Meeting Register Page

The Earthday Roundtable on “Food Security and Food Sovereignty"

Panelists
Annette Desmarais, Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Social Justice and Food Sovereignty at University of Manitoba
Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
Maywa Montenegro, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Transformative changes in the global and national food systems are central to the pursuits of social justice for racial minorities and Indigenous peoples, the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, specifically Goal 2 of Zero Hunger), and meaningful climate action. Despite broad-based consensus on each of these goals, significant debates continue about the specific pathways to ensure rapid progress on these goals. While the United Nations and other international agencies continue to emphasize the goals of food security, food justice advocates insist on making food sovereignty the central plank for global and national policies and programs. Furthermore, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted in December 2018, constitutes an important intervention for ensuring the accountability of states and agribusiness actors. This roundtable brings together noted food activists and academics to brainstorm the future of the right to food and a hunger free world within the context of the ongoing environmental and climate crisis. The panelists will explore the role that grassroots agroecology movements could play in influencing the nature and the outcomes of anticipated changes in the existing food systems.

Apr 22, 2021 02:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)