June 2, 2008
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2008 May 28 - June 3 [ENVIRONMENT]
International forum held for solidarity to establish food sovereignty and stop global warming |
The National Liaison Association to Safeguard the Food and the Health of the Nation (Zenkoku Shokkenren) sponsored the forum.
About 230 farmers, consumers, and researchers took part in the discussion with panelists.
Many agreed that promoting family farming, a “locally produce and locally consume” system, and the “direct farm sales to consumers” system can help reduce global warming.
They also pointed out the importance of international solidarity in the struggle to establish food sovereignty for every nation.
Nishioka Shuzo, a National Institute for Environmental Studies fellow and ranking member of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ICPP), said that an effective way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to break away from “mass production and consumption” and to establish a “produce locally and consume locally” system.
Henry Saragih from Indonesia, representative of the international peasant movement “La Via Campesina”, denounced multinational corporations for consuming huge amounts of fossil fuels to transport timber obtained through destructive logging under the pretext of producing biofuels from products such as palm oil.
Saragih said the need now is to promote sustainable family farming and increase the movement to establish national food sovereignty, the right to decide food policies without foreign interference.
Majima Yoshitaka, National Federation of Farmers Movement (Nouminren) vice president, criticized grain trading companies for enormously benefiting from the soaring grain prices.
He also criticized the World Trade Organization (WTO) for forcing Japan to buy unnecessary foreign rice amid a worldwide shortage of rice.
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