On the 17th of June the Landworkers’ Alliance brought together organisations and individuals from across the UK food justice movement for an online ‘People’s Food Summit’ in response to the corporate capture of the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
What’s the Issue?
The UN Food Systems Summit is due to take place some time in autumn 2021, however, serious concerns over the UNFSS’s priorities have been raised, with La Via Campesina – of which LWA is member organisation – co-signing a letter together with 173 organisations from 83 different countries to the UN Secretary General raising concerns over the level of corporate involvement in the event.
As the European Coordination Via Campesina expressed in a letter to the UNFSS organisers: “Civil society organizations, and in particular organisations of food producers (peasants, fisherfolk, indigenous peoples, rural women, pastoralists, agricultural workers, etc.) have been marginalised in the process, despite addressing this problem since the moment the “summit” was announced.”
What are we doing?
The ‘People’s Food Summit’ which took place in June was an attempt to give people a more progressive and inclusive space to discuss the pressing issues faced by the global food system, and highlight the need to adopt food sovereignty as a guiding principle for addressing these issues.
Although this first event was invite-only, we are currently planning on holding a Public People’s Food Summit which will take place in autumn 2022, and will be open to anyone who is interested in taking part.