The right to food is a fundamental human right by OHCHR, Committee on World Food Security   Oct. 2026   54th Session of the UN Committee on World Food Security   Four resources prepared by the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) will inform discussions at the 54th Plenary Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), taking place from 19 to 23 October 2026 at FAO headquarters in Rome.   They address Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems, future priorities for food security and nutrition, family farming, and the governance of artificial intelligence and digital technologies.   Preserving and strengthening Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems   The HLPE-FSN report on Indigenous Peoples’ food and knowledge systems examines how these systems sustain nutrition, biodiversity, livelihoods and cultural continuity, and the pressures threatening their future. Its analysis connects food with territorial rights, customary governance and the transmission of knowledge across generations.   The report identifies three objectives: preserving functioning systems, restoring those under pressure or disruption, and identifying lessons for the transformation of other food systems. It emphasizes Indigenous Peoples’ agency and the recognition of their knowledge systems as valid in their own terms, independent of and complementary to scientific knowledge.   Critical, emerging and enduring issues for food security and nutrition   The note on Critical, emerging and enduring issues for food security and nutrition identifies ten interconnected issues, providing an evidence base for discussions on the next the Committee of World Food Security Multi-Year Programme of Work.   These range from healthy diet affordability, geopolitical uncertainty and climate crises to international trade, corporate concentration and people’s agency in food systems. The note also considers the post-2030 agenda, the Rio Conventions, digital innovation and Artificial Intelligence, and One Health, in relation to food security and nutrition.   Empowering family farmers to strengthen sustainable food systems and to achieve food security and nutrition in the context of the 2019-2028 UN decade of family farming.   The background note Empowering family farmers to strengthen sustainable food systems and to achieve food security and nutrition in the context of the 2019-2028 UN decade of family farming reviews progress during the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019–2028 and identifies priorities for the remaining years of the Decade.   Harnessing Artificial Intelligence, digitalization and data governance for food security and nutrition.   The background note on Harnessing Artificial Intelligence, digitalization and data governance for food security and nutrition examines how these technologies are being used across food systems, the available evidence on their impacts, and the conditions needed for responsible adoption.   http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/hlpe-at-the-54th-plenary-session-of-the-committee-of-world-food-security-(cfs/en   * Report: Critical, emerging and enduring issues for food security and nutrition:   http://openknowledge.fao.org/items/0288bb0c-3252-42fc-8c9d-ebbd3a4cc283   19 Oct. 2026   UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk at the 54th Session of the Committee on World Food Security:   "The right to food is a fundamental human right, inextricably linked to the rights to life, water, health, social security, and work – forming a vital safety net for people worldwide.   That right has found its way into treaties and laws, declarations and guidelines. But for too many people, it has yet to find its way onto their dinner plates.   More than a quarter of humanity struggle to get enough food, or food of adequate quality. And what makes this all the more shocking is that it is an avoidable tragedy.   The world has enough for everyone. Global food supply has risen steadily and now exceeds 3,000 calories per person per day – a historic high. Yet hunger reduction has not kept pace.   So why do so many have to get by on so little? Because too much of that abundance is swallowed up by injustice – and the denial of human rights.   Part of it disappears into economic systems that allow food to be accumulated and wasted on a massive scale. Every day, households alone throw away more than one billion meals.   Part of the food supply is denied through discrimination and exclusion – including policies that favour large corporations over small-scale farmers, fisheries, and pastoralists.   Just one per cent of the world's farms operate more than 70 per cent of global farmland.   Women farmers and Indigenous Peoples, who are key to local livelihoods and sustainable agriculture, often lack government support and access to land.   And far too much food is lost to the brutality of war, stolen by those who use food as a weapon. Conflict-driven destruction and displacement are fuelling acute hunger in 12 of the 13 current hunger hotspots. Restrictions on humanitarian aid and attacks on aid workers are cutting off the last lifelines.   All these wrongs are compounded by our reckless treatment of the planet that feeds us. Millions of hectares of farmland are lost to desertification every year.   We need to come together urgently, to fix the systems and policies that starve people in a world of plenty.   A human rights focus can help defeat hunger through social protection, fair taxation, and agricultural policies that reduce poverty.   Equitable access to land, water, and seeds, and meaningful climate action, are crucial to the wellbeing of rural communities and to the health of our food systems.   Decisions affecting the right to food need to reflect the voices and needs of local communities, farmers, and civil society.   And we need to protect environmental and local human rights defenders, so their voices can be raised without fear, and heard clearly and consistently.   We must do our utmost to ensure the rules of war are upheld, and hunger is never used as a method of warfare.   Together, we can turn rights and commitments into food on people's plates. The work of this Committee can advance this critical task.   16 Oct. 2026   Use of starvation as a weapon of war creates unprecedented moral challenge: UN expert   The international community faces an unprecedented moral challenge as the world witnesses a dramatic surge in the use of starvation as a weapon of war, a UN expert said today.   “So far the world has met this challenge with an alarming lack of accountability and with impunity,” said Sofía Monsalve Suarez, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food.   Presenting her first thematic report to the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on World Food Day, Monsalve Suarez said famine figures are on the rise after decades of decline and while the number of hungry people may have decreased in 2025, the share of those facing famine or famine-like conditions is climbing fast.   Monsalve Suarez unveiled her vision and an actionable path towards a transformation of food systems in her first report. She begins her mandate at a time of looming food crisis due to the combined effects of El Niño, ongoing conflicts and wars, cuts in humanitarian assistance, economic shocks from geopolitical instability, and global war economies.   “All this explains the return of famine and the intensification of hunger as a weapon of war. This is accompanied by a dramatic erosion of the normative framework that is rendering global governance and accountability dysfunctional,” she said.   The Special Rapporteur said that as part of this warfare and geopolitical competition, the world was witnessing attacks on food supply and infrastructure, economic coercion through tariffs, sanctions and debt, financialisation of nature, and an increase in military spending that is diverting the resources needed to transform food systems.   At the same time, the current food systems, based on an agro-industrial, extractive model of nature commodification and profit maximisation through globalised markets and corporate concentration, are playing a major role in the triple planetary crisis, leaving many behind and threatening our collective present and future wellbeing.   “I am calling on all Member States to guarantee the right to food and preserve human dignity for all, with a special focus on those whose access to adequate food is systematically denied,” Monsalve Suárez said. “I am particularly urging all States to focus all their efforts on stopping all wars, illegal occupation and conflicts. This is the most effective and straightforward way to guarantee the right to food and prevent famine, hunger and malnutrition.”   Monsalve Suarez also called for a rethink of the international financial architecture to allow for debt relief and restructuring mechanisms that make food systems transformation possible.   http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/10/1168627 http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/10/high-commissioner-turk-we-need-fix-systems-and-policies-starve http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/10/use-starvation-weapon-war-creates-unprecedented-moral-challenge-un-expert http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/10/occasion-world-food-day-un-experts-raise-concerns-over-global-shift http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/10/many-forms-dispossession-driving-record-concentration-ownership-land-water http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6326-right-seeds-custodianship-enclosure-and-resistance-report http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/06/states-businesses-and-investors-must-adopt-rights-based-approaches-food http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a81201-reasserting-human-dignity-times-global-war-economies-inception http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-food/annual-thematic-reports Visit the related web page
	Food workers face exploitation across the global food chain by IPES-Food   Oct. 2026   The 1.4 billion people who grow, process, transport, sell, serve, and deliver the world’s food face widespread exploitation – from poverty wages and dangerous working conditions to wage theft, forced labour, and discrimination – according to a new report released today by IPES-Food documenting cross-cutting labour abuse.   The food system is the world’s largest source of employment – accounting for approximately 2 out of every 5 workers – yet the sector also exploits more workers than any other sector.   The report, Food Work: The workers behind our food and the exploitation they face, is the most comprehensive global review of labour exploitation across food systems to date. It finds that this exploitation is not accidental, but rooted in a food system built around keeping labour cheap and maximising profits at the expense of worker wellbeing.   Thirty percent of food system workers earn below a living wage. Migrant workers, women, racialized groups, and other marginalized workers face the greatest risks – in a sector plagued by informal work and widespread exclusion from basic labour protections.   Exploitation runs through the entire food chain and every country, from farms, fishing vessels, and factories to supermarkets, restaurants, and delivery platforms. While conditions differ enormously, the same pattern recurs: human exploitation is built into the system, and the workers with the least power and protection are exposed to the greatest risks.   This system keeps workers silent as they fear harsh consequences from speaking out, including losing employment that supports their families.   Agriculture is one of the most dangerous sectors in the world, with one-third of all occupational deaths worldwide, due to conditions including exposure to extreme weather, long shifts without breaks, and contact with harmful pesticides and chemicals. Where international labour standards do exist, experts found that they are largely ignored.   Climate change is making farm work even more hazardous, with extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and other climate impacts increasingly threatening workers’ health and lives. Many farmworkers lack basic protections from extreme weather, while policymakers continue to resist regulations to protect workers from intensifying climate conditions.   New technologies are also creating new perils for food workers. Digital surveillance and algorithmic management are increasingly being used to control workers, intensify productivity pressures, and break down labour relations.   Automation is displacing workers and intensifying health and safety hazards – such as in the meatpacking industries of USA and Brazil, where workers suffer workplace injuries and illnesses at three to ten times the national average.   Meanwhile the report finds that app-based platform work, such as food delivery, preys on vulnerable workers by shifting insecurity and risk onto workers who often lack basic labour protections.   Migrant workers are particularly exposed. Farm work, food processing, and delivery and hospitality sectors are highly dependent on migrant labour. Yet government migration policies keep them locked in legal limbo, while employer-tied permits, irregular status, and the threat of deportation can leave workers susceptible to physical and mental abuse at work, and unable to challenge abusive conditions.   Governments often devote far greater resources to policing migration than enforcing labour standards, the report finds, reinforcing the power imbalance between workers and employers.   At the root of these abuses is a food system that researchers found consistently rewards keeping labour costs low. Highly concentrated corporations can suppress wages, outsource jobs and risks through layers of subcontracting, and prioritise shareholder returns, while workers struggle to secure decent pay and working conditions.   Yet progress beyond this exploitative system is possible without raising food prices. The report documents how food workers are organising and winning higher pay, stronger protections, and safer workplaces, showing that conditions improve when workers have the power to act collectively and governments uphold their rights.   IPES-Food calls for stronger unions and collective bargaining, enforceable standards for decent work, equal rights for migrant workers, and action to tackle corporate concentration and hold companies accountable for abuses throughout food supply chains.   Raj Patel, IPES-Food expert:   "The people who put food on our plates are some of the most exploited workers in the world. Farmworkers, cooks, delivery riders – they consistently face low pay, unsafe conditions, abuse, and insecure work. Powerful food corporations profit from keeping labour cheap and workers powerless. But history shows that when food workers organise, they win better pay, safer workplaces, and stronger rights – raising the bar for workers everywhere, and making the food system safer for everyone".   Olivier De Schutter, co-chair of IPES-Food:   "Governments have allowed a vast workforce to fall through the cracks of labour law. Food workers are routinely carved out of basic standards on wages, safety, and collective bargaining. Even where rights do exist on paper, they are not enforced, due to lack of inspections and prevalence of informality. It’s time to close these loopholes, invest in enforcement, and guarantee dignified work for all food workers".   Errol Schweizer, IPES-Food expert:   "Our food system would collapse without migrant labour, yet migrant food workers face some of the highest rates of exploitation, injury and death. Government immigration and labour policies make migrant workers vulnerable, exploitation easier, and abuse harder to escape – with borders policed far more aggressively than abusive employers".   Mamadou Goita, IPES-Food expert:   "As recent heatwaves show, climate change is becoming a workers’ rights crisis. Farmworkers already face poverty wages, toxic pesticides, and gruelling conditions. Now climate change is turning up the heat and making their work even more dangerous. Yet governments are still failing to guarantee workers even basic, lifesaving protections like shade, rest, and drinking water. The people producing our food should not have to risk their health or their lives to earn a living".   http://ipes-food.org/report/food-work/ http://ipes-food.org/report/food-work/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2026/10/workers-helping-feed-the-world-but-starved-of-dignity/ Visit the related web page
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