ActionAid tasks lawmakers on food security

ACTIONAID International, an NGO, has urged lawmakers in Africa to legislate and bring into their various constitutions the concepts of `Right-to-Food' and ` Food Sovereignty'.Its Coordinator, `Africa Right-to-Food' programme, Mr. Buba Khan, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja, on Sunday.Khan said that legislation on these concepts would go a long way to protect humanity and the dignity of Africans.According to him, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) statutes provides for the right to food as a fundamental human right.``It is stated in the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) that every person, by virtue of being born as a human being, has a right to food and governments should fulfill, protect and promote that right to food; no action of government should undermine this process.''Khan stressed that the current trend of acquisition of agricultural in Africa by foreigners is a violation of people's fundamental rights.He accused governments of countries where agricultural lands had been taken away from their original owners of violating their people's fundamental rights for not evolving policies to protect their land.``The issues we are talking around land grabbing is a violation of people's right to food, because if you grab people's land where they are supposed to produce food, eventually you are violating their rights.``If you are not able to put in policies that should ensure that those lands are not grabbed, you are equally violating the right to food of the people.``So what governments should do is to ensure that they are able to provide the enabling environment for farmers, for communities and all the other stakeholders to play their role to be able to influence and promote the right to food.
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