The Catalan member organization of transform! europe, Fundació l’Alternativa has released a guide for Municipalities on democratic control for access to land.
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to determine the agricultural and food policies that affect them: to have the right and access to land, natural resources, to be able to eat healthily with GMO-free foods, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade with the aim of achieving sustainable development and ensuring food security.
One of the most significant challenges of territorial policy in the near future will be the return to the land after more than a century of rural exodus. On the one hand, there is the need for a more balanced distribution of the population throughout the territory, although this is not a question of destroying large urban agglomerations, which are largely an irreversible phenomenon (and will require changes in order to improve the common existence of humans and nature, in line with the old socialist motto of “overcoming the divorce between the countryside and the city”). On the other hand, all kinds of actions must be encouraged to improve life in rural areas and facilitate the agricultural and livestock economy. The economic crisis can be an opportunity when the city is no longer that centre of attraction where it was (or seemed) easy to fi nd work and opportunities to thrive. Mass unemployment can push many people of all ages to look for opportunities in agriculture and livestock – and in industrial and service activities induced by more dynamic agricultural economies; but this will hardly acquire the volume that would be desirable if there are no public policies for the improvement of the rural environment and the promotion of medium-sized towns and cities. Progress in communications today makes it possible to break that rural isolation that did so much to push millions of people into emigrating to cities.
Video of the presentation (in Catalan)
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 Healthy municipalities with farmers
Chapter 2 Citizen participation and transparency
Chapter 3 Human right to healthy food