Over 300 global civil society organisations of small-scale food producers, researchers and Indigenous communities in Asia, Africa and Europe are boycotting the scheduled 2021 United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS).

This rejection of the UNFSS comes after numerous calls and petitions to transform the corporate capture of global food systems. Currently transnational companies dominate the global food and commodity trade further marginalising and erasing the contributions of small-scale producers.

Small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, farmworkers, peasants, pastoralists and Indigenous people are often neglected in public policies yet they provide approximately 70 percent of the world’s food. Local small-scale food producers have supported and carried the world’s food systems when industrial food supply chains failed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The United Nations Food Summit undermines localised food systems while over-emphasising big conglomerates who have buckled under the pressure of COVID-19. We have seen massive food shortages because of the unstable and unsustainable food chains of big businesses. Therefore, we cannot justify or allow this summit to sit without raising our voices against the unrecognised contributions of small-scale producers said, Sibongiseni Gwebani from Masifundise.

A radical, human rights-based and agroecological transformation of food systems is more urgent than ever, towards food sovereignty, gender justice, climate justice, economic and social justice, and biodiversity.      

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