ELEMENTS OF THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD

The right of everyone to an adequate standard of living includes the right to adequate food. The right to food is accomplished when every man, woman and child, alone or in a community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or the means for its procurement. The right to food has to be realised progressively. However, the state has a core obligation to take the necessary action

to mitigate and alleviate hunger as provided for in Article 11(2) ICESCR, even in times of natural or other disasters. The right to food and the inherent dignity of the human person are inseparable and without food it is not possible to fulfil other rights.

According to General Comment 12, the core content of the right to adequate food includes the following elements:

Availability of food:

In a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals. Dietary needs implies that the diet as a whole contains a mix of nutrients for physical and mental growth, development and maintenance, and physical activity that are in compliance with human physiological needs at all stages throughout the life cycle and according to gender and occupation. Measures may therefore need to be taken to maintain, adapt or strengthen dietary diversity and appropriate consumption and feeding patterns, including breast-feeding, while ensuring that changes in availability and access to food supply at the very least do not negatively affect dietary composition and intake.

Food safety:

Food should be free from adverse substances. States should establish a range of protective measures by both public and private means to prevent contamination of foodstuffs through adulteration and/or through bad environmental hygiene or inappropriate handling at different stages throughout the food chain; care must also be taken to identify and avoid or destroy naturally occurring toxins.

Acceptability:

Food should be acceptable within a given culture. Cultural or consumer acceptability implies the need also to take into account, as far as possible, perceived non nutrient-based values attached to food and food consumption and informed consumer concerns regarding the nature of accessible food supplies.

Availability:

This refers to the possibilities either for feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources, or for well functioning distribution, processing and market systems that can move food from the site of production to where it is needed.

Accessibility:

This encompasses both economic and physical accessibility.  

Economic accessibility:

implies that personal or household financial costs associated with the acquisition of food for an adequate diet should be at a level such that the attainment and satisfaction of other basic needs are not threatened or compromised. Economic accessibility applies to any acquisition pattern or entitlement through which people procure their food and is a measure of the extent to which it is satisfactory for the enjoyment of the right to adequate food. Socially vulnerable groups, such as landless persons and other particularly impoverished segments of the population may need attention through special programmes.

Physical accessibility:

implies that adequate food must be accessible to everyone, including physically vulnerable individuals, such as infants and young children, elderly people, the physically disabled, the terminally ill and persons with persistent medical problems, including the mentally ill. Victims of natural disasters, people living in disaster-prone areas and other specially disadvantaged groups may need special attention and sometimes priority consideration with respect to accessibility of food. A particular vulnerability is that of many indigenous population groups whose access to their ancestral lands may be threatened. 

  FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAO)

The aim of the FAO is to achieve food security for all. In this regard, it is important to recall the World Food Summit, convened by FAO in 1996. As a result of this meeting, 112 heads or deputy heads of state and government, and over 70 high-level representatives from other countries, adopted the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action. The Rome Declaration sets forth seven commitments, which lay the basis for achieving sustainable food security for all, while the Plan of Action spells out the objectives and actions relevant for practical implementation of these seven commitments. The Declaration and Plan of Action establish a particular follow-up mechanism through co-operation between the High Commissioner for Human Rights, FAO and its Committee on World Food Security as well as other food organisations, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Sub-Committee on Nutrition of the United Nations Administrative Coordinating Committee (ACC-SCN) and other bodies.