Although access to adequate, safe, sustainable, and nutritious food is a fundamental human right, it remains out of reach for a staggering two billion people worldwide. The inaugural European Food Justice Forum, held in Brussels earlier this month, explored the role that European institutions play in addressing issues related to food systems, including guaranteeing the right to food. 

Organized by over 50 civil society organizations, one of which was the Baha’i International Community’s (BIC) Brussels Office, this one-day Forum brought together over 150 participants, including European Union (EU) officials and policymakers. The event examined the effects of EU policy, in development, trade, climate, and agriculture on regions beyond its own borders and raised questions about the EU’s responsibility to make decisions that integrate the well-being of other regions alongside European interests. 

Participants explored how policies, which support farmer livelihoods, strengthen local food systems and advance the global right to food, depend on decision-making that is inclusive and cooperative across various sectors and geographies. Only decisions that recognize global interdependencies and the meaningful participation of those most affected can meet the needs of Europe and other regions. 

The plenary session, titled “International Co-Operation for Global Food Systems Transformation”, highlighted the EU's role and moral responsibility considering it is currently the world's largest importer and exporter of food. 

Alessandro Benedetti, Representative of BIC Brussels, opened the Forum’s plenary session by saying that “discussions surrounding food system transformation are often framed as binary choices, or trade-offs, for example between food security and environmental sustainability, or between global integration and local self-sufficiency. Yet such dichotomies can obscure the possibility of approaches that place the well-being of all humanity, and of the environment, at their centre.”

Adriana Herrera Moreno, Secretary of the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security (CFS), added that the CFS “started a space where the right to food really connects trade policy, land governance, climate, and food systems, all simultaneously with the participation of all stakeholders,” bringing actors together whose work at the regional and national level is often siloed.

Other speakers stressed that EU policies rooted in justice, equity, and non-exploitation could help to address the risk of adopting an incoherent policy approach.

Speaking to the needs of producers in West Africa, meanwhile, Nadjirou Sall, General Secretary of Réseau des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA), said: “We do need to produce well, and to produce a lot, that is true, but the central message is to ask how can [EU policies] help us better structure our own markets, to develop them more effectively and to be able to rely on our own production first. I need to produce, but I must not prevent others from earning a living.”

Morgan Ody, General Coordinator of La Via Campesina—a global peasant movement representing around 200 million small-scale farmers, peasants, landless workers, Indigenous people, and rural women and youth—shared, “There is no basic contradiction between the food sovereignty of the European Union and the food sovereignty of other countries.”

Member of the European Parliament Cristina Guarda noted that the EU risks exporting unsustainable models while promoting domestic sustainability. Coherence requires aligning internal and external policies accordingly, a task made harder, she noted, when "maintaining coherent values between internal and external policies" is already difficult in practice. 

Pointing to the EU's own struggles to reform its agricultural model to meet present-day challenges, she added that "coherence means to not export the model that we are trying to change at home."

The conversation was concluded by Andrea Alfieri, Deputy Head of the Sustainable Agri-Food Systems Unit at the European Commission, who advised participants that EU policymaking regarding international cooperation “takes a while” and that the EU had a “genuine interest” in encouraging markets to produce and sell commodities at the local level. 

The BIC Brussels Office is grateful for the collaborative spirit among the co-organizers of the Forum and looks forward to contributing to future editions.