Secure Land Rights for Sustainable Food Systems

Building sustainable food systems is inextricably linked with land. This session presents how secure land rights of people works as an incentive to build sustainable food systems embracing agroecology, pastoralists and indigenous and local traditional knowledge countering climate change.

Secure land rights play a pivotal role in building sustainable food systems - and this should be recognised in the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit that will take place on 23 September. It is estimated that smallholder farmers produce roughly 70% of the world’s food on 12% of all agricultural land. These small-scale farmers continue to play a significant role in feeding local communities in the pandemic.

Secure land tenure and/or secure control and ownership of land grants freedom for these communities to decide on crops to cultivate, produce seeds and grow food based on local demands. This caters to local nutritional needs and relies on traditional agricultural practices or agroecology contributing to mitigate climate change and soil degradation. Having secure land rights is also a safeguard against forced evictions countering takeover of land by large agribusiness. Secure tenure for Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who protect 50% of the earth’s surface but have have formally recognised ownership over just 10% - leaving much of the world’s land surface subject to a massive tenure crisis and vulnerable to land grabbing by more powerful actors to create large plantations or fossil-fuel projects, hydroelectric dams, tourism, speculation or conservation.

To make future food systems work for people and planet, the land where crops are cultivated to meet a growing world population’s diverse nutritional needs has to be managed sustainably. Contrary to what is happening now, future food systems should respect and embrace traditional agricultural practices which feed local communities and enable them to sustainably manage land they are in control of.

Given the significant role that land rights play in food systems, this session aims at mobilising support to ensure that the secure land rights of women, men, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists and local communities are a key topic of discussion in the UN Food Systems Summit.

Please note that Giovanna Vásquez Luque will give her presentation in Spanish and Mamadou Mballo in French. Their contributions will be summarised in English.

Documents

Speakers

Policy Officer, INTPA F3-Sustainable Agri-Food systems and Fisherie

Etienne Coyette

Director of International Land Coalition

Mike Taylor

Directora de Promoción de la Mujer Productora del Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario y Riego del Perú – MIDAGRI

Giovanna Vásquez Luque

Coordinator for Land Rights & Young Farmers' Agenda, , Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA)

Myline Macabuhay

Project Officer Land governance, CICODEV

Mamadou Mballo

Global Policy and Advocacy Expert, International Land Coalition

Rukshana Nanayakkara

Venue

Webex Meetings