Farmers and Social Movements have today (26 Jan 2009) issued a statement criticising the High Level Conference on Food Security in Madrid on the 26 and 27 of January because it excludes the main stakeholders in the debate on the food crisis from meaningful participation.

It is a forum dominated by the World Bank, IMF and WTO, as well as transnational companies such as Monsanto, and it is an outrage that they are given space on the panels of discussion while representatives of small farmers - who produce 80% of the world's food - are left only a few minutes on the floor to give their position.

International agricultural policy has been dominated by the policies of these international institutions for the last thirty years, and in spite of their pledges to halve hunger by 2015 through the Millennium Development Goals it has continued to increase worldwide, reaching over one billion people this year.

Contrary to the impression that is given by confused officials, a solution to the crisis exists and is easy to implement if there is sufficient political will. Peasant based agriculture and livestock raising and artisanal fisheries can easily provide enough food once these small-scale food producers can get access to land and aquatic resources and can produce for table local and domestic markets.

The full declaration signed by 49 organisations, "Accelerating into disaster - when banks manage the food crisis", is available online at
http://www.foodsovereignty.org
Or see:
http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=672&Itemid=1

COMMENT from Robin Maynard, campaigns director of the Soil Association: It is deplorable, but predictable, that the very institutions and agribusiness companies that have done so much to undermine global food security, presume to put themselves forward as the solution to the problems they've exacerbated, if not directly caused.
Soil Association website: http://www.soilassociation.org/foodsecurity