Blogging the WSF

Mumbai, Jan 21 - They sat patiently. Thousands of delegates who poured in for the inaugural plenary on “Land, Water and Food Sovereignty” on Jan 17, waited for the star cast to emerge on the stage.

As I struggled to put the audio arrangements in place, I realized the enormous task I had on hand knowing that the translation system had collapsed. As the chair of the opening session, I for once understood what it meant when people say that you have to find an order in disorder.

“Language is no barrier when the struggle is for a common cause,” I told the huge audience (I guess it was something around 8,000) when I finally came on the mike. For the next three hours, the audience sat glued as if they understood each and every word that was being spoken. They didn’t mind the simultaneous translation, knowing that the fight to retain control over the natural resources – land, water and the food system – was not only confined to the poor countries but was being waged all over the world.

The speakers were all on the stage. The star line up was surely impressive. I couldn’t have asked for a better panel. Jose Bove, Medha Patkar, Maude Barlow, Rafael Alegria, Itevina Massioli were among the distinguished speakers. They set the tone for the conference when one after another, they revealed, explained, provoked and lashed out at the global effort to marginalize the rural poor the world over. They appealed and promised for a united effort to make another world possible.

While Jose Bove wanted to target the three ‘destructive’ multinational companies – Monsanto, Nestle and Coca Cola, Medha Patkar called for a renewed struggle for the control over natural resources. Maude Barlow explained how water was being privatized, and how the poor will be deprived of the control over what was always considered to be a common good.

In the next four days, food security emerged as one of the hot topics of the WSF. I was amazed to see that in each and every of the 14 sessions that I chaired or spoke at, the halls were overflowing. At the same time, what was more significant was that the audience was not the same that moved from one session to another. Even if I had continued delivering the same speech session after session, I would have found enough takers for my analysis. It is heartening to find the social movements and the civil society realizing the importance of the growing threat to food sovereignty as the main cause to rally around.

Still more significant is the fact that nearly 80 per cent of those who participated in these conferences and seminars were in the age group of 25-35.  That gives us tremendous hope. These youngsters, I feel, will surely take the battle to its logical end.

I am convinced that growing food insecurity, threats from corporate agriculture, international trade, and the financial institutions, has now come to occupy the center stage in the global struggle. The poor, and that includes the farmers, are being marginalized at a pace that agriculture will now be the biggest environmental issue the world has ever seen. As I reiterated a number of times throughout the WSF, agriculture will throw out a staggering population from the farms all over the world, eventually swarming into the urban centers.

In India, the number of people expected to migrate from the rural to urban areas by the years 2010 is going to be twice the combined population of Britain, France and Germany. In other words, the negative consequences of the neoclassic economic policies will displace some 400 million farmers in India alone. In neighbouring China, some 300 million farmers are expected to move out of the rural areas into the cities. In Europe, which doesn’t have an equally large percentage of population in farming, still one farmer disappears every three minutes !

Growing joblessness, inequities, and injustice is an indicator of the increasing food insecurity. Whatever be the process of marginalisation, it leads to food insecurity and hunger. To me, food and livelihood insecurity – both leading to hunger – is the central theme that the masses the world over will rally around. Let us sit, think, and build public opinion against the politico-economic process that exacerbates hunger. Let us focus on hunger and poverty, and the masses will join us to make another world possible.  

Hunger, poverty and the livelihood insecurity is what the WSF needs to focus upon. In the months to come, WSF needs to ensure that the social movements are able to capitalize on the energies that have been amply displayed at Mumbai, to mobilize them into a force that can shake up the powers that be.

WSF should strive for a hunger free world.