Parliamentary conference for the human right to food in Spain

From the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation we have taken an important step on the road to create better conditions for fair, healthy and sustainable food, and make this a fundamental right that must be guaranteed for all people. With the support of Ecored Social, the conference “The Human Right to Food in Spain under debate: towards a fair, sustainable and guaranteed food policy from the field to the table“ was held, which has made it possible to verify that there are points of agreement in Spain to achieve progress in the materialization of this right.

On 6 May, the Ernest Lluch Hall of the Congress of Deputies brought together representatives of the productive and social sectors, the academic field and deputies from the main parliamentary groups, in a dialogue focused on proposals, knowledge, the exchange of ideas and the comprehensive approach to a highly complex issue with a cross-cutting perspective such as the sustainable and socially just transformation of the food system in Spain.

The conversation on the right to food concluded with a collective exercise of those minimum consensuses that exist today among the different social, economic and political actors in order to advance on the path towards the recognition and effective implementation of the right to food. At this meeting, the participants shared diagnoses on inequality, precariousness and the causes that hinder access to food, but also concrete proposals to transform the system from a more democratic and transversal perspective.

The right to food: a country issue

The opening speech “The right to food: a democratic urgency“, by Ana Moragues, senior lecturer at the University of Barcelona and director of the FARO Observatory, set the tone of the meeting by stressing that talking about food cannot be reduced to “feeding” those who have fewer resources, but implies recognising a right linked to human dignity. “Talking about the right to food is not just talking about food; it is talking about work, health, childhood, territory, sustainability and democracy. It is a matter of the country.” His speech analyzed the definition of this right based on the provisions of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and focused on the structural causes of food insecurity and the need to build stable public policies that guarantee adequate food “in a dignified, autonomous and sustained way”.

Knowledge, production, distribution, consumption and public policies

The first round table, moderated by David Sánchez, Director of the Federation of Consumers and Users (CECU), was focused on the “Territorialization of food systems”, and it was addressed how there are projects and initiatives around the food chain as a whole that allow us to glimpse a sustainable and territorialized food system, from the generation of knowledge, production, distribution, consumption and public policies. Isabel Cerrillo, founding partner of Alimentta, opened the dialogue by sharing his recent research on Spain’s productive capacity to supply its population, sharing the different future scenarios that lie ahead in order to make this objective effective”, while Fernando Marco Peñarrocha, Managing Director of the Cooperativa de Viver, introduced a Pragmatic look from the productive field, presenting how agri-food cooperative companies are a key actor on the road to local food production, social cohesion in rural territories and the generation of decent living conditions for producers. He spoke of the need to incorporate environmental objectives in production and to promote cooperative models capable of generating “positive externalities”. But he also called for self-criticism and realism: For change to work, he said, sustainable alternatives must be “easy and convenient for consumers.”

The partner of the GIASAT consortium (Integrated Agroecological Management of Territorialized Food Systems), Pedro Lloret, took the debate to the institutional terrain and considered that if the food challenge is to be seriously addressed, it must be fully integrated into the scope of the welfare state. Specifically, he stressed that for the distribution and logistics sector in Advanced Territorialized Systems, greater articulation is necessary for the agroecological field.

At this table, the intervention of Iria Costela, cooperative member of the Biolíbere Cooperative Supermarket, stood out for her explanation of the first pilot project inspired by the proposal of “food social security”, which is currently taking place in Getafe. Social Security for Food is a proposal to guarantee universal access to healthy, sustainable and fair food, through a public system inspired by the traditional Social Security model. To this end, universality, democratic governance and public-community financing articulate the construction of this proposal.

The project works through a monthly allowance to buy products in participating establishments that meet social and environmental criteria. “The idea is that it is easy and that it generates enthusiasm.” The pilot, still in an early phase, has thirty participants distributed in eleven coexistence units and a shared governance model between social associations and local producers. The promoters believe that the real value lies in the change of approach: universalising access to quality food and, at the same time, favouring a fair ecological transition for the agricultural sector.

For her part, the technical secretary of the Network of Municipalities for Agroecology, María Carrascosa, pointed out that the search for this transformation also opens an opportunity for agroecology to enter the agendas of political parties and discussions on the productive model. He recalled that many of the initiatives and policies provided by local governments in this area have been integrated into the organization, while with the Council of Social Organizations (a consultative body and monitoring of the actions of the Network made up of organizations and members of the same) the vision is raised, the actions, the recommendations of social and productive actors.

Food at the cross-cutting edge of the economy, health, society and the environment

The next round table, moderated by the agricultural director of Azucarera España, Salomé Santos, delved into precisely this idea. Under the slogan “Sustainable food as a lever of the State: economy, health, territory and justice“, several participants defended the need to overcome the classic vision of the individual consumer and focus on the structural factors that would allow progress towards greater accessibility of adequate food, which must incorporate public health, social justice, fair trade, environmental sustainability and territorial cohesion.

Sandrine da Cunha, a technician in the Knowledge area of the Red Cross, provided an insight into daily social work. He explained how some organizations are moving away from purely care models to adopt more comprehensive and participatory approaches. He mentioned as an example the wallet cards, which allow families to decide what to buy and regain autonomy over their diet, accompanied by nutritional information and personalized support. “The person has to feel empowered and able to decide what is good for their health.”

From the business world, Felipe Medina Martín, technical general secretary of the Spanish Association of Distributors, Self-Services and Supermarkets (ASEDAS), referred to the need to also recognize what does work within the agri-food chain and that in this transformation regulations that hinder access for consumers are avoided. His approach coexisted with more critical positions such as that of Pau García Orrit, confederal secretary of Youth of Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), who recalled that “food is not a simple commodity”. He explained that there is a “historical debt” with the peasantry and denounced that too often the interests of large companies are imposed on the needs of the working class and those who live in contexts of food precariousness.

Political parties set positions on the right to food

The table of political parties showed a greater tone of agreement on the main points around healthy, sustainable and socially fair food. At the table moderated by Adrián Gallero, head of Sustainable Food Programs at the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, the deputy for the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), Patricia Otero, stressed that in a context of climate crisis and geopolitical tensions, this issue requires a forceful decisionon the part of public administrations and to fight comprehensively for competitive, healthy and accessible food systems.

Also in the left-wing bloc, the deputy of SUMAR, Mar González Báez, assured that eating well cannot be a privilege of those who have more money, privileges and information and that working on the right to food must put childhood as a starting point. For her part, the deputy of Podemos Grupo Mixto, Martina Velarde, defended a food model that puts life at the center, that is fair, sustainable, territorialized and that does not reproduce systems of inequalities and also asked to understand food as a matter of public health.

From the right-wing formations, the Vox deputy, Ricardo Chamorro, placed food sovereignty and strategic autonomy as key concepts for any future agreement, while the deputy of the Popular Party (PP), María Cuesta, insisted that the right to food “is not an ideological issue, but of human dignity and social cohesion”, and called for combining support for the primary sector, public-private collaboration and policies focused on concrete results.

An invitation to think about how the right to food should be shaped in Spain

The closing speech was given by Dionisio Ortiz, professor of the Department of Economics and Social Sciences of the Universitat Politècnica de València, who reviewed many of the ideas presented during the day. He recalled that the right to food “is much more than eating healthy,” since it crosses the entire value chain, from production to consumption. And in this case, talking about rights also implies talking about “obligations, responsibilities and legal frameworks capable of guiding public and private decisions. Regulation is a way to guarantee the rights of other people,” he said.

In his final reflection, he left a feeling that floated throughout the meeting: guaranteeing the right to food can become a tool for democratic transformation. Not only because of its effects on health or poverty, but because it forces us to rethink how food is produced, distributed and consumed in a society marked by inequality and the ecological crisis. After that, he launched an invitation to explore the idea of a future social food security, which is a “challenging concept” and said that “the political merit is to get out of the comfort zones and find points of agreement to achieve real progress.”