Radio Mundo Real

With 49 votes in favour, two agaisnt, three blank votes and eleven abstentions, Ecuador´s Legislation Commission passed on Wednesday a bill on food sovereignty. This regulation is made up by 35 sections and four general provisions, which will allow to establish general guidelines on food sovereignty and promote production through public policy provisions, according to Ecuadorian MPs.

The law makes it easier for small and medium producers to access credits, and also establishes that the use of water with production ends should respect a law that regulates this resource, taking into consideration what the Constitution reads about it.

In addition, the law emphazises the environmental and social role of land, which implies a use of the territory that ensures protecting biodiversity.

According to the agency Prensa Latina, the regulation aims at establishing state mechanisms to ensure that communities can access healthy food in a self-sufficient and constant way, respecting their identity. However, not long before the law was passed, president of the Confederation of Kichwa Peoples from Ecuador (ECUARUNARI), Humberto Cholango, warned that indigenous people were worried about the way the regulation was being developed, since it didn`t deal enough with the issue of seed and water use and management, and especially, didn`t address the issue of land redistribution.

“What we propose basically is land redistribution, through a real Agrarian Reform, an equal distribution of land and water, to produce our food”, stated Cholango.

In addition, the indigenous leader demanded the government to be transparent about the latest trade negotiations established with the European Union, because as he explained, to negotiate a trade agreement with the bloc would be “political treason”, which would endanger Ecuador`s sovereingty.