At its fifty-sixth session, the Commission on Human Rights adopted resolution 2000/10 of 17 April 2000, in which it decided to appoint, for a period of three years, a Special Rapporteur on the right to food in order to better respond to the necessity for an integrated and coordinated approach to the promotion and protection of the right to food.
For the Special Rapporteur, the right to food is the right to have "regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to… adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear".
In this annual report submitted to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food shows why agriculture should be fundamentally redirected towards modes of production that are environmentally sustainable, and socially just, and how this can be achieved.
On the issue of gender and agriculture, the following is reported:
"Specific, targeted schemes should ensure that women are empowered and encouraged to participate in this construction of knowledge. Culturally-sensitive participatory initiatives with female project staff and all-female working groups, and an increase in locally-recruited female agricultural extension staff and village motivators facing fewer cultural and language barriers, should counterbalance the greater access that men have to formal sources of agricultural knowledge. It is a source of concern to the Special Rapporteur that, while women face a number of specific obstacles (poor access to capital and land, the double burden of work in their productive and family roles, and low participation in decision-making), gender issues are incorporated into less than 10% of development assistance in agriculture, and women farmers receive only 5% of agricultural extension services worldwide. In principle, agroecology can benefit women most, because it is they who encounter most difficulties in accessing external inputs or subsidies. But their ability to benefit should not be treated as automatic; it requires that affirmative action directed specifically towards women be taken" (paragraph D, page 19).
To find out more about the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, visit his website: http://www.srfood.org/index.php/en/right-to-food
To read the full report, available in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese, visit http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/16session/reports.htm and look for report code A/HRC/16/49.
To link directly to the report in English, click here.