Feeding theWorld – The Contribution of IFOAM Principles - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 92

Standards Requirements, IFOAM Standards and IFOAM Accreditation Require-
ments” too understand how far they refer to the Principles and further transport
the identified potential for food security towards the organic agrofood chain.
Obviously, the IFOAM Principles provide a coherent ethical framework for
setting priorities towards food security. The specific focus is on resource efficiency,
long-term soil fertility, and health of soils, plants and animals. Through the
Principles, especially Health and Ecology, individuals and collectives along the
organic agrofood chain are invited to contribute to food security. The Principles
of Fairness and Care address social and economic relevant issues affecting food
access, food demand and specifically food sovereignty. Specifically these Principles
broaden the perspective beyond a pure technical interpretation of food security.
The Principles offer a concrete ethical orientation to engage in food security
for the producers, but less so for processors, distributors or consumers; they
place special emphasis on the balance between humans and nature, instead of the
permanent growth of wealth of individuals. They represent a systemic and holistic
ethical approach that requires a deep “process of systemic change” (Pimbert 2009 )
by all actors and stakeholders in the organic agrofood system, when they enter the
organic system.
The Principles offer several ethical formulations which have widespread con-
sequences for the quantification of food supply, demand, processing, distribution/
marketing and finally food security, if put into practice. In the IFOAM Norms
ecological, health and technical criteria dominate. IFOAM Standard Requirements
and Standards focus on providing the best quality of secure and healthy food
while protecting the environment and natural resources. Together, the Principles
of ecology and health are indicative of a positive quantitative influence on food
security. However, ethics addressing non-technical values on social and economic
justice that are highly relevant for food access and food sovereignty, are excluded.
“The difficulty is that incorporating these wider concerns [social issues] into
definitions of, and standards for organic farming is problematical. Standards are
far more able to refer to prohibited inputs than to deal with precise criteria for the
assessment of whether producers and processors are acting in a manner which is
socially just or ecologically responsible” (Rigby and Cáceres 2001 , p. 27). IFOAM
Accreditation Requirements secure the compliance of IFOAM Standards and a
fair control and certification process. From that particular perspective, there is no
specific additional contribution to food security than that of securing the ecological
and technical standards.
With respect to food security, certification and smallholder farmers, the argument
is the more smallholders have access to knowledge and markets -, e.g., through
Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS), to become sovereign for their food the
more they are enabled to contribute to food security (Zundel and Kilcher 2007 ).
The PGS serves as an excellent example of bringing the Principles of Fairness and
Care into practice. Not only is PGS oriented to the application of system knowledge
and learning, it brings the consumer into the certification process, and thus offers a
means for creating more trust and shared responsibility in the whole food system.
PGS also strengthens farmers' production through low cost access to knowledge