Rt. Hon. Shaun Woodward MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Cambridge, 16/10/2007
Dear Mr. Woodward,
Today marks the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) annual ‘World Food Day’, with this year’s campaign slogan, ‘The Right to Food: Make it Happen’, seeking justice not charity. The inherent right of all men, women, boys and girls to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable foods is not an impossible goal, but it is a target that requires a re-alignment of moral standards, political will and existing power relations.
Despite the fact that the right to food was included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, commitment to enforce this right has been only very gradual. Ten years after the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, which promised to reduce the number of undernourished people by half by 2015, there are more hungry people in the developing countries today – 820 million – than there were in 1996, according to the FAO’s 2006 report into The State of Food Insecurity in the World.
There being not enough food is only one cause of an individual not having enough food to survive. In a world where the richest fifth eat 45 per cent of all meat and fish, while the poorest fifth consume just five per cent, and where four out of five malnourished children live in countries with food surpluses, there are clear problems in distribution. This means that any effort to improve agricultural productivity must go hand-in-hand with measures that address inequality.
I consider that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger and undernutrition. If we ourselves accept our right to food and then deny it to others, we contradict ourselves and ignore the most basic kind of rational justification. In denying someone the food from our surplus that they require for survival and basic agency, we interfere with the rights of others and deny our obligations under human rights laws. Realising this right requires not only equitable and sustainable food systems, but also entitlements relating to livelihood security such as the right to work, land reform and social security. The primary responsibility for guaranteeing these entitlements rests with the state. Lack of financial resources cannot be accepted as an excuse for abdicating this responsibility.
As my local Member of Parliament and as a Secretary of State, I ask that you will use your influence to support World Food Day and further the basic needs of a large section of the world’s population, in an atmosphere in which such needs are not a political priority. If the Government is truly committed to equal rights to food for all human beings, I ask that you will continue to foster this process through all democratic means, remembering both the victims of unnecessary starvation and our role as the privileged, by accident of birth and geography, in not neglecting our duty to our fellow men.
Thankyou in anticipation of your help,
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Blygt
Dear Mr. Woodward,
Today marks the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) annual ‘World Food Day’, with this year’s campaign slogan, ‘The Right to Food: Make it Happen’, seeking justice not charity. The inherent right of all men, women, boys and girls to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable foods is not an impossible goal, but it is a target that requires a re-alignment of moral standards, political will and existing power relations.
Despite the fact that the right to food was included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, commitment to enforce this right has been only very gradual. Ten years after the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, which promised to reduce the number of undernourished people by half by 2015, there are more hungry people in the developing countries today – 820 million – than there were in 1996, according to the FAO’s 2006 report into The State of Food Insecurity in the World.
There being not enough food is only one cause of an individual not having enough food to survive. In a world where the richest fifth eat 45 per cent of all meat and fish, while the poorest fifth consume just five per cent, and where four out of five malnourished children live in countries with food surpluses, there are clear problems in distribution. This means that any effort to improve agricultural productivity must go hand-in-hand with measures that address inequality.
I consider that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger and undernutrition. If we ourselves accept our right to food and then deny it to others, we contradict ourselves and ignore the most basic kind of rational justification. In denying someone the food from our surplus that they require for survival and basic agency, we interfere with the rights of others and deny our obligations under human rights laws. Realising this right requires not only equitable and sustainable food systems, but also entitlements relating to livelihood security such as the right to work, land reform and social security. The primary responsibility for guaranteeing these entitlements rests with the state. Lack of financial resources cannot be accepted as an excuse for abdicating this responsibility.
As my local Member of Parliament and as a Secretary of State, I ask that you will use your influence to support World Food Day and further the basic needs of a large section of the world’s population, in an atmosphere in which such needs are not a political priority. If the Government is truly committed to equal rights to food for all human beings, I ask that you will continue to foster this process through all democratic means, remembering both the victims of unnecessary starvation and our role as the privileged, by accident of birth and geography, in not neglecting our duty to our fellow men.
Thankyou in anticipation of your help,
Yours Sincerely,
Mr. Blygt
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