World Forum on Food Sovereignty (Nyeleni Forum) was held on February 22-27, 2007 in Selingue, a small village near the border with Guinea, around 300 km way from Mali, West Africa. La Via Campesina, World March of Women, Friends of the Earth and other social movement organizations convened the conference.

The forum was attended by around 500 participants mostly coming from African, Asian and South American countries where food insecurity has become contentious issue for advocacy.
The forum had three objectives

1. to deepen the understanding and the meaning of Food Sovereignty;
2. to strengthen the dialogue and alliance building between different sectors and interest groups and seek a better understanding of their analyses, goals and strategies;
3. to establish joint strategies, a joint plan of action and to increase the joint commitment in the struggle for food sovereignty.

In order to achieve the objectives, the forum was organised in six sectoral groups-- peasant and small farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralist, indigeneous people, workers and migrant workers, consumer and urban movements, and three interest groups--women, youth, and environment. Seven thematic discussion groups were organised related to food sovereignty

1. trade policy and local market;
2. technology and local knowledge;
3. access to and control over natural resources (land, water, seeds, livestock, breeds);
4. sharing territories and land, water, aquaculture, fishing rights, forest use between sectors;
5. conflict and disaster: responding at local and international levels;
6. social condition and forced migration and;
7. production models: impacts on people, livelihood and environment.

On February 22nd a day prior to the forum, a women's conference on food sovereignty was held organised by World March of Women with two specific aims

1. to discuss women's perspective on food sovereignty and to unify women's voices from all over the world at the Nyeleni 2007 forum;
2. to pay tribute to the legend of Nyeleni, a Malian peasant woman who campaigned against oppression of women by promoting sustainable agriculture based on women's knowledge and skills and their local culture.

The Forum found that women's situation is deteriorating all over the world, especially in developing countries. Participants attributed the neoliberal economic policies as one of the root causes of violations of women's rights:

• Food policies prioritising profit over people has caused impoverishment to women: women are not only loosing their income but also current situation increases their burden and violence as they have to migrate to other places to work in precarious sectors i.e. domestic work and sex industry.
  
  
• With subsistence farming losing ground women who are traditionally responsible for feeding the family and community and take care of the soil, plants and water have been removed from farms. With the arrival of new export-led agricultural schemes under trade liberalisation policies through WTO, it gives profit to a few hands only.
  
  
• Water privatisation, land concentration in the hands of mega agribusinesses and use of Genetically Modified Organisms has been displacing women from their roles as knowledge keepers in sustainable agriculture.
  
  
• Marital status does not guarantee for women's ownership of natural resources. When the husband dies the ownership will be shifted to the men's side of the family. Up to now, woman has only land use rights, not the ownership.
  
  
• Climate change and water privatisation lead to a long drought has caused women walk further to fulfill their family's basic need i.e. water and fire wood.
  
  
• Women have central role in biodiversity is a conventional wisdom. But it is perceived as not having economic value. The linkages between women's role and biodiversity have not been proven through research as undertaking research in this area is very expensive and not affordable for peasant women.
  
  
• Women's concerns are not reflected in the policy at all levels.

Therefore, after discussing the abovementioned obstacles in achieving gender equality in food sovereignty, the forum participants called for:

• Food sovereignty as an alternative to neo liberal economic paradigm in order to overcome hunger and poverty. Since women have pivotal role in food production, consumption and distribution, therefore, women have to become the front line in this movement.
  
  
• There is a need for a new policy that protects women's rights. Policy that allows women to take control of their modes of food production.
  
  
• Women are small-scale farmers, and thus to be able to resist, women have to work together against the trade liberalisation in food sector.
  
  
• The participants will continue to advocate for gender equity in all policies: development, social justice, and environment sustainability.

Many experiences, strategies, and methodologies among the participants were shared during the women's forum. Participants from Turkey and South Korea shared their strategies and approaches in organising mass mobilization against Cargill Food Company. APWLD Rural and Indigenous Women Task Force member Dwi Astuti shared information on campaigns against fast/instant food in Indonesia. At the end of the conference, it was agreed that each participant would bring the women concerns/ agenda into every workshops/meetings at the WFFS.

Fisherfolk workshop
The fisherfolk workshop presentations indicated subordination and marginalisation of women in the decision making process in fishing communities. As agrobusiness arrived in many of the participants' countries, the artisan fisherfolk, especially women, are gradually displaced from their livelihood whilst men fishers move to work for large-scale fishing companies. Aquaculture is another new phenomenon that fisherfolk have to face. Aquaculture requires external inputs of chemicals which causes pollution and degradation of water and other natural resources as well as health conditions of aqua-farm workers. Agribusinesses control all the resources in the fish industry: from seeds (esp. shrimp) to technologies as well as marketing the products. The land on which indigenous people have lived for years is converted into aqua farms, thus aquaculture has no doubt become a threat to their livelihoods. The indigenous people have become sheer wage workers at businesses built upon their lands. This workshop, once again, demonstrated that women's voices are still difficult to be heard despite the repeated attempts made by APWLD members. Due to persistent efforts to raise women's concerns in fisheries during the plenary, the floor then appointed Dwi Astuti as the synthesis team leader for the fisherfolk workshop.

Production Model workshop
It was shared that the present food production models using 'modern' technology have affected all sectors in food production. Many local food producers have lost their local wisdom on how to sustain their life in a synergy with nature. The important role of nature has become less and less important in time of profit oriented capitalist food production system. In some participants' countries, sustainability of traditional farming system is threatened with younger generation abandoning the farming lifestyle; the traditional and cultural food production system is at the verge of disappearing.

Conflicts and Disaster workshop
The workshop was pioneering in terms of its discussion framework on linkages between food sovereignty and conflicts. The workshop developed the parameters or definition of conflicts and disasters encompassing not only issues of natural disasters and wars, but also issues as food aid, state sponsored terrorism, political killings, dumping of cheap agricultural products in countries.

Tess Vistro from the Philippines shared the situation of state sponsored terrorism and militarisation in her country. This disrupts food production, especially of small farmers. 54% of all victims of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines were peasants and other rural people fighting for their rights to land, fishing waters, and the ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples. The wider implication of militarisation and political killings is the damage to the social and physical infrastructure that has been built painstakingly, for years and even decades, as the base for the empowerment of peasants and women farmers. Rural people envision to achieve self-reliance in food production and food sovereignty; that has been overrun and destroyed by the militarisation in the countryside.

The Asian regional group and Southeast Asia group
The regional meetings basically echoed some of the major discussions/debates in the thematic and sectoral workshops took place in the international forum. They also became a venue for the announcements of upcoming events and meetings in Asia relating to food sovereignty, such as the International Land rights Conference to be held in Sri Lanka sometime middle of this year; a women's forum on land rights to be held a day before the actual conference. APWLD RIW Task Force is invited to take part in the women's forum on land rights in Sri Lanka.

APWLD was requested to organise a workshop on women and food sovereignty with other women's groups working on food sovereignty issue. Overall, it was a fruitful forum with sharp analysis on the situation of food scarcity in time of corporate led globalisation in the food sector. Participating groups developed feasible strategies and approaches in responding to the current food situation towards food sovereignty. The upcoming venues, such as Land Rights Conference and Women and Food Sovereignty Meeting will be ground to identify problems and to develop solutions to address current food situation with regional and sectoral specificities. The Forum also demonstrated that what women's groups have been doing for gender equality in food sovereignty in the Asian region has been in line with efforts in other regions.