The Food Crisis: Domestic and Global: April 8, 2009

The Food Crisis – Domestic and Global: Can the Right to Food Guide Real Solutions?

Date: Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Time: 12:00 – 12:30 – Light lunch (provided)
12:30 – 2:00 – Presentations and discussion
Location: The Washington home of Stewart Mott: 122 Maryland Avenue, NE (between the Hart Senate Office Building and Supreme Court)

Presenter: Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Respondents: •Brother David Andrews, Senior Representative, Food and Water Watch •Cindy Buhl, Legislative Director, Office of Rep. James McGovern (D‐MA) Moderator: Lisa Griffith, National Family Farm Coalition and US Working Group on the Food Crisis

Join us for a briefing in Washington, DC, following an interactive thematic dialogue on the global food crisis and the right to food on Monday, April 6, at the UN General Assembly.

Food prices in most developing countries have not fallen and, in some cases, have risen despite the drop in global agricultural commodity prices over the past few months. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), people in poor countries continue to suffer the impact of high food prices, compounded by sharply lower economic growth and decreased remittances.

In the US, demand for food stamps and emergency food assistance has overstretched capacity and continues to grow rapidly. Unofficial estimates of US food insecurity show sharp increases between 2007 and 2008, with rates still increasing in 2009.

An alternate perspective on the global food crisis based on the right to food opens the door to new solutions. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, will share his observations on the global food crisis and how attention to the right to food can address it with greater success than many other approaches that are being suggested in global forums.

Professor Olivier De Schutter was appointed by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations as Special Rapporteur on the right to food in March 2008. His three‐year mandate is to monitor and report on the right to food to the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council. A specialist in human rights, De Schutter teaches at the University of Louvain (Belgium) and the College of Europe (Natolin Campus, Poland). He is a Visiting Professor at Columbia University and a Member of the Global Law School Faculty of New York University. Previously, he was Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

RSVP to Lisa Griffith no later than April 6, 2009: (202) 543‐5675 or lisa@nffc.net