NGLS Interview with Mr. Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food

NGLS Interview with Mr. Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, held in November 2008.

Mr. De Schutter, an expert on social and economic rights and on trade and human rights, was appointed Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in March 2008 and assumed his functions on 1 May 2008.

NGLS: How do you see your role vis-à-vis UN Member States on one hand and the various UN entities working on the right to food on the other?

Olivier De Schutter: Human rights start with agreeing to see the problems and document them. It is therefore indispensable that governments develop participatory processes in the design and implementation of policies which may affect human rights. I see my role, in part, in identifying issues which, in the absence of such participation, will tend to be neglected or set aside: the voice of the powerless and the marginalized, when they cannot be heard, although their experience is so crucial to the success of the measures which are addressed to them. The UN agencies are in part victims themselves of this autism of governments, since they are constrained, in many cases, by what governments can agree to. I shall continue working with civil society organizations, and identify through my contacts with them the obstacles to the concrete realization of the right to food, in order to develop recommendations to governments which can effectively change things.

NGLS: How do you involve civil society actors, and especially small scale farmers and other peoples’ organizations in your work?

ODS: Since I entered into my mandate, I held a number of multistakeholder consultations, on issues such as the impact of the World Trade Organization Agreements on the right to food (Paris, 16-17 June 2008), the protection of intellectual property rights in agriculture (Geneva, 19 June 2008), or more recently the future of food aid (Ottawa, 6 November 2008). I will pursue such consultations on other issues, particularly on the impact of climate change on the enjoyment of the right to food, on the role of the private sector, and on the concept of the green revolution in Africa. These consultations serve to build bridges between worlds which, often, have developed apart from one another: civil society organizations, experts, UN agencies, and national policy-makers. I am convinced that we all have to gain from establishing communication channels which can serve to inform us, by the confrontation of different perspectives, on issues of such a complexity. In addition, I try to regularly attend events organized by civil society organizations: part of my mandate consists in the promotion of the human right to adequate food in various fora, and I believe that for many small-scale farmers in particular, acquiring a better understanding of this right can be empowering.

NGLS: In the context of the response to the food crisis, a lot of attention and resources have gone to food aid. What can/should be done to ensure it is handled effectively and how to ensure a proper balance between short term needs and longer terms efforts to address the structural causes of the crisis?

ODS: Food aid has acquired a bad reputation in certain circles for three reasons. First, although the original link to the disposal of surpluses is not as clear now as it was in the 1950s or 1960s, it is too often tied and donor-driven, which may lead to inefficiencies: approximately one third of the food aid delivered today still does not reach its beneficiaries as a result. Second, when food aid takes the form of in-kind deliveries of food, it can in fact damage food security in the long term, by producing negative impacts on the local agricultural sector. Third, because of the way it is planned in national budgets or because of how States’ commitments are defined, it is often counter-cyclical: there is more aid delivered in volumes when the prices are at their lowest and when it is, therefore, least necessary. That being said, if well managed, food aid can save lives, and what we need is not to eliminate or condemn it, but ensure that it works in a way which is compatible with long-term food security. Even food aid in kind can serve a useful purpose, if it is delivered in a timely and targeted fashion in situations where there is a problem of food availability and where local or regional purchases are not possible. What we need to avoid is to fall into a “relief trap” - a situation where more relief is provided in the form of food aid because previous relief operations have created a disincentive to produce locally or has driven out local producers from business. That, by chance, occurs only in exceptional circumstances, since generally aid is too unpredictable and too thin to have significant incentive effects on local production. But it is a question we need to be attentive to if we advocate in favor of forms of food aid which are more predictable, as I think we should, at least if we adopt a needs-based approach to food aid. I will make detailed recommendations on this subject in my next report to the Human Rights Council, due to be presented in March 2009.

NGLS: We know that the impacts of the current crisis will be very important, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. There are a lot of efforts made to spark a “Green Revolution” there. Do you think such a Green Revolution could actually be a successful strategy for ending hunger in Africa?

ODS: The diagnosis on which the proposal for a new Green Revolution is a sound one: agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa has been neglected for many years, and it is urgent to revive it, not only to avoid excessive dependency of the countries concerned on food imports for their food security, but also in order to increase the incomes of small-scale farmers - an already highly vulnerable category, who will the first affected by the impacts of climate change. But there are controversies about whether the solutions proposed under the label “Green Revolution” are always adequate: specifically, there is a debate about the risks of a new form of dependency of farmers on expensive external inputs, leading to technology-driven increases of yield productivity which may be only sustainable in the long term for the larger farmers. I will present my views on this subject, but only after having carefully considered all perspectives, and having sought with the actors concerned ways to overcome existing disagreements.

NGLS: The FAO Council adopted the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security at its 127th session in November 2004. What is your assessment of progress thus far in implementing the Guidelines and what more needs to be done?

ODS: The Guidelines on the right to food are an extremely important tool. Their value stems from their practical dimension: they effectively operationalize the human right to adequate food, by explaining its consequences in a variety of fields such as food aid, agrarian reform, or the development of national strategies for the realization of the right to food, among other examples. The Guidelines are not per se obligatory in international law. But they are useful because of the guidance they provide, and governments may ignore them only at their own peril - not taking them into account makes you run a much more serious risk of violating the human right to adequate food. Still, we need to disseminate the Guidelines more broadly, particularly at operational level, in national ministries and international agencies which, all too often, ignore them although they develop policies which have a direct and immediate impact on the right to food.

See also the FAO Right to Food Forum.

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