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yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo A briefing note on Food in our Lives Ideas and Initiatives towards an Alternative Food System in India yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo I. Context “virtually all of the hungry, many of the over-weight, and others of normal Food is a primary requirement of life. For weight are debilitated by a deficiency millennia, systems of food production of essential vitamins and minerals2.” and consumption have defined and Eleven per cent of the world population shaped human communities and their and 15% of Indians often go to sleep environs in fundamental ways. Entire hungry3. At the same time, 50% of landscapes have been shaped by our the food produced in the world, and patterns of food gathering, production 40% of that produced in India goes to and consumption. It has also influenced waste4. The situation is made worse by the biodiversity of our planet, pushing the precarious condition of our planet certain species to the brink of extinction, which is already experiencing effects while aggressively promoting certain of climate change, wide-spread loss of others. Beyond this, food has also biodiversity, intensifying water-scarcity, been, and continues to be, a tool for toxicity of environments and large-scale wielding power and control. Our choices dependence on volatile markets. regarding the food we eat and the stages it passes through before reaching our Calls for a fundamental transformation plates do not play out in a vacuum; being in food-systems are intensifying inextricably linked with socio-cultural, globally with demands for a new political, ecological and economic approach that is environmentally more dimensions of society and well-being. sustainable and socially equitable. Even today 70% of all food consumed In a globalised economy, the corporate comes from small-holder farmers takeover of land, seeds and markets is and workers, and ‘more than 80% leading to a homogenization of diverse of smallholders operate in local and food systems, ecological devastation domestic food markets, with a majority and perpetuation of social injustice trading through informal means5’. The at many levels. The global corporate main thrust of such calls is on food food system has failed to provide safe sovereignty, the right of peoples to and nourishing food to the human healthy and culturally appropriate population despite having an enormous negative impact on our environment. It is a system riddled with inequalities. On 2. See: G. Gardner and B. Halweil, 2000, the one hand we have people suffering ‘Overfed and Underfed- The global epidemic of malnutrition’, Worldwatch from under-nutrition and hunger, but paper 150. on the other there are intensifying 3. As per the FAO 2015 report on world issues related to ‘over-nutrition’ and hunger. diet-related diseases1, even while, 4. As per the 2013 report on global food waste by the Institution of Mechanical Researchers. 1. There are incidences where both over- nutrition and under-nutrition occur in 5. See: Nyeleni newsletter, number 27, the same individual. September 2016. 2 yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo food produced through ecologically socially just livelihoods centered sound and sustainable methods. Food around food production, processing, sovereignty also includes the right of distribution and consumption, people to define their own food and with knowledge and cultural 6 agricultural systems . Connected to pluralisms upheld. these developments is also the concept of agroecology, gaining favor globally with UN endorsements7. Although III. About the Note defined variously as a means, a social This briefing note seeks to lay out movement, a discipline of study, or the Indian context of initiatives and a vision in itself, all definitions of challenges towards achieving this agroecology imply using ecological vision. For its elaboration, the note uses principles for agricultural practices. a food systems framework, where the Considered as a participatory food scenario is explored through its knowledge-dialogue between politico-economic, ecological, cultural indigenous practices and contemporary and sociological connections. ecology, it is being advocated as a socially-activating means of revitalizing There are a number of other possible family-farming and local markets8. methods which could have been used for classification. For instance rather than II. The Vision for an Alternative just four divisions it could be broken up further in the context of its linkages Food System with health, art, literature, lifestyle, well- With principles of agroecology and being, economics, ecological footprint, food sovereignty in mind, the vision etc. Alternatively, the division could be for an alternative food system for a bio-geographical, connecting the food sustainable and well-nourished future situation with the geographical features can be described as: of different landscapes of India. Each of these approaches would have their own Localized, adequate, nutritious, merits. diverse, affordable food accessible to all The classification we have used is based on the alternatives framework being through protection and promotion discussed as a part of the Vikalp Sangam of ecologically sustainable and or Alternatives Confluence process in India9. According to this framework, 6. As per the declaration of the forum for alternatives tending towards equity, food sovereignty in Mali in February, justice and sustainability should be 2007. 7. See: UN report of 2011 on ‘Agroecology 9. See: ‘The Search for Alternatives: Key and the Right to Food’. aspects and Principles’- http://www. 8. See: Wani M. 2014, ‘Sowing Revolution’, vikalpsangam.org/about/the-search-for- Himal, 2nd June. alternatives-key-aspects-and-principles/ 3 yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo built upon a foundation built upon the that many issues and initiatives may integration of following five mutually not neatly fall within any one of reinforcing dimensions: the above category, spanning over multiple (sometimes all) categories 1. Ecological wisdom, integrity instead. Hence this note should be and resilience; considered as a mere starting point of a 2. Social well-being and justice; conversation, to be built upon through further discussion and practices. Space 3. Direct and delegated for further elaboration can probably democracy; be found at the intersections and 4. Economic democracy and cross-linkages between the cultural, 5. Cultural diversity and political, economic, environmental knowledge democracy. and social aspects of food production and consumption. The initiatives To situate the various initiatives towards described in the note are indicative an alternative food system, the four rather than exhaustive. Being based dimensions considered within this on limited available information, it is note complement the five overlapping very likely that the note misses out on spheres of the alternatives framework some important and relevant examples note (with the political and economic because of lack of knowledge about realms being merged as a single those. It is hoped that with time this dimension). note can be built upon with additional layers of approaches and illustrations. It is important to acknowledge here The following diagram, though not 4 yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo comprehensive, tries to represent Forest foods, pastoralism and small- pictorially the approaches being taken scale artisanal fisheries have also by different initiatives in India that been significant age-old food systems contribute towards achieving the vision connected with a way of life. These for an alternative food system. systems are threatened today by an insecurity of access to their customary forests, grazing lands and fishing IV. The Various Dimensions of a grounds. These are also affected by Food System the shift towards a largely cash-based 1. The political economy of food economy and volatile markets. While there are many campaigns for rights Food politics refer to political aspects of such communities, the relevance of of how food production, distribution conservation of their food-systems gets and access are controlled. Some of the little attention at the national level. The questions it tries to address are: Why negative ecological and equity-related do 3 MNCs have control over 90 % of impacts of large-scale fisheries due to global food trade? Why is 60% of global their industrialized and export-based food trade between EU/USA and the rest nature also need to be tackled. of the world? Which nations benefit by unequal tariff systems? For at least the last four decades, food sovereignty movements have Corporate takeover of food production been demanding short value-chains, and distribution can change self- democratic control over access to food, sufficient producers of food into minimizing of nutritional inequalities10 deprived consumers who struggle and support for geographically-relevant to buy food or materials for food agri-food systems. Intervention in food production. The diversity and access to politics involves campaigning for better uncultivated foods, which have been laws and policies, as well as developing an important source of nourishment networks for producers, consumers for a large part of the society, are also and distributers that are rooted in an affected by this politics of control. An economic democracy. important aspect of food politics is to work towards protecting the right of 1.1 Campaigns and declarations on food small food producers to continue their means of livelihoods

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