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Addressee: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO)
Full Text
The Forum recommends that FAO and the Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development Initiative work further on the development of cultural indicators for identifying priorities and criteria and methodologies for the right to food and food security, with the participation of indigenous peoples, taking into account the protection and restoration of indigenous peoples' traditional food systems and their agrobiodiversity and associated traditional knowledge and livelihoods. The threats to sustaining such systems, such as monoculture cash crop production, mineral extraction, environmental contamination and genetically modified seeds and technology, should be addressed.
Responses
Building on the work on cultural indicators initiated in 2002 in collaboration with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), the Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development Initiative is supporting indigenous peoples organizations to develop a clearer and more empirical understanding of the relationship between culture and sustainable agriculture and rural development. In particular, it is working with IITC to develop a paper on the role of culture in SARD focusing on indigenous peoples and their communities, cultural dimensions of agricultural and food systems and the role of culture in sustainable livelihoods and in indigenous concepts of poverty and well-being. Pending availability of funding, two parallel processes are envisaged for ensuring both indigenous peoples' and UN agencies' participation and contributions to the paper and for addressing the concerns that the paper raises through the work of these organizations.
This work is expected to strengthen indigenous peoples' efforts to influence policies and development programs that affect their traditional food and agricultural systems. It is also expected to identify some practical entry points, tools and indicators that can be used to foster more culturally appropriate agriculture and rural development interventions.
Final Report of UNPFII Session 4 (2005)
Area of Work
