Oxfam launches its Global GROW Campaign in Assam

 Oxfam launches its Global Grow Campaign in Assam, Guwahati at the ITA Centre for Performing Arts, Guwahati.

Speaking to the media at the Grow launch, Zubin Zaman, India Humanitarian Manager, Oxfam India said: “The global food price crisis, food insecurity in a resource constrained and climate change threaten to keep more people hungry than at any other time in the history of the world.  Responding to this crisis at hand Oxfam through a unique project called ‘The Grow’ Campaign plans to work collaboratively with others to ensure a New Deal to Rescue the Food System and an ambitious aim to build a future in which everyone has enough to eat, always. In Assam the impact of flood has always played a critical role in threatening food security among millions. For that reason alone there is a need to ensure that food security plays a pivotal role in the development process of Assam”.

Mr. Zaman giving a power point presentation to the media said: “A broken food system and environmental crises are now reversing decades of progress against hunger according to new Oxfam analysis. Spiraling food prices and endless cycles of regional food crises will create millions more hungry people unless we transform the way we grow and share food.”

Inaugurating the GROW Exhibition at the ITA Art Gallery, Bhaskar Barua, Former Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India said: “Oxfam’s GROW Campaign is timely and a welcome intervention amidst issues of food security and climate change which are becoming an increasing challenge to manage. Oxfam’s campaign needs immediate attention by the government, civil society organisations and the media as a whole in Assam. The Grow campaign should be followed immediately by a two stage process – a National Consultation and a Roundtable Conference. The consultation should have researchers, academicians, food economists who could lay a blueprint for the implementation of the campaign at the ground level. The Roundtable Conference should be more broad-based with the participation of government, NGOs, INGOs, UN agencies, farming community and should be held in Guwahati.” Mr. Barua said that he would want that many more civil society organisations takes up the spirit of the campaign in Assam.

“There are issues of ‘food sovereignty’ which has not been given much attention. It doesn’t imply a legal sovereignty though in a sense it talks about food production, planning and distribution at the village level. It should be left to the village what crop to produce at an integrated way. However, we should also keep in mind that not all crops can grow everywhere, but ‘food sovereignty’ is a concept which deals with food insecurity at the village level. It gives ownership to the village farmer and the benefits would be available at the local level. Moreover, its ecological impact would be lessened,” said Mr. Barua during the launch of the Grow Exhibition.    

Mr. Barua witnessed the Exhibition with Zubin Zaman and Bipul Borah, Humanitarian Program Coordinator and pledged his support for the campaign at the GROW canvas. The exhibition is opened for mass at the Art Gallery from June 1^st to June 2^nd, 2011.

(Written by Amit Sengupta, Communications Officer, Oxfam India)