Launch of ‘Food for Health Manifesto’ in California

13/05/2019 at 4:16 pm

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In collaboration with Friends of Navdanya USA and Becket Films (The Seeds of Vandana Shiva), Dr Vandana Shiva, president of Navdanya International launched the Food for Health Manifesto in Santa Barbara, California, on 12 May 2019.

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MANIFESTO – FOOD FOR HEALTH: CULTIVATING BIODIVERSITY, CULTIVATING HEALTH

The Manifesto asserts that health, starting with the soil, to plants, animals and humans must be the organizing principle and aim of agriculture, commerce, science, of international trade, of our lives. For this to become a reality, convergence between consumers, producers and stakeholders must be created for a shared and common vision of sustainable development in line with the Millenium Development Goals.

In 2018, Navdanya International convened a Working Group of Experts, in continuation of the work of the International Commission on Future of Food and Agriculture, for a 2-day gathering in Florence to brainstorm ideas and streamline the vision and concept structure. Contributions and inputs of the participants provided the basis for the drafting of the Manifesto, which was first presented in Italy in September 2018 (Italian edition).

Mary Jacob – Friends of Navdanya, Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Dr Vandana Shiva and Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University. Photo courtesy: Becket Films

Members of the Group of Experts, Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University, along with Mary Jacobs, Friends of Navdanya USA, joined Dr Vandana Shiva at the California launch event.

The Manifesto on Food for Health offers scientific evidence, sustained by more than 200 bibliographical references to scientific studies and papers, on the inseparable link between the way our food is produced and our health. It aims at raising the alarm about the high chemical input in agriculture and food production that industrial agriculture and the Poison Cartel are spreading around the world, the harm it is causing to the health of people and the planet, and showing the way for the needed systems change towards a sustainable, agroecological and healthy future. It advocates the need for a new paradigm, a new way of thinking about health which is ecologically centered, a new paradigm based on systems thinking and not mechanistic reductionism, recognizing that the health of the earth and people’s health are inextricably linked and one continuum. The Food for Health Manifesto aims at helping strengthen the food and health movements as a whole by creating dynamic synergy between the movements for Sustainable Agriculture and Public Health and between consumers, producers and stakeholders.