Competing Discourses at the Committee on World Food Security: Tracing Trade Liberalisation, the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty in Global Food Security Policy

In the wake of the 2007-8 food price spikes, the UN’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS) underwent reforms which sought to make it the foremost inclusive space for the coordination and cohesion of food security policy at the international level. Towards this end, the reformed CFS now includes the participation of civil society, philanthropic foundations, research bodies and the private sector not only in policy negotiations but also on planning committees, advisory groups, and expert panels. This paper considers the implications of this “opening up” of food security governance and analyses the corresponding implications of the inclusion of new discourses in the dominant food security debate. The paper examines ways in which previously “outsider” or contesting discourses (i.e., food sovereignty, the right to food, sustainable diets, and public health), are now challenging the dominant discourses that make up the broader discourse of food security (e.g., trade liberalisation, productionisms and development) from the inside. Towards this end, the main discourses enacted in negotiations at the CFS are identified and their influence on the policy decisions of the Committee are mapped to elucidate how the widening of participation in global food security governance is shaping food security policy. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the future of the Committee on World Food Security and food security more generally, introducing areas for further attention and focus.