2. Right to Food & Food Sovereignty Bill
Through the concentrated efforts put by National Peasants’ Coalition led by ANPFa, after a long political struggle, series of dialogues with the government and nationwide campaigns made it possible to ensure right to food sovereignty. As a result, Nepal ratified demands of farmers’ for ensuring that every citizen has right to food sovereignty under Article 36 (3) in the Constitution in 2015.The constitution mandated the government of Nepal to enact the legal frameworks around this right by 2018. To this end, the Nepal Law Commission (NLC) who is responsible for making law has initiated the drafting of the Right to Food Bill. A preliminary draft was published on February 10, 2017 for wider consultation among concerned stakeholders.
In the past, National peasants’ coalition (MTCP2 Platform, Nepal) had collectively created pressure and played a supportive role to ensure the food sovereignty as a ‘Fundamental Right’ in the Interim as well as in the 2015 Constitution. Similarly, National peasants’ coalition is providing continuous contributions for the enactment of an effective legal framework for the food sovereignty. The draft bill contains some provisions for which National peasants’ coalition has been lobbying since a long time. However, it was felt that a wider consultation among the concerned stakeholders on the draft bill was necessary. In this scenario, National peasants’ coalition in collaboration with the Nepal Law Commission has taken the preliminary draft bill to the grassroots level, conducted workshops, various informal meetings along with one national consultation program in Baneshwor, Uddhami Ghar, Kathmandu district, province 3 of Nepal involving broader stakeholders and farmers. The National consultation program was held successfully on 07 May, 2017.
Participants in the workshops offered comments and suggestions on the preliminary draft. Having collected their suggestions and feedback, National peasants’ coalition compiled the essential comments and prepared a suggestion paper and submitted it to the Nepal Law Commission on behalf of farmers’ organizations on 28 Jun 2017.
National peasants’ coalition submitted suggestion to address the following issues in right to food sovereignty law
1. Food and seed sovereignty 2. access to productive resource 3. issue of youth and women peasants 4. promotion of agro-ecological farming 5. Minimum support price 6. subsidies to producers 7. No foreign direct investment in primary product 8. Clear cut land use policy
Nepal Law Commission incorporated the suggestions submitted by National Peasants’ Coalition (MTCP2 Platform of Nepal) addressing the above mentioned major issues of farmers’. The chairperson of Nepal Law Commission Mr.Madhav Paudel commented that suggestions of farmers’ are the property of the Nepal Law Commission and have been incorporated on Draft Right to Food Bill and he further thanked FOs for the effort made to improve the draft bill.
Finally, the parliament of Nepal, approved the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty Act, 2018 which has been enacted to implement Article 36 of the Constitution of Nepal (2015) that guarantees “rights relating to food”. With the endorsement by the President of Nepal, the Act came into force from 18 September 2018. This act guaranteed the right to food and food sovereignty in Nepal which is the major objective of NIA, Nepal.
Kathmandu, Nepal – After a long political struggle, series of dialogues with the government, and nationwide campaigns to make it possible to ensure the right to food sovereignty, Nepal ratified the demands of farmers for ensuring that every citizen has the right to food sovereignty under Article 36 (3) in the Constitution in 2015. This was also achieved through the concentrated efforts of the National Peasants’ Coalition (NPC) led by ANPFa, the national implementing agency of the MTCP2 Program in Nepal.
The constitution mandated the government of Nepal to enact the legal frameworks around this right by 2018. The Nepal Law Commission (NLC) which is responsible for enacting laws initiated the drafting of the Right to Food Bill. A preliminary draft was published on 10 February 2017 for wider consultation among the concerned stakeholders.
NPC made efforts to ensure food sovereignty as a ‘fundamental right’ in the Interim and in the 2015 Constitution. Moreover, NPC provides continuous contributions to the enactment of an effective legal framework for food sovereignty. The draft bill contains provisions which the NPC has been lobbying.
The NPC in collaboration with the Nepal Law Commission (NLC) has taken the preliminary draft bill to the grassroots level, conducted workshops, and various informal meetings in Baneshwor, Uddhami Ghar, Kathmandu district, province 3 of Nepal involving farmers and other stakeholders. A national consultation program was also conducted in May 2017.
Participants of the workshops offered comments and suggestions on the preliminary draft. Having collected their suggestions and feedback, NPC compiled the essential comments and prepared a suggestion paper and submitted it to NLC on behalf of farmers’ organizations in June 2017.
The National Peasants’ Coalition submitted suggestions to address the following issues in right to food sovereignty law: food and seed sovereignty, access to resources, issues on youth and women peasants, promotion of agro-ecological farming, minimum support price, subsidies for producers, no foreign direct investment in primary products, and clear cut land use policy. NLC accepted and incorporated these recommendations from the stakeholders themselves to the draft Right to Food Bill. NLC Chairperson Madhav Paudel thanked the farmers’ organizations for their efforts to improve the draft bill. #
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