Here is why we are boycotting the UN Food Systems Summit

Social movements and scientists are staying out of the UN summit because it represents big agribusiness interests.

In September this year, the United Nations will host a Global Food Systems Summit in New York. The organisers of this summit are pitching it as a crucial debate of the decade which is to define the future of agriculture. They aim to bring together various stakeholders across sectors who play a role in the global food system. Yet, the organised peasant and indigenous movements from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas that collectively represent most of the world’s small-scale food producers have called for a total boycott of this summit. In April this year, scores of scientists, researchers, faculty members, and educators who work in agriculture and food systems, also issued an open call to boycott the event. To understand why social movements and scientists are staying out of a UN-sponsored summit, it is important to know how the world’s food system works today.