However, farmers are now understanding how industry is trying to take over their livelihood for its own gains. A case in point is the farmers' movement in India that has been going on for more than 7 months, against 3 contentious Farm Bills forced passed by the Indian government in September 2020. These three legislations, purportedly called reforms to help the farmers, would actually put them at the mercy of giant corporations. They will loosen government regulations on agriculture and allow the corporates to deal directly with the farmers, opening up the agriculture sector at both ends - production (through contract farming) and sale (through complete deregulation). Farmers see these neoliberal farm laws as a potential death blow and fear that they would throw all the marginal farmers, who form 85% of the total farming community, to the mercy of private players, and ruin their livelihood, which is already under severe strain.
Small farmers who produce the vast majority of food on this planet own the least amount of land - less than 25% of global farmland is owned by small farmers. The fight for them is to take back control of water, land they till, and other resources that are needed to produce food. Covid-19 has shown that if communities have even a small piece of cultivable land, they will have some food on their table and not die of hunger. Moreover, when almost the entire world went under lockdown it was these farm workers and farm labourers who continued to produce food that we are consuming in our homes and cities around the world.
We must continue to strengthen farmers' movements at every level and support them in their struggles to take back and maintain control of the land they till and their food production.
Global People's Summit on Food Systems
Keeping this in mind, many movements and alliances have come together to launch the Global People's Summit on Food Systems as a rebuttal to the the UN Food Systems Summit. The Global People's Summit puts the voices of the people - farmers, women, marginalised communities - at the forefront and demands just, equitable, healthy and sustainable food systems. It is not just about food security but also about food sovereignty in order to have a just, healthy and equitable food system for a world without hunger.
Shobha Shukla - CNS (Citizen News Service)
(Shobha Shukla is the award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of CNS (Citizen News Service) and is a feminist, health and development justice advocate. She is a former senior Physics faculty of prestigious Loreto Convent College and current Coordinator of Asia Pacific Regional Media Alliance for Health and Development (APCAT Media). Follow her on Twitter @shobha1shukla or read her writings here www.bit.ly/ShobhaShukla)
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