Under Control : How Corporations determine our Food System

Conference-debate with examples from the new Agrifood Atlas,

by Barbara Unmüßig, President Heinrich Böll Foundation

Tuesday January 23, at 7 pm

d’Coque – Auditorium “Amphitheatre”, entrance via parvis, 2, rue Léon Hengen, L-1745 Luxembourg

Corporations have been driving industrialization and fighting fiercly for their market share for decades. But today the global food system is being rapidly monopolised by ever-fewer, ever-larger corporations at every stage of the food chain, posing high risks to consumer choice, jobs, working conditions and regional food supply. Fewer and fewer corporations are deciding on an increasing share of food production worldwide, illustrates the “Agrifood Atlas 2017”, a compilation of analyzes, facts and figures on the agricultural industry, published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

This concentration in the agricultural sector endangers the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015. It calls for greater regulation in the agri-food sector to end the impunity of the corporations and the huge environmental and climate damage as well as global injustice and violations of human rights.

The conference will stimulate a broad-based social debate on this vital topic and highlight the legal potential for citizens to take action against the system.

The new report comes as the European Commission faces a crunch decision on whether to authorise the potential Bayer-Monsanto mega-merger, and after Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan’s announced intention to rein in supermarkets’ outsize buying power.

About Barbara Unmüßig

Barbara Unmüßig has been the President of the Heinrich Böll Foundation since 2002. She is responsible for its strategy and programme development in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and for the Gunda Werner Institute for Feminism and Gender Democracy. Her work focuses on issues of globalisation and international climate policy, national and international gender policy, and the promotion of democracy and conflict prevention. She also chairs the jury of the Anne-Klein-Women’s Award. Her numerous contributions to periodicals and books have covered global governance, international environmental issues, gender policy and the issue of shrinking and closing spaces for civil society. In her most recent book she and her co-authors Lili Fuhr and Thomas Fatheuer formulated a critique of the Green Economy.

Free entrance / conference in English, debate multilingual.

Please confirm your attendance at campagne@astm.lu

This event is part of the campaign No corporate impunity -Droits humains avant profit: www.nocorporateimpunity.org organized by Action Solidarité Tiers Monde asbl – www.astm.lu