UN Expert Calls For Using Public Food Purchasing To Boost Right To Food

By Maëli Astruc for Intellectual Property Watch

“Governments have few sources of leverage over increasingly globalised food systems – but public procurement is one of them,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate food states in a new report. The right to food should be included in public food purchasing according to five principles in order to make food systems fairer and more sustainable, he said.

Released on 15 May, the report is entitled, “The Power of Procurement, Public Purchasing in the Service of Realizing the Right to Food,” by Special Rapporteur Olivier de Schutter. It suggests five principles states should follow.

Those principles are: Source preferentially from small-scale food producers; guarantee living wages as well as fair and remunerative prices along the food supply chain; set specific requirements for adequate food diets; source locally whenever possible and expect from suppliers that they produce food according to sustainable methods; and increase participation and accountability in the food system.

De Schutter gives examples of several national and international programmes that already apply those principles, and analyses economic and legal obstacles to the implementation of those principles. In particular, the report considers compliance of those principles with the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement.