Grassroots International Signs Statement to Eradicate Hunger and Malnutrition

Grassroots International, along with other activists and organizations, signed an Open Letter pledging to eradicate hunger and malnutrition. Members of the Drafting Committee include many Grassroots partners and allies.  You can join us and sign on, too!   The letter begins:   We, small-scale farmers and fisher peoples, pastoralists, women, youth, indigenous peoples, other social movements and civil society organisations, have taken the challenge together to propose policies and actions that would lead to the eradication of hunger and malnutrition in our world.

We strongly believe that the actions to eradicate hunger and malnutrition must be based on a vision of a world where:

• food sovereignty is recognised and implemented by communities, peoples, states and international institutions;
• all peoples, societies and states determine their own food systems and have policies that ensure availability of sufficient, good quality, affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate food;
• there is recognition and respect for women’s rights and their crucial contribution to food provision, and representation of women in all decision making bodies;
• terrestrial and aquatic environments and biodiversity are conserved and rehabilitated based on ecologically sustainable management of land, soils, water, seas, seeds, livestock and aquatic organisms;
• the diversity of traditional knowledge, food, language and culture, are all valued and respected;
• the way people organise and express themselves is accepted and peoples’ power to make decisions about their material, natural and spiritual heritage is defended;

We are proposing the policies and actions recognising that hunger and malnutrition have reached outrageous levels in the world today and that this is not accidental. When the prevalence of this scourge is seen in the context of the multiple crises in the world today, it is very clear that existing polices have compounded the problem and that there is a need for a new approach.   You can join Grassroots International and the movement for food sovereignty by signing on to the Open Letter, and encourage other individuals and organizations to do likewise.