“FARMERS ARE OWNER OF LANDS, BUT OTHERS RULE THEM”

In Recent years, thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide because their dignity is violated. Farmers are the most dignified people in the world. They produce with their mind, soul and body. A farmer would rather defend this dignity with his death than lose it through the dehumanization that comes with loss of control of production methods and the loss of food sovereignty. Climate change and economic policies are adversely impacting the food sovereignty of millions of people and both need to be combated. They both take away a basic human right – the right to adequate food. There are two immediate concerns in the context of the possible consequences of global warming and changing weather patterns. The first is the increasing number of natural disasters. The second is the issue of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty indicates the ability and power of a country or community to control and manage its own sources and modes of food production. Food sovereignty involves the right of people and the community over land, water and forests which would enable them to control the sources and means of production. There is a decrease in food production in many countries, particularly among small and marginal farmers. This has to do with both the changing weather pattern and the takeover of agriculture by corporate monopolies and rich countries. We are seeing a repetition of colonial sins with the way food is produced and distributed today. Some of the new “revolutions” to combat climate change and promote food security are manifestations of this new colonialism. Millions of hectares of land have been taken over by rich companies and rich countries at the cost of small and marginal farmers and food sovereignty of the community. The adverse impacts of climate change on ecosystems also affect sovereignty over food production. First, because life cannot adapt as quickly as the climate is changing. We are experiencing unprecedented natural disasters. Secondly, migration from rural to urban areas increases due to lack of water, natural disasters and the non-viability of small and medium farming. The urban poor across the world are environmental, economic and social refugees. The urban-centric, energy-intensive economic growth model induces rural to urban migration, which has reached unprecedented levels, and further accentuates the high carbon-emitting economic growth model. This, on the one hand, affects food production and the viability of sustainable agriculture in rural areas, and on the other hand increases human density in urban areas to unprecedented levels, with consequent pressure on environmental resources, demand for water and resultant pollution etc. Food sovereignty of nations and people can only be realized by strengthening sustainable agriculture and protecting the right of small and marginal farmers to live in dignity. Governments must protect this without compromising the climate and environment. The struggles for justice and human rights have to be at every level. A person’s right to food is non-negotiable. The adverse impact of climate change and corporatization of agriculture undermines our right to food. We need to ask hard questions about the nature of consumption and the nature of the economic growth model. Climate change is an issue of justice, as is food rights. A call to act for justice -- ecological, economic and social -- should precede the technical negotiations on climate change. If human dignity is rooted in divinity, and the idea of divinity is rooted in our search for the truth, then the truth is that there is something terribly wrong and immoral in the way we exploit the beauty and bounty of the earth and all that makes it a sustainable habitat for millions of living species. Such a truth should help us to be free -- free to imagine different choices of life, consumption and living.