Dubai – Rural peoples from the Global South today slammed the corporate agenda apparent in the COP28 UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, highlighting the outsized role of big agri-businesses and the corporate-led Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in implementing the Emirates Declaration.
Chennaiah Poguri, spokesperson of the Global People’s Caravan for Food, Land and Climate Justice, said that significant reductions in emissions from global food systems are unlikely as agri-business corporations who are among the world’s biggest emitters continue to dominate global food systems, and are now being given the opportunity to use the climate crisis to tighten their monopolies.
“The Emirates Declaration signed by 134 leaders mentions the imperative for ‘food systems transformation’ but fails to hold into account big corporations who are mainly responsible for food systems emissions. Rather than dismantling corporate-controlled, fossil fuel based industrial agriculture and putting in place radical policies that place people at the center of a just food and energy transition, world leaders have joined hands with big agri-businesses to scale-up greenwashing schemes,” said Poguri, also chairperson of APVVU, a federation of farmers and agricultural workers in India.
COP28 UAE announced a USD 200 million partnership with the BMGF for “agricultural research, scaling agricultural innovations and funding technical assistance” for implementing the Declaration. Negotiations also see the CGIAR cornering a lion’s share of climate pledges. “It is farcical that the same corporate-led institutions responsible for the massive adoption of unsustainable farming practices through the Green Revolution are the same institutions being given the reins on climate action. We instead demand that world leaders end subsidies for fossil fuel based agriculture and transition to people-led agroecology. Climate action must be anchored on food sovereignty and peoples’ right to land and resources, prioritizing local production to empower small food producers,” said Poguri.
COP28 UAE is also working together with the CEO group World Business Council on Sustainable Development and Boston Consulting Group, whose clients include the world’s largest corporations, to harness USD 2.2 billion in investments to supposedly “transition” 160 million hectares to regenerative agriculture by 2030. “The corporate definition of ‘regenerative agriculture’ is locking in farmers to the use of certain products and enrolling vast tracts of lands into carbon markets that only serve to perpetuate the fossil fuel industry,” Poguri added.
Rural peoples from the Global South also found the Emirates Declaration’s commitment to the strengthening of the World Trade Organization (WTO) unacceptable. “The WTO has caused massive destruction of the environment and local peasant and indigenous agriculture. It turned self-sufficient food systems in the Global South into import-dependent, export-oriented economies that exploit natural resources and rural peoples to serve fossil fuel hungry globalized agri-food chains. For instance, in Indonesia, millions of hectares of tropical rainforests have been converted to palm oil plantations, with the WTO playing a major role in expanding biofuel markets, a false solution,” said Rendy Khasmy, national committee member of AGRA, a peasant movement in Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Gertrude Kenyangi of Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment (SWAGEN) and People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty Africa said that rural peoples movements from Africa will be vigilant and closely follow actions taken to implement the Declaration, which aims to integrate food systems into National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions, among others. “Policy is only as good as its implementation. Rhetoric must be turned into results! African youth, women, and civil society are ready to ensure that African leaders center the demands and aspirations of rural peoples in climate solutions that work for Africa,” she said.
Note to editors:
– The Global People’s Caravan for Food, Land and Climate Justice (www.ourfoodsystems.org) is a Global South-led campaign of rural peoples movements mobilizing for radical food systems transformation. A product of community consultations & petition signings held since early this year, the People’s Caravan is pushing for five demands to COP 28 negotiators (bit.ly/RuralPeoplesToCOP28).
Media contacts:
Chennaiah Poguri, Global People’s Caravan spokesperson, chennaiah.poguri@gmail.com
Rendy Khasmy, AGRA Indonesia
Gertrude Kenyangi, People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty Africa, ruralwomenug@gmail.com
Ilang-Ilang Quijano, Global People’s Caravan communications officer, ilang.quijano@panap.net