Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Member profile
Browse all members

Dr. Muhammad Hidayat Greenfield

Member since
Organization: IUF Asia/Pacific
Country: Australia
Field(s) of expertise:
I am working on:

Organizing small scale fishers and small and marginal aquaculture farmers to ensure collective representation and to develop collective capacities to negotiate fair prices and incomes. Developing the capacity of community-based organizations of small scale fishers and artisanal fishers to protect their rights, livelihoods and food security in the face of the overexpansion of large-scale commercial fishing as well as climate change impacts. In addition to this, we are working on policy intervention and trade union and community-based responses to the impact of climate change and child labour in fisheries and aquaculture.

Dr Muhammad Hidayat Greenfield has been involved in worker education and training in East and Southeast Asia since 1995, and in 2002 joined the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF). In 2016 Hidayat was elected as the Regional Secretary for the Asia/Pacific Regional Organization and in this role he is responsible for IUF members in 21 countries in the region. As part of the regional activities involved in defending the rights, health and livelihoods of food workers, marginal farmers and fisherfolk, and to promote the right to food and food security, Hidayat is working with IUF members to develop rights-based strategies to promote climate justice and support food systems workers and their communities in the face of catastrophic climate change.

This member contributed to:

    • Over the past two decades the Right to Food Guidelines have played an extremely important role in institutionalizing the right to food in policy and regulations at international, national, and subnational level. It has also provided CSOs, community-based organizations of small-scale fishers and farmers and trade unions with a tool for advocacy and policy intervention that asserts the right to food as a human right and integrates it with a broader set of rights. Of course, widespread hunger, malnutrition and undernutrition remain an urgent challenge in a global food system shaped by excessive corporate power, systemic inequality, and exclusion. The 20th anniversary provides an important opportunity to reassess the lack of progress in many countries to ensure access to the right to food and to create pathways for its realization.

      In our submission we call for the inclusion and strengthening of the Guidelines with regards to:

      • freedom of association and the right to organize as essential for an integrated human rights approach that ensures genuine collective representation and participation of affected communities, agricultural workers and marginal farmers, women, youth and indigenous communities
      • recognition of the role of women in the informal economy and their inclusion in policymaking and decision-making
      • recognition of the role indigenous  communities, indigenous food systems, and indigenous knowledge and measures to tackle marginalization, discrimination and racism and to protect rights as part of the integrated human rights that underpin the right to food
      • measures to stop financial speculation in food and agricultural commodity prices that creates volatility and food price inflation that undermines the right to food and generates systemic food insecurity

      Dr Muhammad Hidayat Greenfield, Regional Secretary

      International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) Asia/Pacific

       

      See the attachments:

    • As a regional trade union organization representing small and marginal farmers and farm workers engaged in livestock production, the IUF Asia/Pacific welcomes the proposal for a Voluntary guidance tool for the sustainable enhancement of small-scale livestock productivity.

      We propose that the OBJECTIVES of a dedicated voluntary guidance tool include the following:

      • Defining sustainable enhancement and developing a common understanding that incorporates economic, social and environmental sustainability;
      • Exploring ways to integrate small-scale livestock productivity into climate mitigation and adaptation strategies and provide support for just transitions to enhance sustainability;
      • Identifying the role and needs of women and vulnerable groups, particularly indigenous people and their communities, and how small-scale livestock productivity is linked to improving their incomes, livelihoods and wellbeing;

      In terms of the SCOPE of the tool, we propose that it addresses gender equality, the role of women and vulnerable groups; builds upon One Health as an integrated approach to human, animal and environmental health; and considers climate mitigation and adaptation as part of sustainability.

      We support the focus of the tool on "production systems that rely mainly on the family labour of both women and men and are integral to household livelihoods and consider both pastoralists and small-scale intensive and extensive farmers." In this context it is important that we develop an understanding of sustainable enhancement that incorporates the elimination of child labour (as part of family labour); and ensures that households led by women have access to the resources, State support measures, tenure rights and services that male-led households have. This includes the rights of women as widows.

      Through recognizing the role of women in the small-scale livestock subsector requires recognition of the role of women-led households, and organizations freely formed by women farmers and farm workers to represent their interests. The tool should support a rights-based approach that would enable women, indigenous peoples and vulnerable groups within the small-scale livestock subsector to participate in decision-making through collective self-representation and ensure access to the resources necessary for the sustainable enhancement of livestock productivity.

      in 2022, we conducted a number of surveys of our women members engaged in small-scale livestock production in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The focus was on animal health. One of the findings was that although the majority of women tended livestock, they were excluded from decision-making and the management of resources in their household and village. This exclusion undermined the capacity to monitor animal health effectively and limited women's ability to act appropriately to animal illness and disease.

      The situation was compounded by a lack of access to government/public veterinarian services and treatment. Even where public veterinarian services were available - including essential animal vaccination - there is a tendency for informal costs or fees to be imposed. Due to these higher costs there is a widespread practice of giving human medicine to animals because it is cheaper.

      While education, awareness and training are important, there is a need to revitalize and restore publicly funded animal health services and to ensure equitable access. The link between animal health, human health and the environment is critical in this regard.

      This should be part of a wider policy discussion on the public infrastructure and services that States should provide to support sustainable (healthy) small-scale livestock productivity in particular and small-scale agriculture in general. This may be further linked to food security and the right to food and nutrition. The focus of the tool on family farming within the small-scale livestock subsector suggests a need to consider access to food and nutrition (and not just incomes) as part of the benefit of productivity gains.

      Further consideration should be given to the role of traditional knowledge, especially indigenous knowledge. It cannot be assumed that only modern science and new scientific techniques will delivery productivity gains. Serious consideration should be given to the role of traditional knowledge and indigenous knowledge sustainably enhancing productivity, while reducing both economic and ecological costs.

      Given that climate change policies will directly or indirectly redefine sustainability and productivity in the livestock sector, it is important to incorporate this into the tool.

      It is possible if not likely that climate policies will inadvertently favour large-scale producers despite being among the biggest polluters. Large-scale producers have access to more financial resources (including the ability invest in carbon and methane offsetting; new technologies to reduce methane emissions; clean energy investments), government resources (subsidies; tax breaks), and more scope to diversify and appear to meet climate targets.

      In contrast, small-scale producers will face tremendous pressure to meet climate targets and do not currently have access to these resources. This is especially the case for small and marginal farmers in the informal economy who lack the resources and state support adapt to new requirements. These small-scale producers are more institutionally vulnerable to being targeted with emission reductions and drastic changes to livestock feed and rearing, regardless of their actual aggregate impact on methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

      At the same time, increasing small-scale livestock productivity without taking into consideration new policies and legislation on climate-friendly or "green" production would undermine its sustainability and longer-term viability.

      Therefore it is important that the tool provides a pathway (or multiple pathways) for the small-scale livestock subsector to make this transition.

      Related to this is the need to give greater visibility to efforts to reduce emissions and successful climate mitigation and adaptation practices in the small-scale livestock sector. We have good examples of this based on the experience of our membership in the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India.

       

       

      See the attachments:

    • The IUF Asia/Pacific views the Guidelines as an important and unique tool for the promotion of the rights and livelihoods of small-scale fishers and fish workers, the advancement of food security and sustainable fisheries.

      The Guidelines were explained and discussed in a series of workshops with our members in coastal fishing communities and aquaculture in certain countries in Southeast Asia and South Asia. It should be noted that none of our members were aware of the Guidelines at the time, but through our education activities quickly understand the practical importance and potential uses of the Guidelines. During these activities, we identified areas that need to be reviewed and strengthened in the Guidelines.

      In the attached submission we propose that Guidelines should be strengthened in three key areas:

      1. Recognition of the right to freedom of association (the right to freely organize)
      2. Fully realizing the rights and role of women fishers and fish workers
      3. More effective measures for the elimination of child labour

      In  addition there are brief comments and observations on three additional topic

      1. Enhancing the response to climate change
      2. A rights-based approach to health and safety
      3. Tackling the impact of large-scale commercial fishing
      See the attachments: