Food Sovereignty an Agenda for Faith-based Development Ethics

Asian Educational Research Association, VOLUME - III, ISSUE - 2, 2013, ISSN: 2094 - 5337

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Development Management

Food Sovereignty: An Agenda for Faith-

based Development Ethics

Liza May Aquino Rommel M. Dascil

PhD in Development Management

Divine Word College of Laoag, Philippines

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.

(Via Campesina 2007)

Abstract

This paper is a critique on the article Food Sovereignty by Raj Patel published in The Journal

of Peasant Studies in July 2009. While it affirms Patels notion that the shift from food security to food

sovereignty as a development discourse touches greatly on human rights, democracy and

egalitarianism, it also argues that the peasants struggle for food sovereignty should, more importantly,

be considered as a relevant and practical agenda for development ethics. It examines why the moral

consideration of the current global food system may help sustain the privileged position of peasants to


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resist the global, corporate-control of modern food economy. Using the Catholic Social Teachings as a

looking glass, it extends the idea of food sovereignty one step farther, even as it illustrates how food

sovereignty informs and necessitates an ethical basis for challenging and replacing conventional

agrarian systems with sustainable and socially just alternatives that promote human dignity and the

integrity of creation.

Introduction

In the field of development, what inspires the inclusion of development ethics in discourse and

practice is the multifarious and multifaceted economic, social and political processes. These processes

bring about both opportunities and threats for humankind, hence the problematization of these

processes capacity to fulfill the ultimate ends of human beings (and the natural world). Some of the

most urgent issues that humanity faces today are the complex issues around the production,

distribution, and consumption of food. As these directly relate to the global issues of human suffering

due to poverty and hunger, and the use and control of resources, they are by nature issues of ethics.

The article Food Sovereignty by Raj Patel is an attempt to explain an alternative approach to

development concerning food. It touches on the issues of current global food system through an

alternative point of view different from Food Security, which is the dominant neoliberal economic

development paradigm on food. As it sorts out the contradictions inherent in Food Sovereignty as a

new concept, Patel (2009: 667) argues that

One way to balance these disparities is through the explicit introduction of rights-based language. To talk of a right to shape food policy is to contrast it with a privilege. The modern food system has been architected by a handful of privileged people. Food sovereignty insists that this is illegitimate, because the design of our social system is not the privilege of the few, but the right of all. By summoning this language, food sovereignty demands that such rights be respected, protected, and fulfilled, as evinced through twin obligations of conduct and result (Balakrishnan and Elson 2008). It offers a way of fencing off particular entitlements, by setting up systems of duty and obligation.


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Focusing on the principles of universal human rights to explain this new concept, Patel (2009)

tries to question the social and cultural state of food production and consumption in the context of

conventional hunger- and poverty-reduction discourse. This convention, which is what Food Security is

all about, shows not only how the subject of development narrative has shifted from communal to

individual self-determination through market integration, it also portrays why and how peasants and

their traditional roles in agricultural production have been depoliticized and reduced to utter

insignificance. In the debate on hunger and poverty alleviation, this is how the neoliberalist perspective

pictures the peasants within the major contours of global food economy.

Tied with the continuously widening corporate-control of food production and distribution

through trade liberalization, this perspective is powerfully and cleverly insulated by multinational

institutions, like the World Trade Organization (WTO). This neoliberal perspective can be traced back to

the modernization of agriculture and its globalization through the green revolution and its most recent

version, the gene revolution. It is boldly branded and promoted by multinational institutions and agro-

transnational corporations (agro-TNCs) as the inevitable way towards food security. The failure of the

peasantry in the commodity market is merely a collateral damage that can be corrected in the long run

through greater integration of the agricultural processes into the market.

Patel (2009) believes that the legal developments in the international discourse on food have

paved the way for the formulation of three important concepts right to food, food security, and

food sovereignty. The right to food, and its parallel, the right to be free from hunger, is fully and

legally mandated by various international bodies.

The term food security, on the other hand, has been used in discourse concerning poverty and

hunger since its adoption by FAO in 1974 to address a global food crisis. It was defined as availability

at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food

consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices (UN 1975). In the 1996 World Food

Summit, food security received a more complex definition:

Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels [is achieved] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to


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sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 1996).

This definition was considered as the vision of food security in life with the World Food Summit Plan of

Action in 1996. Again, in 2001, food security was redefined in the FAO document The State of Food

Insecurity 2001 as a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and

economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food

preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 2002).

While food security is largely a definition of the goal of the right to food, although it holds the

state accountable in some ways, it does not necessarily rest on specific set of policies (Patel 2009). This

therefore allows the state a wide margin of discretion in terms of implementation. These limitations

have opened the two UN-sanctioned policies on food to criticisms and alternative proposals. One

proposal that has strongly captured the attention of those involved in the food discourse is the concept

of food sovereignty. Following Via Campesinas concept, Patel (2009:670) argues that the

Claims around food sovereignty address the need for social change such that the capacity to shape food policy can be exercised at all appropriate levels. To make those rights substantive requires more than a sophisticated series of juridical sovereignties. To make the right to shape food policy meaningful is to require that everyone be able substantively to engage with those policies. But the prerequisites for this are a society in which the equality-distorting effects of sexism, patriarchy, racism, and class power have been eradicated. Activities that instantiate this kind of radical moral universalism are the necessary precursor to the formal cosmopolitan federalism that the language of rights summons. And it is by these activities that we shall know food sovereignty.

Food Sovereignty, while directly challenging the loopholes of the other two, is a more precise

policy and proposes concrete agenda for policy-making especially against the failure of the first two. It

is however important to note that the framework of food sovereignty, although fundamentally

premised on rights-based approach, is especially emphatic on the rights of small farmers and peasants

to productive resources, and demands the fulfillment of all policies that are recognized in international

bodies pertaining to such rights.

Referring to this phenomenon as a new power and social relations, Patel (2009) believes that

Food Sovereignty is a critical reaction to the neoliberal notion of food security. Indeed, the concept

offers an ethical question on what exactly does the development discourse on food hope to achieve


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and with what means, and at what or whose expense. It claims to be a logical precondition for

genuine food security, that is, long-term food security, which depends on those who produces food,

and on the adequate care for the natural environment including human beings. Arguing that peasants

and small farmers are the stewards of productive resources, food sovereignty upholds the following

principles as the necessary foundation for achieving genuine food security: (a) food is a basic human

right, one which can only be realized in a system where food sovereignty is guaranteed, and; (b) it is

the right of each nation to produce its basic food through agricultural systems that respect cultural and

productive diversity (Patel 2009; Desmarais 2007).

The question now is why and how should the discourse of food sovereignty be extended to the

realm of ethics or morals?

Claim

Initially based on Patels notion of Food Sovereignty as based on human rights, this paper

claims that the discourse and practice of food sovereignty is by its nature a moral undertaking. While it

is true, as what Patel believes, that food sovereignty is about power and rights, it is rather the moral

question on sustainability that makes more explicit the realities of human suffering brought about by

the programs patterned through the legal frameworks of right to food and food security. Indeed,

Food Sovereignty is, above all, a paradigm that promotes human dignity and the integrity of creation.

Since the time of its launching at the World Food Summit in 1996, the concept of food

sovereignty has rapidly developed. As a concept, it was introduced to the public by Via Campesina, a

global peasant resistant movement. As an important global organization of peasants and advocates,

Via Campesina strongly proposes an integration of new and old agricultural paradigms that fully

considers both agricultural production and environmental preservation as an alternative way of

modern development (McMichael 2006). It provides space for dialogue and action among peasant and

farmers organizations from all over the world and therefore bridges gaps in terms of institutional

capacity and strategy among actors (Smith 2002).


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In its own words, Via Campesina defines food sovereignty as the right of each nation to

maintain and develop its own capacity to produce its basic food, respecting cultural and productive

diversity and the right of peoples to define their own agricultural and food policy (Via Campesina

1996a; quoted in Desmarais 2007, 34). Critically challenging the neoliberal concept of food production

and distribution, and encouraging other like-minded individuals and organizations, Via Campesina

declared in 1996:

We, the Via Campesina, a growing movement of farm workers, peasant, farm and indigenous peoples organizations from all the regions of the world, know that food security cannot be achieved without taking full account of those who produce food. Any discussion that ignores our contribution will fail to eradicate poverty and hunger. Food is a basic human right. This right can only be realized in a system where Food Sovereignty is guaranteed (Via Campesina 1996b).

To the Via Campesina, food sovereignty signifies the need to shift from the WTOs technical

concept of food security to the political concept of food sovereignty, which includes cultural and

productive diversity (Desmarais 2007). Indeed, this change in semantics (from food security to food

sovereignty) is geared toward allowing peasants around the world to insert their local agenda into

international discourse by making moral claims on their dignity as human beings and the integrity of

their environment.

Reason

Food sovereignty as a precondition to genuine food security is premised on seven principles:

food as a basic human right, agrarian reform, environmental protection, food trade reorganization,

ending the globalization of hunger, social peace, and democratic control (Patel 2009; Via Campesina

2007). In summary, these principles refer to everyones access to sufficient (in quantity and quality),

safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food that should be guaranteed by all nations; agrarian

reform is a necessary and fundamental ingredient of food sovereignty in as much as the ownership and

control of land by the peasants or tillers allow them to also control the basic processes of food


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production; the sustainable care of natural resources, which presupposes the practice of sustainable

agriculture, means the right of farmers against restrictive intellectual property rights, patenting of the

natural world and the use of agro-chemicals; food is primarily considered as a source of nutrition

before being considered an item of trade, and this means that local food production and sufficiency

should not be displaced by food imports; globalized hunger can only end with the end of control of

multinational corporations over agricultural policies, and multilateral institutions that facilitate macro-

economic policies; food and its underlying processes must be not used as weapons of violence,

oppression and coercion against small farmers, peasants, and minority and indigenous groups; and,

small farmers must have direct input to policy and decision making at the local and international levels

(Via Campesina 2007).

Evidently, there are very important moral issues that the discourse of food sovereignty tackles

poverty and environmental degradation especially among small farming communities. Food

sovereignty argues that green and gene revolutions of liberal agriculture systems have led to the

disentanglement of peasant communities and the environment from agricultural production. The

disarticulation of agriculture from ecosystems and local communities through the green and gene

revolution has negatively transformed the nature of agriculture. The integration of productive input

and food into the market system has allowed greater control of agro-TNCs over the means of food

production. With the ultimate goal of higher profit through increased market, agro-TNCs have been

relentlessly forging input dependence and standardizing the nature of agricultural production, subjecting soaring farm animal populations to brutalizing treatment, toxifying soils and water and externalizing environmental costs, reshaping dietary aspirations, breaking locals bonds between production and consumption, devalorizing labor and replacing it with technology and progressively appropriating control and surplus value from farmers and farm communities (Weis 2007, 162).

The conventional, corporate-controlled productive models have trapped farmers both in rich

and poor countries. With the introduction of high-yielding and genetically modified seed varieties

packaged with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and increased level of mechanization, peasants in

the rural communities of poor countries were forced to enter into credit arrangements with banks and

other credit institutions. Many peasants went into debt, which resulted in the loss of their lands; many

others migrated to urban areas, while some committed suicides by drinking chemical pesticides. For


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the Via Campesina, the only way to reverse this scenario is through the adoption of food sovereignty

as a social policy (Patel 2009).

Based on the foregoing, food sovereignty has the capacity to question the sustainability of the

market-oriented agriculture model emanates from a moral perspective. As it offers an alternative

which basically include community-based agrarian resistance that aims to reframe development in

radical ways, it reasserts the significant roles of the peasants, and the importance of environmental

preservation and conservation in agricultural production, food sovereignty revalorizes rural cultural-

ecology and communal solidarity instead of individual responsibility and competition.

Evidence

As mentioned earlier, poverty and environmental degradation as a result of the dominant

economic paradigm directly justify the need for food sovereignty. These two intertwined realities

explicitly inform the need to consider the concept of food sovereignty from the vantage point of ethics

above all else.

In the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit, the United Nations declared that

the rate of world poverty and hunger has decreased from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005, or

from 46% to 27%, and that the world is on track to meet the poverty reduction target by 2015 (United

Nations 2010, 6-7). This MDG review, although encouraging at face value, becomes quite suspicious

and ironic considering the FAO report in 2002 that per capita agricultural productivity has increased

since the second half of the last century and that there has been more than enough food for every

human being on earth (FAO 2002).

If the latest MDG report is right that there are still around 920 million poor, hungry and

malnourished people in the planet at the moment, how does this data relate to the tenability of the

contemporary global food economy? How does the supposedly sufficient food production explain such

disparity? Why does hunger persist in a world of bounty?

Following Jeremy Benthams notion of rights as an obligation that certain entities should fulfill,

Patels immediate answer to the problem is obviously state-centric:

Food sovereignty has its own geographies, one determined by specific histories and contours of resistance. To demand a space of food sovereignty is to demand specific arrangements to govern territory and space. At the end of the day, the power of rights-


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talk is that rights imply a particular burden on a specified entity the state (Patel 2009:668).

This is in a way supported by UNDP (2003) which points to several reasons for the massive

hunger: from marginal farmland, difficult environment conditions such as drought, flooding, and other

natural disasters, to inadequate or lack of access to agricultural resources such land, water, and seed

and livestock varieties. One of solutions therefore to the problem is technical, that is, to provide

productive inputs for small farmers. A very important point, however, is that some analysts find the

locus of the poverty and hunger problems in the current global political economy of food, which is

driven by transnational industrial agriculture and livestock production. These analysts think that

poverty and hunger is mainly due to the globalized corporate control of resources, food production

and distribution, which is perpetuated by mainstream capital-intensive agricultural systems.

Indeed, the limitation of Patels state-centric approach to the understanding of Food

Sovereignty calls for other ways through which the issue of human sufferings such as hunger should be

understood. This paper therefore offers the wisdom of the Catholic Social Teachings, which ultimately

provide an ethical foundation upon which to illustrate the disparities in terms of enforced dependence

of the poor on the rich as a result of free trade and free market imposed by transnational corporations

that increasingly control agro-inputs and distribution of agricultural goods. The Catholic Social

Teachings strongly argue against the strained incorporation of the poor and hungry peasants into the

global market relations, which are characterized by long-term price instability and distorted

competitions, which result in massive dislocation that further deepens poverty and hunger.

Discussion

The conversion of Food Sovereignty as an ethical agenda is provoked by the reality of human

suffering and the possibility of redirecting the global food system through more inclusive policy and

practice. Through faith-based ethics, this paper hopes to justify the need to make the issue of hunger

and other forms of suffering a moral issue. Specifically, by using the Social Doctrines of the Catholic

Church, it emphasizes the need to look at the global food system and therefore the plight of the poor

and marginalized peasants in the context of social justice

Domination and Exploitation


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In the last twenty-five years a hope has spread through the human race that economic growth would bring about such a quantity of goods that it would be possible to feed the hungry at least with the crumbs falling from the table, but this has proved a vain hope in underdeveloped areas and in pockets of poverty in wealthier areas, because of the rapid growth of population and of the labor force, because of rural stagnation and the lack of agrarian reform, and because of the massive migratory flow to the cities, where the industries, even though endowed with huge sums of money, nevertheless provide so few jobs that not infrequently one worker in four is left unemployed. These stifling oppressions constantly give rise to great numbers of marginal persons, ill-fed, inhumanly housed, illiterate and deprived of political power as well as of the suitable means of acquiring responsibility and moral dignity (Justicia in Mundo #10)

When poverty, hunger and displacement become part of the lives of the producers of food in

spite of the significant amount of global food surpluses, it is an affront not only to the individual

peasant but to human society as a whole. It is a contradiction of modernitys promise of freedom and

human development, and fundamentally it is an insult against our notion of human dignity and social

justice, and therefore ultimately, of our humanity. The dire situation of the peasant since the

globalization of agricultural modernization and introduction of trade liberalization is characterized by

capital-driven corporate domination of the social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental

spaces. A good number of biblical and doctrinal references, such as the Catholic Social Teachings, can

help provide vivid descriptions of how the peasant world looks like.

The church locates the cause of peasants miseries in the increased faith by corporate

institutions in modern economics, which when left to itself works rather to widen the differences in

the worlds level of life: rich people enjoy rapid growth and the poor develop slowly.some produce a

surplus of foodstuff, others cruelly lack them and see their imports made uncertain (Popularum

Progresso #8).

In the context of the social and economic advances made in many countries, pronounced

imbalances are increasingly discernible: first, between agriculture on the one hand and industry and

services on the other; between the more and the less developed regions within countries with differing

economic resources and development (Mater et Magistra #48).

According to Gaudium et Spes (#63), the world is in a moment of history when the development

of economic life could potentially diminished social inequalities if the development were guided and

coordinated in a reasonable and human way; yet all too often, economic development programs, too


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often, serves to intensify the inequalities and promotes the decline of social status of the weak and in

contempt for the poor. While an enormous mass of people still lack the absolute necessities of life, a

few number of people live sumptuously and squander wealth. Both in developed and developing

countries, there are clear manifestations of selfishness and a flaunting of wealth which is as

disconcerting as it is scandalous (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #14:1).

Indeed luxury and misery are within each others vicinity, that is, while few enjoy very great

freedom of choice, many are deprived of almost all possibility of acting on their own initiative and

responsibility and often subsist in living and working conditions unworthy of human beings (Gaudium

et Spes #63). The contrast between the economically more advanced countries and other countries is

becoming serious day by day, and the very peace of the world can be jeopardized in consequence

(Gaudium et Spes #63), and this gives us a sign of a widespread sense that the unity of the world, that

is, the unity of the human race, is seriously compromised (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 14:2).

The peasant world is ruled by a despotic economic domination and immense power that is

concentrated in the hands of the few who exercise a dictatorship through complete control of financial

regulations, hence the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in

their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will

(Quadragesimo Anno #106). This accumulation of power the characteristic mark of contemporary

economic life is a natural result of limitless free competition which permits the survival of those who

only are the strongest, which often means, those who fight most relentlessly and pay less heed to the

dictates of conscience (Quadragesimo Anno #107). The dominative financial and social mechanisms,

which are denounced by the church, are functioning almost automatically in favor of more developed

countries and the people manipulating them, thus accentuating the situation of wealth for a few, and

suffocating the economies of the rest (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #16:1-3). Along the manipulation of

financial mechanisms and the unbridled ambition for economic supremacy, conflicts have been

generated that are characterized by

bitter fights to gain supremacy over the State in order to use in economic struggles its resources and authority *and+ between States themselves, not only because countries employ their power and shape their policies to promote every economic advantage of their citizens, but also because they seek to decide political controversies that arise among nations through the use of their economic supremacy and strength. Unbridled


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ambition for domination has succeeded the desire to gain; the whole economic life has become hard, cruel and relentless in a ghastly measure (Quadragesimo Anno #108-11).

As the developed countries export manufactured goods, which are rapidly increasing in

echnological capacity, content and market access, the raw materials from less developed countries are

continuously being subjected to price instability, a state of affairs far removed from the progressively

increasing value of industrial products (Populorum Progresso #57). The effects of free trade on poor

countries are caused by economic inequalities put in place by rich countries which undermine

international relations. Populorum Progresso (#58) explains this further:

The rule of free trade, taken by itself, is no longer able to govern international relations. Its advantages are certainly evident when the parties involved are not affected by any excessive inequalities of economic power: it is an incentive to progress and a reward for effort. That is why industrially developed countries see in it a law of justice. But the situation is no longer the same when economic conditions differ too widely from country to country: prices which are freely set in the market can produce unfair results. One must recognize that it is the fundamental principle of liberalism, as the rule for commercial exchange, which is questioned here.

These inequalities are further exacerbated by the phenomenon of international debt crisis. Less

developed countries accepted offer of abundant capital from international financial institutions with

the hope of accelerating economic development, but served instead as a counterproductive

mechanism. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (#19) argued that the instrument chosen to make huge contribution

to development failed because debtor-countries, in order to service their debts find themselves

obliged to export capital needed for improving the sectors for development. This brings to mind case

of improving the agricultural sector through foreign aid which requires governments, in order for them

to obtain new financing, to implement structural adjustment policies (SAPs) that demand a decrease of

government subsidies to farmers and opening the market to free trade. This mechanism has eventually

placed the debtor-countries in a cycle of debt servicing, new loans, and structural adjustments which

has turned into a break upon development and indeed in some cases even aggravated

underdevelopment (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #19:5).

Another disconcerting phenomenon that the neoliberal economic paradigm has introduced is

the concept of super-development, which is typified by high consumerism. With the unacceptable

miseries of the underdevelopment, proponents of liberal economic development defines what is good


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and happiness in the context of excessive availability, multiplication and continual replacement of

material goods, which easily makes people to become slaves of possession and immediate

gratification. The church calls this the civilization of consumption or consumerism, which refers to the

blind submission to pure consumerism characterize by crass materialism and radical dissatisfaction

promoted and motivated by the flood of publicity and tempting offers of products (Sollicitudo Rei

Socialis #28:2-3). This is used both in consumption and marketing of productive input to satisfy

consumption demands.

The domination of neoliberal economics imposed on the agricultural sector by transnational

institutions as discussed above directly reflects not only the greed and corruption in corporate and

government structures but also the inadequacy of governments in bringing about genuine

development. The promise of abundance through modern agriculture technology and financial

mechanism has produced an unquenchable thirst for riches and temporal possessions. Again,

Quadragesimo Anno admonishes that this thirst for material goods, which is conditioned by the

present economic development paradigm, has led to the breaking of Gods law and trampling of the

rights of neighbors:

Since the instability of economic life, and especially of its structure, exacts of those engaged in it most intense and unceasing effort, some have become so hardened to the stings of conscience as to hold that they are allowed, in any manner whatsoever, to increase their profits and use means, fair or foul, to protect their hard-won wealth against sudden changes of fortune. The easy gains that a market unrestricted by any law opens to everybody attracts large numbers to buying and selling goods, and they, their one aim being to make quick profits with the least expenditure of work, raise or lower prices by their uncontrolled business dealings so rapidly according to their own caprice and greed that they nullify the wisest forecasts of producers. (Quadragesimo Anno #132).

Indeed, the neoliberal economic policies the control modern life led to the scandal of glaring

inequalities not merely in the enjoyment of possessions but even more in the exercise of power

(Quadragesimo Anno #9). And the above scandalous corporate scenario is ultimately reflective of the

degradation of the legitimacy of the state. It has reduced the role of the state as supreme arbiter for

justice and common good to a level of slavery to human passion and greed that result in economic

imperialism and oppression of many people (Quadragesimo Anno 109). The state, weakened by the


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forces of neoliberal economics has allowed the introduction of the modern agriculture to rural areas,

which has led not only to economic displacement but to also cultural displacement that arose when

The conflict between traditional civilizations and the new elements of industrial civilization break down structures which do not adapt themselves to new conditions. Their framework, sometimes rigid, was the indispensable prop to personal and family life; older people remain attached to it, the young escape from it, as from a useless barrier, to turn eagerly to new forms of life in society. The conflict of the generations is made more serious by a tragic dilemma: whether to retain ancestral institutions and convictions and renounce progress, or to admit techniques and civilizations from outside and reject along with the traditions of the past all their human richness. In effect, the moral, spiritual and religious supports of the past too often give way without securing in return any guarantee of a place in the new world (Quadragesimo Anno #10).

After subduing nature through reason and scientific positivism, human beings now faces

another form of alienation their imprisonment within their own rationality and slavery to the

scientific:

The human sciences are today enjoying a significant flowering. On the one hand they are subjecting to critical and radical examination the hitherto accepted knowledge about man, on the grounds that this knowledge seems either too empirical or too theoretical. On the other hand, methodological necessity and ideological presuppositions too often lead the human sciences to isolate, in the various situations, certain aspects of man, and yet to give these an explanation which claims to be complete or at least an interpretation which is meant to be all-embracing from a purely quantitative or phenomenological point of view. This scientific reduction betrays a dangerous presupposition. To give a privileged position in this way to such an aspect of analysis is to mutilate man and, under the pretext of a scientific procedure, to make it impossible to understand man in his totality (Octogesima Adveniens #38).

In agrarian context, the intensive mechanisms to make agriculture better and to address world

hunger have resulted in the introduction of deadly chemicals in the environment. These chemicals do

not only threaten the natural world but also the social world. All too soon, and often in an

unforeseeable way man is not only subjected to alienation *by what he/she produces+ but rather it

turns man against himself (Redemptor Hominis #15).

While the horizon of man is thus being modified according to the images that are chosen for him, another transformation is making itself felt, one which is the dramatic and unexpected consequence of human activity. Man is suddenly becoming aware that by an ill- considered exploitation of nature he risks destroying it and becoming in his


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turn the victim of this degradation. Not only is the material environment becoming a permanent menace -- pollution and refuse, new illness and absolute destructive capacity-but the human framework is no longer under man's control, thus creating an environment for tomorrow which may well be intolerable. This is a wide-ranging social problem which concerns the entire human family (Octogesimo Adveniens #21).

The growing demand for resources and energy, in order to support the high rate of

consumerism in the developed countries, result in the exploitation of the whole of material world and

in irreparable damage to the essential elements of life on earth and the in the destruction of the whole

of humanity (Justicia in Mundo #11). This state of destruction demands therefore an awareness of the

limitations of the planet which should prompt us to rationally and honestly plan beyond considering

the natural environment for immediate consumption (Redemptor Hominis #15). With the furious

development and ascendancy of technology in production processes, development planning must be

framed by a proportional development of morals and ethics and the first reason for disquiet concerns

the essential and fundamental question: does this progress, which has man for its author and

promoter, make life on earth more human in every aspect of life? Does it make it more worthy of

man? (Redemptor Hominis 15). In speaking about the world, the church stated that the modern

underdevelopment is not only economic but also cultural, political and simply human.[and] the result

of a too narrow idea of development (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #15:5-6).

Exodus from Poverty and Hunger

Having thoroughly looked at the present social alienations, the church declares that there

remains a human aspiration, in which Women and men crave a life that is full, autonomous, and

worthy of their nature as human beings; they long to harness for their own welfare the immense

resources of the modern world (Gaudium et Spes # 9). The church hereby offers a way of building

another world that is founded on the conviction that humanity is able and has the duty to establish

a political, social, and economic order at the service of humanity, to assert and develop the dignity

proper to individuals and to societies (Gaudium et Spes # 9).

The Book of Exodus, which is a history of the liberation of the poor, tells the story of a people

whose society is founded on liberation from oppression and domination, and the communion of the

liberated people in active solidarity. The importance of this historical narrative lies in its pointing out of


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a peoples intimate experience of the domination of central power, and the emphasis on tradition, as

expressed in the ten commandments, and the tribal laws, as the loci of a new ethical and social

awareness that served as the basis for a new social formation (Exodus 20:1-2).

It is a fundamental principle of faith that In the design of God, every man *and woman+ is

called upon to develop and fulfill himself [or herself], for every life is a vocation. At birth, everyone is

granted, in germ, a set of aptitudes and qualities for him to bring to fruition (Populorum Progresso

#15). The point of this principle is that the human being is necessarily the foundation, cause, and end

of all social institutions (Mater et Magistra #219). It is the principle that brings to bear a paradigm of

human development toward a just and human society. Through its biblical teachings and encyclicals,

the church recommends a path for social renewal first, the recognition of the sin of social injustice;

second, an education on justice, and; third, the practice of justice. This path is embedded in the gospel

message and mission of the church:

Listening to the cry of those who suffer violence and are oppressed by unjust systems and structures, and hearing the appeal of a world that by its perversity contradicts the plan of its Creator, we have shared our awareness of the Church's vocation to be present in the heart of the world by proclaiming the Good News to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, and joy to the afflicted. The hopes and forces which are moving the world in its very foundations are not foreign to the dynamism of the Gospel, which through the power of the Holy Spirit frees people from personal sin and from its consequences in social life (Justicia in Mundo #5).

The church recognizes that the varying degrees of alienation brought about by the globalization

and the the unequal distribution which places decisions concerning three quarters of income,

investment and trade in the hands of one third of the human race(Justicia in Mundo #12) are the

primary causes of features of social injustice. With this also comes the recognition of the insufficiency

of a merely economic progress, and the new recognition of the material limits of the biosphere--all this

makes us aware new modes of understanding human dignity( Justicia in Mundo #12).

As the paradigm of liberal economic development continues to evolve and being co-opted by

international institutions and transnational corporations, the church warns that In the face of

international systems of domination, the bringing about of justice depends more and more on the

determined will for development (Justicia in Mundo #13). This will has to be constituted within the

political system that works for a development of economic growth and participation; an increase in


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wealth implying social progress by the entire communityovercomes regional imbalance and

constitutes a right which is to be applied both in the economic and in the social and political field

(Justicia in Mundo #18).

While the world undertakes rapid globalization, we see various faces of injustice that reflect the

problems which every sector and function of society needs to address. With the upsurge of new

development agenda and policies, the church in particular needs to prepare for new forms of vigilance

and undertake activities that are directed above all to different forms of oppression especially in

sectors of society where there are voiceless victims of injustice (Justicia in Mundo #20). To undertake

actions against injustice, the church recommends an education for social justice that requires

a renewal of heart, a renewal based on the recognition of sin in its individual and social manifestations. It will also inculcate a truly and entirely human way of life in justice, love and simplicity. It will likewise awaken a critical sense, which will lead us to reflect on the society in which we live and on its values; it will make people ready to renounce these values when they cease to promote justice for all people. In the developing countries, the principal aim of this education for justice consists in an attempt to awaken consciences to a knowledge of the concrete situation and in a call to secure a total improvement; by these means the transformation of the world has already begun (Justicia in Mundo #51).

In the process of education, people are decidedly made more human, and they become no

longer the object of manipulation by political, economic or cultural forces but they rather become

capable of working on their own destiny that brings about truly human communities (Justicia in Mundo

#52). Since this process of education involves every person of every age, it can be called a continuing

education one that is undertaken through action, participation and vital contact with the reality of

injustice (Justicia in Mundo #53). This brings to fore the importance of considering the cultural self-

determination that has been severely trampled in the process of globalization. Gaudium et Spes makes

a clear point in saying that culture, if it were to develop toward becoming truly human, needs an

adequate freedom of development and a legitimate possibility of autonomy according to its own principles. Quite rightly it demands respect and enjoys certain inviolability, provided, of course, that the rights of the individual and the community, both particular and universal, are safeguarded within the limits of the common good. It is not for the public authority to determine how human culture should develop, but to build up the environment and to provide assistance favorable to such development, without overlooking minorities. This is the reason why one must avoid at all costs the


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distortion of culture and its exploitation by political or economical forces [italics mine] (Gaudium et Spes #59).

This idea is affirmed by another radical encyclical Popularum Progresso, which states that every

country, rich or poor, possesses a civilization handed down by their ancestors: institutions called for

by life in this world, and higher manifestations of the life of the spirit, manifestations of an artistic,

intellectual and religious character (Popularum Progresso #40). The reason for this is that when a

country possesses true human values, it would be grave error to sacrifice them. A people that would

act in this way would thereby lose the best of its patrimony; in order to live, it would be sacrificing its

reasons for living (Popularum Progresso #40). This also calls to mind Christs famous teaching What

profit would a man show if he were to gain the whole world and destroy himself in the process

(Matthew 16:26).

Development through Social Justice Paradigm

Social Justice, not free enterprise, should be the guiding principle of the economic world. It has

been abundantly proven that free enterprise or free market, although within certain limits just and

productive of good results, has done more damage than good to many especially the peasants.

For from this source, as from a poisoned spring, have originated and spread all the errors of individualist economic teaching. Therefore, it is most necessary that economic life be again subjected to and governed by a true and effective directing principle. This function is one that the economic dictatorship which has recently displaced free competition can still less perform, since it is a headstrong power and a violent energy that, to benefit people, needs to be strongly curbed and wisely ruled. But it cannot curb and rule itself. Loftier and nobler principles--social justice and social charity--must, therefore, be sought whereby this dictatorship may be governed firmly and fully (Quadragesimo Anno #88).

Free enterprise or the imperialism of money (Popularum Progresso #26) as Pope Pius XI called it, can

be curbed if institutions of social life are penetrated by social justice that establishes a juridical and

social order which will in turn shape economic life (Quadragesimo Anno 88). This proposal of

reconstituting the whole of society in justice echoes part of Pauls letter to the Ephesians:

Let us, then, be children no longer, tossed here and there carried about by every wind of doctrine that originates in human trickery and skill in proposing error. Rather, let us profess the truth in love and grow to whole maturity of Christ the head. Through him


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the whole body grows, and with the proper functioning of the body joined firmly together by its supporting ligament, builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:14-16).

Popularum Progresso also warns that individual initiative alone and the mere free play of

competition could never assure successful development and so therefore the risk of increasing still

more the wealth of the rich and the dominion of the strong, whilst leaving the poor in their misery and

adding to the servitude of the oppressed must be avoided (Popularum Progresso #33). This goes to

say that free trade is not capable of promoting international relations because it works only in

situations when parties involved are not affected by any excessive inequalities of economic power,

even if (or especially that) this power is considered by developed countries as the law of justice

(Popularum Progresso #58). Indeed the wisdom of Leo XIII applies here: if the positions of the

contracting parties are too unequal, the consent of the parties does not suffice to guarantee the justice

of their contract, and the rule of free agreement remains subservient to the demands of the natural

law (Popularum Progresso #59), which means that Freedom of trade is fair only if it is subject to the

demands of social justice (Popularum Progresso #58). This notion of social justice resonates the

narrative of the Last Judgment, which climaxed in Jesus portrayal of his wish to be identified with the

poor I assure, as often as you neglected to do it to the least of ones, you neglected to me (Matthew

25:45). It also brings to mind the concept of divine justice in Marys Canticle: He has deposed the

mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places (Luke 1:52). With centrality of the poor

(the Lords least) in social justice, economic reforms must be undertaken intensively. These reforms

must focused on

the reform of the international trade system, which is mortgaged to protectionism and increasing bilateralism; the reform of the world monetary and financial system, today recognized as inadequate; the question of technological exchanges and their proper use; the need for a review of the structure of the existing International Organizations, in the framework of an international juridical order (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 43:2).

The reform of the international trade system is of primal importance as there are frequent

discriminations against the products of new industries of the developing countries and an international

division of labor whereby low-cost products made in countries without effective labor laws are sold in

other parts of the world at considerable profit (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #43:3). And as mentioned earlier,

the world monetary and financial system is marked by an excessive fluctuation of exchange rates and


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interest rates, which worsens the debt situation of the some poor countries; and lastly, many

inappropriate and inadequate forms of technology are transferred or enforced in poorer countries to

the detriment of people and the environment (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #43:4-5).

Just Distribution of Goods

In its discussion on the construction of social order, Pope Pius argues that not every kind of

distribution of wealth and property among people is such that it can all adequately attain the end

intended by God (Quadragesimo Anno #59). Wealth therefore which is constantly augmented by social

and economic progress, must be distributed among the various individuals and classes of society, that

the common good of all be promoted. In other words the good of the whole community must be

safeguarded, and this way one class is forbidden to exclude the other from a share of profit

(Quadragesimo Anno #59). Each class then must receive its due share and the distribution of created

goods must be brought into conformity with the common good and social justice, for every sincere

observer is conscious that the vast differences between the few who hold excessive wealth and the

many that live in destitution constitute a great evil in society (Quadragesimo Anno #60). This concept

of distribution is called for in the midst of the immense number of property-less wage-earners on the

one hand, and the superabundant riches of the fortunate few on the other, which makes the earthly

goods that are abundantly produced far from rightly distributed and equitably shared (Quadragesimo

Anno #62). Gaudium et Spes gives the rationale for this distribution:

God destined the earth and all it contains for all people and nations so that all created things would be shared fairly by all humankind under the guidance of justice tempered by charity. No matter how property is structured in different countries, adapted to their lawful institutions according to various and changing circumstances, we must never lose sight of this universal destination of earthly goods. In their use of things people should regard the external goods they lawfully possess as not just their own but common to others as well, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as themselves. Therefore everyone has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth's goods for themselves and their family (Gaudium et Spes #69:1).

The distribution of goods should go directly toward providing employment and income for the

people of today and the future. Whether individuals, groups or public authorities make the decisions

concerning this distribution and the planning of the economy, they are bound to keep these objectives


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in mind. They must realize their serious obligation of seeing to it that the provision is made for the

necessities of a decent life on the part of the individuals and the whole community. They must look out

for the future and establish a proper balance between needs of present-day consumption, both

individual and collective, and the necessity of distributing goods on behalf of the coming generation.

They should also bear in mind the urgent needs of underdeveloped countries and regions (Gaudium et

Spes #70). More poignantly, Popularum Progresso calls on the duty of just distribution because When

so many people are hungry, when so many families suffer from destitution all public or private

squandering of wealthbecomes an intolerable scandal. We are conscious of our duty to denounce it

(Popularum Progresso #P53).

Technology is for human development

Another important part of the proposal of the church for genuine (human and just)

development concerns technology. With the alienations brought about by modern agricultural

technologies, the idea of progress that is derived from the positivistic and empirical philosophies of the

enlightenment is seriously called into doubt A nave mechanistic optimism has been replaced by a

well-founded anxiety for the fate of humanity (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #27:2). Alongside this, the

economic development paradigm, in which modern technology is used as instrument, for the

accumulation of goods and services is no longer enough for the realization of human happiness.

Nor, in consequence, does the availability of the many real benefits provided in recent times by science and technology, including the computer sciences, bring freedom from every form of slavery. On the contrary, the experience of recent years shows that unless all the considerable body of resources and potential at man's disposal is guided by a moral understanding and by an orientation towards the true good of the human race, it easily turns against man to oppress him (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #28).

Indeed, technological progress must be fostered, along with a spirit of initiative, for the purpose

of production, but the fundamental purpose of this productivity must not be the mere multiplication of

products, nor profit or domination. Rather it must be at the service of all people and their humanity,

and viewed in terms of their material needs and demands of their intellectual, moral, spiritual and

religious lives (Gaudium et Spes #64).


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Pacem in Terris highlights the much needed synthesis between material and spiritual values as

it calls on the fact technological capacity and expertise although necessary, are not sufficient to

elevate the relationships of society to an order that is genuinely human: an order whose foundation is

truth, whose measure and objective is justice, whose driving force is Love, and whose method of

attainment if freedom (Pacem in Terris #149). It therefore proposes a development that is undertaken

within the moral order: the exercise or vindication of a right, as the fulfillment of a duty or the

performance of a service, as a positive answer to the providential design of God directed to our

salvation (Pacem in Terris #150). It further urges the necessity for human beings, in the intimacy of

their own consciences, to live and act in their temporal lives towards the creation of a synthesis

between scientific, technical and professional elements and spiritual values (Pacem in Terris #150).

Conclusion

Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin

against us. (Matthew 6:11-12; Luke

11:3-4).

While Patel focuses on a rights-based understanding of Food Sovereignty, this paper takes the

concept a step farther to the realm of faith-based ethics. Indeed, in this rapidly globalizing world, more

and more people turn to faith for meaning, hope and guidance in the midst of miseries and alienations

brought about neoliberal development models. As a relatively new mode of looking at the reality of

global food politics, food sovereignty is a timely and necessary historical project through which the

faith-based ethics can be fulfilled.

Food sovereignty and faith-based ethics, when fulfilled in the praxis of peasant resistance against

the neoliberal ideology of development, form two sides of the same coin. These principles work on the

same goal of empowering peasants towards liberation from oppressive and alienating corporate-

controlled agrarian system. While the Catholic Social Teachings provide the moral backdrop for the

attainment of food sovereignty, the principles of food sovereignty facilitate the realization of the

cultural-social-political values within which the teachings are fulfilled. Indeed, food sovereignty is a

practical historical project that completes the praxis and observance the Catholic Social Teachings.

Social change, such as the fulfillment of food sovereignty, is a continuing process. Framed as a

moral agenda through Catholic Social Teachings, food sovereignty offers a viable and sustainable route


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to the creation of a just and humane world. Guided by Catholic Social Teachings, those in the center

and peripheries of development discourse and practice should continue to assert the dignity of the

poor and oppressed, and the integrity of the environment, and hopefully help emancipate all those

who suffer from excessive neoliberal politico-economic domination.

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___________________. 2004. Octogesimo Adveniens. Encyclical Letter of Paul IV on A Call to Action. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Pacem in Terris. Encyclical Letter of John XXIII on Peace on Earth. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Populorum Progressio. Encyclical Letter of Paul IV on the Development of People. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Quadragesimo Anno. Encyclical Letter of Pope Pius XI on Social Order and Solidarity. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Redemptor Hominis. Encyclical Letter of John Paul II on the Contemporary Problems of Human Beings. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Rerum Novarum. Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII on the Condition of Labor. In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. ___________________. 2004. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Encyclical Letter of John Paul II on Human Concerns. Catholic Social Teachings.: In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Manila: Word and Life Publications. UDHR. 2011. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Accessed January 15, 2011. http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a25 United Nations. 2010. Millennium Development Goals 2010. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Via Campesina. 1996a. The Right to Produce and Access to Land. Position of the Via Campesina on Food Sovereignty presented at the World Summit, 13-17 November, Rome, Italy. Weis, Tony. 2007. The Global Food Economy: The Battle for the Future of Farming. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

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Food Sovereignty an Agenda for Faith-based Development Ethics

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