SIB: Food Sovereginity Matters (Season 3, Episode 4)

October 1st, 2021

SIB: Food Sovereginity Matters

“Humans are very funny creatures, when the tummy is empty we have just one problem, once its full we have thousands of problems coming to our minds”

Food sovereignity is one of the most pressing issues of our time, and it is predicted that it will only get worse over time due to climate change. In order to deepen our understanding on the matter we invited a renowned scientist whose personal and profesional commitment to preserve nature led her to be a transformational leader in her community and, ultimately, to become the 6th President of the Republic of Mauritius.

H.E. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim studied Chemistry, and was amazed by plants because “they are living chemical laboratories”. Plants, as she highlighted, produces molecules that are paramount for medicine production, as they potentially have clues or solutions for future health challenges. However, this plants and the availability of their specific molecules are threatened by biodiversity loss worldwide. Once this species are lost, the knowledge we could get from them will dissapear forever. In order to preserve it all she wrote the book African Herbal Pharmacopeia, a comprehensive inventory where the medicinal plants of the continent were registered.

Besides plant’s farmaceutical dimension, H.E. stressed the importance of plants for climate regulation. Ameenah pointed out that the global north has contributed the most to climate change historically, and that their contribution doesn’t match their interest in taking responsibility for this wicked problem. The international budget directed to support the global south in climate adaptation and facilitate their transition to net zero emissions is insufficient at best. In H.E. words, “Support from global north to global south is not charity” as they need it for their own survival, and yet, their actions have been far from effective. We don’t have until 2050 to make the necessary changes, nature flows at its own pace, independently of human politics, and if we as humanity fail to act, that flow will eventually crash, wiping us and many other species out. It’s important to remember that we depend on nature, and not the other way around.

In respect to food sovereignity, Ameenah urged nations to preserve their germoplasm and support small farmers. Industrial food production damages the soil and displace local (endemic, in many cases) plant varieties, who have been selected over millenia and are invaluable for their nutrient content, their genetic material, and as an essential part of the cultures. She is promoting an ambitious seed bank project, and suggests that all countries should have one. She stressed the importance of saving germoplasm as it’s critical for our own survival. For this, she urges countries to have national seed repositories, and create duplicates of their own in other parts of the world.
 

Finally, H.E. Ameenah called us to take action. “Let us talk to each other, let us embrace each other and go have a convergence of opinion, a convergence of views, that the climate, that everything around us matters. And let us get together, put our hands and hearts together and work towards a common good. Because food is a common good, and climate is a common good”.

Next week, we are having another amazing guest, Kasike Nibonrix Kaiman. Among many roles, he is a member of Consejo de Medicina Ancestral Indígena Originaria del Abya Yala (Council of Ancestral Indigenous Medicine of the Americas) and sits on Y.C.O.I.L (Yamaye/Jamaica Council of Indigenous Leaders).