Nyéléni 2007: Food Sovereignty as a Human Right

Sélingué, Mali, February 23-27, 2007

“Who sets the agenda for Food Sovereignty? The people deprived of Food Sovereignty must take over the agenda. How do we take over our agenda? Some want to participate in “global partnerships”. If big powers—the creators of poverty—participate, they will never give up their power. Food Sovereignty demands that people set their own agenda! We must take over the right to set our agenda! We cannot form partnerships between the poor and those who create poverty!”

Over five hundred women, men and youth activists from 80 countries met to share their knowledge, experiences, and hopes for a world free of hunger, injustice, and corporate greed. Food Sovereignty—the right of producers to dignified livelihoods, and the right of all consumers to nutritious, sustainably-grown food, brought farmers, fishers, workers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and consumers together for five days under the hot Malian sun. The task: set a ten-year agenda for Food Sovereignty, worldwide.

The Bámbara legend of Nyeleni, the peasant woman who resisted oppression and taught her people how to feed themselves, provided the deep cultural symbolism that led the way to dialogue, learning, and political alliances between sectors and across industrial divides. For months leading up to Nyelení, the organizing committee from Via Campesina, the World March of Women, ROPPA, CNOP, WFF, WFFP, IPC for Food Sovereignty, Food Sovereignty Network and Friends of the Earth worked with the community of Selingué to built huts, kitchens, meeting lodges, and a huge amphitheater. In keeping with the spirit of Food Sovereignty, in which people—not transnational corporations—control their own food and production systems, all food was sourced directly from Malian farmers, pastoralists and fishers, and cooked and served by villagers extending the legendary Malian hospitality to delegates from both the industrial North and the Global South. Delegates pitched in to help organizers run the new Food Sovereignty village, and Doctors without Borders provided 24-hour medical services. Ensuring the safe water, food, and clean surroundings in a newly-formed village of five hundred people was a major challenge, not made any easier by the duststorms and the blazing Malian sun. But not only did the food sovereignty village work, as dairy farmer Paul Nickolson from Vía Campesina asserted during the open ceremonies, “Nyeleni, is ours!”

Each morning at Nyelení began with a “mistica,” of song, poetry, dance, and stories from a group of participants—often in traditional dress—in which wisdom from around the world was shared to help guide and inspire the grueling 10-hour days of meetings.

During the day, people went to separate meeting spaces as work groups (trade, technology, natural resources, sharing territories, war, conflict & disasters, migration, production models), as regions (Asia, Africa, Europe, and North and South America,) as interest groups (women, youth, environmentalists) and as sectors (indigenous peoples, pastoralists, fisher-people, migrants and farmers) to answer three basic food sovereignty questions: What are we struggling for? What are we fighting against? What are we going to do?

The main conference tent was the venue for report backs and debate. Evenings were the scene of cultural presentations of song and dance, socializing and celebration. Friendships, and strong bonds of solidarity were formed at Nyelení—the basis for alliances, and long-term partnerships for social change.

Special guests to the Forum included the president of Mali, who affirmed his commitment to agricultural development and a strong peasant movement. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela sent a videotaped message to the forum in which he congratulated participants for their work and pronounced his government in favor of food sovereignty. But the star of the show was Tiken Jah Fakoly, reggae star originally from Ivory Coast, who gave not one but two concerts to an enthusiastic crowd of villagers and participants. Singing in French, his songs echoed the deeply political reggae voice that has historically fought oppression and called for justice.

The reports, declaration and action plan from the Conference can all be found at the conference website. They express the spirit of the justice and hope that was Nyelení, and provide a framework for Food Sovereignty struggles throughout the world. The “action agenda” has been proposed in Nyelení. It is now up to the thousands of organizations and communities in the Food Sovereignty movement worldwide to forge food sovereignty in practice.

Food First joins the participants in the Mali forum to recognize Food Sovereignty as a human right and a guiding principle for equitable, sustainable and democratic food systems. As Nyelení 2007 demonstrated, Food Sovereignty is also a unifying principle, capable of bringing people together across sectors, continents and cultures. If Nyelení is any indication of growing political trends, Food Sovereignty—a term still far from the mainstream—may soon become a household word.