08/10/2018
A people’s perspective on the most violated right in the world
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A civil society-led report draws attention to the main challenges for the right to food and demonstrates that ‘business as usual’ simply does not work
21/11/2022
As competition to control the world’s water resources increases the 2022 Right to Food and Nutrition Watch calls for global fisheries governance that recognizes small-scale fishers as custodians of water ecosystems and protects their rights from the onslaught of extractive industries and other commercial interests.
08/10/2018
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A civil society-led report draws attention to the main challenges for the right to food and demonstrates that ‘business as usual’ simply does not work
06/10/2018
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The EU, US and other competition authorities are greenlighting more than a quarter trillion US dollars in agribusiness mega-mergers. In last year’s edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, Mariam Mayet and Stephen Greenberg warned that if the current three agribusiness mega-mergers on the table went through, farmers’ sovereignty and the human right to adequate food and nutrition would suffer. At the time of writing (early 2018), it is looking like all three will be approved and the three merged companies (Bayer-Monsanto, Dow-Dupont – now Corteva, and ChemChina-Syngenta) will control two thirds of seed and agrochemical markets, increasing the power of corporations to dictate input prices and farmers’ choices.
06/10/2018
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Food is the largest retail consumption category in India, and food and grocery retail constitute 60-65% of India’s total retail market. The Indian food retail market is the sixth largest in the world and expected to grow to 61 trillion Indian Rupees (INR) (US $ 918 billion) by 2020. With growing urbanization, the expansion of a corporate-dominated private sector, increasing numbers of professionals with changing lifestyles, and the push by the Government of India (GoI) towards digitalization, India is a coveted market for corporate food retailers, both domestic and foreign
06/10/2018
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Over the last few decades, the technological and digital revolution has been generating social change at a rapid pace. In 2001, Professor Marc Prensky was already talking of two categories of human beings, depending on their relationship to technology: digital natives and digital immigrants. These categorizations, now widespread, shed light on the central role played by digital technologies today.
06/10/2018
Challenging the Dematerialization of Food Systems more
In 1966, Harry Harrison published a book entitled “Make Room! Make Room!”, in which he imagined a city of the future where water was drastically rationed, and a single corporation distributed the only edible product called ‘Soylent’, an industrial produced cookie composed of soy and lentils, whilst only the opulent minority could afford the luxury of meat and vegetables. The publication contained the following dedication: “For your sake, my children, I hope this turns out to be just a work of fiction
06/10/2018
A Peasant’s Perspective more
Over the last twenty years, new techniques have allowed public and private actors to sequence genomes of living organisms at an increasingly faster pace, to amass peasants’ knowledge on their traits, and then to digitalize and store this ‘information’ in huge electronic databases. This information is becoming ‘dematerialized’ as it is made accessible, and separated from the microorganisms, plants and animals that they stem from, and indeed they are further isolated away from the persons who provided all related knowledge. More recently, various Public-Private Partnerships (such as DivSeek) have stated that their aim is to connect and share existing databases.
06/10/2018
The MATOPIBA Case in Brazil more
How can it be that finance centers in New York or Stockholm exercise control over remote lands in Northeastern Brazil? The process of transforming land into a global financial asset requires not only changes in policies and legislation, but also the use of information technologies. This article sheds light on the role of digital land information in the process of dispossessing rural communities from their land, which is subsequently put under the control of distant global finance actors. It draws on the authors’ assessment of the drivers and impacts of agribusiness expansion in the Brazilian region of MATOPIBA, which is part of the Cerrado, a biome consisting of savannahs and forests. The article discusses the challenges posed by information technologies in people’s struggles for their right to land and territory and concludes by identifying issues for further research.
29/09/2018
Confronting the Digital Age more
27/09/2018
Immaterial Food: Contradictions of a Digital Era more
Over the last few years, the current technological revolution has been generating economic and social change at a rapid pace. Today, with the help of an app, a group of activists can raise awareness of a social cause in the other corner of the planet, and a farmer can activate the sprinklers to water her harvest. Yet, while it is undeniable that technological advances are culminating in unprecedented accessibility and infinite possibilities, can we claim that the digital age is truly improving our lives?