Watch the UNFSS Solidarity Session here

Long-time activists know all too well how the powers that be work to divide us to maintain their power base. They use coercion, ego stroking, and straight up misinformation to entice some of us to dance with them, while others see the devil for what he is.  

This time the devil, or shall we call him the wolf, comes dressed in sheep’s clothing. The wolf is the World Economic Forum (WEF), the World Bank, an assortment of global and regional think tanks​,​ and front men for Big Food and Big Pharma. The fluffy white fleece is none other than the United Nations itself, now fleeced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Grandma’s house is the UN Food Systems Summit, full of the scent of warm cookies and a bright future, but in reality​,​ housing the world’s most powerful corporations waiting with cameras and recorders to focus group the ​f*** ​out of anyone who walks in.  

The path to Grandma’s house is long and scary, and we recommend you read the many accounts of how we got here written by La Via Campesina, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSM), the Agroecology Research-Action Collective, and this really helpful summary by Marion Nestle​,​ amongst others. AFSA is a longstanding member of the IPC, CSM, and La Via Campesina, with years of experience engaging with UN processes via our work with these international alliances of the social movements. But it’s time to stop the fairy tale, because there is too much at stake to speak in metaphors.  

This is a call to stand in solidarity with the world’s peasants and Indigenous Peoples, with fisherfolk, pastoralists, and landless, and especially with women and young people – those who have the most to lose from letting the multinationals win. ​     ​ 

​​Join the boycott​ ​and People’s Autonomous Response to the UN Food Systems Summit.​ These are the key global voices for smallholders and Indigenous Peoples with 25 years’ experience in global governance – if they refuse to legitimize a corrupted UN process, you should listen. 

When the world’s least powerful ask the most privileged to stand with them against exploitation, land grabbing, and corporate capture of the governing mechanisms we have to fight with, it’s our responsibility to listen. Shut up and listen. Shut up, listen, then speak up. Speak as one to lift the voices of the marginalized. Don’t marginalize them further by turning up in the spaces they have intentionally vacated because they have spent decades fighting to be heard, only to realise that in this case the only ​ones​ listening are the ​multinational corporations, ​market researchers​ and those interested in profit over people and the planet​. The peasants of the world refuse to be focus-grouped.  

The UNFSS is a sham. ​     ​ 

Breaking with the long history of multilateralism – a process of organizing and negotiating between states – the UNFSS has taken a multistakeholder approach from the beginning, giving multinational corporations equal footing with democratic states in discussions about how to achieve the transformation of the food system we need​ –​ to ensure everyone has access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food​,​ produced and distributed in socially-just and ecologically-sound ways. ​​ 

​​​​How did we get here?​ 

The UN partnered with the World Economic Forum ​(WEF) ​to run the Summit – you know, the world’s peak body for multinational corporations like Bayer, Cargill, Facebook, JBS, and Syngenta. Then the Secretary General appointed the leader of the Alliance for the Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Agnes Kalibata as the Special Envoy to coordinate the Summit. AGRA is substantially funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (also a member of the WEF), which has been aggressively promoting the uptake of biotechnology in Africa for the past couple of decades. Our sister AFSA – the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa – has called for donors to stop funding AGRA and show support for smallholders. 

The Gates Foundation has a well-documented Big Tech bias in the ‘solutions’ it backs. This is not a Foundation that funds programs that empower communities to be ​self-sufficient​, resilient, and resourceful – Gates is not here for food sovereignty. His projects in Africa have steadily increased farmer reliance on annual purchases of GM seed, and his investments in lab meat startups along with two of the world’s biggest meat companies​,​ Tyson and Cargill​,​ clearly demonstrate the cynicism and ​self-interest​ of his philanthrocapitalism.  

​​Kalibata and her secretariat have promoted Food Systems Dialogues at the global and national levels as well as ‘Independent Food Systems Dialogues’, which ostensibly can be hosted by anyone who chooses to. There have apparently been over 800 independent dialogues led by everything from corporations to civil society organizations across the world. According to UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri, these have produced nothing substantive that has been taken up by the secretariat, and in fact not ‘everyone’ is granted the privilege to host a dialogue – the secretariat holds the decision-making power. ​

Critically, the dialogues have not had any focus on the causes or responses to COVID-19. In the midst of a global pandemic, caused in no small part by the expansion and extraction of industrial food and agriculture systems, world ‘leaders’ turned away, leaving the additional 100 million people who are now hungry behind.  ​​

Food Systems Dialogues are still occurring in the name of the UN around the world, including in Australia. We believe most people who participate in these do not understand the extent and gravity of the corporate capture of multilateral global food governance. Hence, AFSA has shared as much as possible to get the word out and keep well-intentioned healthy and sustainable food systems advocates from being duped into legitimizing an illegitimate and damaging process.  

Four ‘levers of change’ have been selected by the secretariat from the obscure processes of food systems dialogues, champions, Action Tracks, and the Scientific Group. This is where Machiavelli pops in for a cuppa. In preparation for the Summit to be held online entirely over one day (23 September), these ‘levers of change’ are being developed into a compendium. The lead organisations for each lever are, wait for it: 

• Innovation – World Economic Forum 
• Investment – World Bank 
• Gender – International Food Policy Research Institute
• Human Rights – a consultant hired by the UN Secretary General (!) 

It’s worth noting that the Gates Foundation provides funding to all of these bodies in addition to its support for AGRA, as does the Rockefeller Foundation. These private funders are controlling narratives and negotiations under ​the guise ​of the UN – discussions that should rightly be led by the Committee for World Food Security (CFS), which has the mandate for food systems transformation​,​ informed by the full participation of civil society.  

It gets worse. Once our corporate overlords have led the drafting of proposed solutions to the problems they have created in the world, this body of work is intended to guide the development of ‘National Pathways to Food Systems Transformation’. What that means is that many countries will at last create National Food Plans – in theory a good thing – but the plans will be guided by corporate solutions​.​​     ​​     ​

According to the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, ‘Even representatives of Indigenous Peoples who participated in the official Pre-Summit feel disappointed that the human rights of Indigenous Peoples were not taken into account in the conclusions, nor did FSS approve a Coalition of IPs, as they had requested. Today these IP representatives say they will be out of the Summit until their demands are met.’ 

What can be done?  

AFSA has stood in solidarity with the boycott since the beginning, and recommends others do the same, by joining the list of signatory organisations. Plus, you can: 

• Join us at the Australian Counter-Mobilisation to the UNFSS on Wednesday 22 September 6:30pm-7:30pm on Zoom! Watch the session here. 
• Follow Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri on Twitter, and read his policy brief on the last chance to make the UNFSS a true People’s Summit. 
• If you are working in academia, policy or governance, sign the open letter denouncing the poor governance of the UNFSS 

• Join AFSA and lend your voice to the global fight against corporate capture of our food and agriculture systems. 

The Agroecology Research-Action Collective suggests some further actions you can take: 

• If you are involved in UNFSS dialogues or action tracks, or being invited to participate in its processes, engage critically and consider boycotting if rights-based governance and epistemic justice demands are not met.
• If you are teaching about the UNFSS, teach about the debate (and here, here, and here) 
• If you are writing about the UNFSS, include critical, peasant/smallholder, and Indigenous voices.  
• If you are boycotting or otherwise resisting the UNFSS, consider working with others! #foodsystems4people #boycottUNFSS