Our food systems are failing to deliver what they promised. There is an ample supply of cheap calories. But there is undernutrition on a large scale in developing countries, obesity as a result of dietary patterns in rich countries, massive ecological destruction, and all over the globe a meticulous and systematic destruction of peasantry. Technical fixes will not suffice to ensure that food systems are reformed to deliver well-being and health, and that they respect ecological boundaries. What is needed is a combination of food democracy and social innovations. The human right to food can guide these efforts at transforming food systems.
Olivier De Schutter is Professor at the Centre for Philosophy of Law and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Legal Sciences, University of Louvain. He is a Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He is currently a Shimizu Visiting Professor in LSE Law.
Margot Salomon is Associate Professor in the Law Department and the Centre for the Study of Human Rights where she directs the multidisciplinary Laboratory for Advanced Research on the Global Economy (Lab).
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