliri CNOP Mali, Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ROPPA)
- Yoon Geum Soon, Korean Women Peasant Association, Via Campesina
Farmers and their allies are staging a symbolic ceremony at the Roman temple of Ceres, the goddess of grains and cultivation. For more information on the myth of Ceres, please see the document in annex.

More information on www.viacampesina.org


Media contacts:

Manu Russo: ++ 39-3490068499
Isabelle Delforge: ++39-3491610296

As FAO and alternative summits held in Rome world leaders attempt to deflect attention from causes of hunger

Democracy Now!

Activists, Farmers Hold Parallel Food Summit in Rome

In Italy, a coalition of activists and small farmers have launched a parallel summit to a meeting of world leaders on the global food crisis. The five-day alternative is called “Rethinking the Food System.” Paul Nicholson of Via Campesina said the food crisis cannot be addressed without evaluating neoliberal policies.

Paul Nicholson: “We are stating that this model of free trade has caused hunger and has caused poverty in the rural world and now also in the cities. The food crisis, the spiraling crisis of food, is a consequence of leaving all food in the hands of the transnationalists.”

The forum will continue over the next five days.

AFP

Smith told reporters it was not right for Mugabe to be at the summit.

"Frankly, I regard that as obscene," he said. "This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people. This is the person who has used food aid in a politically motivated way.

AFP

Rahmanian, who is on the forum's steering committee, told AFP earlier: "It's obscene that the food crisis is being used to push stronger on policies" promoting large-scale agriculture, biofuels and the use of genetically modified organisms and pesticides.
(...)
Meanwhile Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Rome for the FAO summit, on Sunday rejected claims that biofuels made from sugar cane are contributing to the global food crisis.

Some relevant links:

Cenesta (Iran)
Via Campesina
Navadanya
Jean Ziegler (on biofuel)