The Principles of Food Sovereignty:

Food Sovereignty Focuses on Food for People: Food sovereignty puts the right to sufficient, healthy and culturally appropriate food for all individuals, peoples and communities, including those who are hungry, under occupation, in conflict zones and marginalised, at the centre of food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries policies; and rejects the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for international agribusiness.
Food Sovereignty Values Food Providers: Food sovereignty values and supports the contributions, and respects the rights, of women and men, peasants and small scale family farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fisher-folk, forest dwellers, indigenous peoples and agricultural and fisheries workers, including migrants, who cultivate, grow, harvest and process food; and rejects those policies, actions and programmes that undervalue them, threaten their livelihoods and eliminate them.
Food Sovereignty Localises Food Systems: Food sovereignty brings food providers and consumers closer together; puts providers and consumers at the centre of decision-making on food issues; protects food providers from the dumping of food and food aid in local markets; protects consumers from poor quality and unhealthy food, inappropriate food aid and food tainted with genetically modified organisms; and rejects governance structures, agreements and practices that depend on and promote unsustainable and inequitable international trade and give power to remote and unaccountable corporations.
Food Sovereignty Puts Control Locally: Food sovereignty places control over territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock and fish populations on local food providers and respects their rights. They can use and share them in socially and environmentally sustainable ways which conserve diversity; it recognizes that local territories often cross geopolitical borders and ensures the right of local communities to inhabit and use their territories; it promotes positive interaction between food providers in different regions and territories and from different sectors that helps resolve internal conflicts or conflicts with local and national authorities; and rejects the privatization of natural resources through laws, commercial contracts and intellectual property rights regimes.
Food Sovereignty Builds Knowledge and Skills: Food sovereignty builds on the skills and local knowledge of food providers and their local organizations that conserve, develop and manage localized food production and harvesting systems, developing appropriate research systems to support this and passing on this wisdom to future generations; and rejects technologies that undermine, threaten or contaminate these, e.g. genetic engineering.
Food Sovereignty Works with Nature: Food sovereignty uses the contributions of nature in diverse, low external input agro-ecological production and harvesting methods that maximize the contribution of ecosystems and improve resilience and adaptation, especially in the face of climate change; it seeks to “heal the planet so that the planet may heal us”; and rejects methods that harm beneficial ecosystem functions, that depend on energy intensive mono-cultures and livestock factories, destructive fishing practices and other industrialized production methods, which damage the environment and contribute to global warming.
We see these six principles as interlinked and inseparable in implementing the food sovereignty policy framework. We equally endorse the following principles, as the basis of food policy. The Principle of priority of food over export crops produced by small farms sustained by state provision of the necessary infrastructure of financial credit, water, energy, extension service, transport, storage, marketing, and insurance against crop failures due to climate changes or other unforeseen circumstances. The Principle of self-reliance and national ownership and control over the main resources for food production. These are land, seeds, water, energy, essential fertilizers and technology and equipment (for production, harvesting, storage and transport). The Principle of food safety reserves. Each nation must maintain, through primarily domestic production and storage systems (including village storage as well as national silos) sufficient stocks of “reserve foods” to provide for emergencies, and to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of “reserve foods” among the population during emergencies.

Classroom learning with Concert of Technology

Skillsnest's Blog

While we are learning courses online at Udacity (https://www.udacity.com/  ) and Coursera (http://www.coursera.org/ ),  we are supposed to be actively communicating with fellow students and the course  teams under the discussion forums. During the recent course I took this March 2014, I found out in one of the discussion forum that 10 to 13 year old students are also participating in learning management courses. Technology is allowing individuals of any age, to learn what they want and when they want. It is now possible to individualize instructions in the same way as teachers do to their pupil.

I felt that there is an opportunity to bring my corporate best practices and technology knowledge to schools where the foundation for future behavior of the students gets established.  Smart use of software can help to a large extent to transform school’s methods of teaching but this movement of redesigning classrooms…

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There is no power, there is only influence.

Power is perceived influence. Influence creates the illusion of power.

Cause and effect are easily confused.

When we see a leader who wields great influence over people and events, we perceive power, and we look for its source. When we look, we see that they hold titles and positions, that they oversee large budgets and teams, so we conclude that this is the cause of their power.

But it is only the effect of their ability to influence. First, they used their ability in small matters, until successful results attracted larger matters, and the larger means that accompany them.

Because of this mistake, we assume that if only we, too, had the prerogatives of ‘power’ – the budgets, the teams, the titles – then we, too, would be the puppet-master and command the outcome.

It doesn’t work that way.

I found out, because I tried. I tried and I tried. It back-fired enough times that I have finally begun to understand that despite my best efforts I never achieved power, not because it was hard to acquire, but because it does not exist.

Instead, I have begun to study and seek influence, and found it to be good soil that bears much fruit.

To grow in influence, realize that attempting to command other people is a waste of time. Because it is such a futile pursuit, it limits the scope of your influence to fewer people, and your control over them will require more energy to maintain than it is worth.

Think of it like a mugging. If you point a gun at someone, you can command them. But as soon as you move on, they will run. You may have temporary control, but from unwilling subjects that resent and resist your will.

Instead, embrace the way of the salesman. The salesman understands that there is a destination that both parties would benefit from reaching and that they need each other to get there. Because the customer is unaware of this opportunity, it is the salesman’s duty to make him aware, explain its merits and persuade the purchase.

Long after the salesman leaves, his influence remains. It remains as long as the customer is considering whether or not the proposed transaction is truly in her best interests. Once she convinces herself of it, then she will, of her own free will, perform many of the actions that the salesman would wish her to, had the salesman attempted to impose his will through the threat of force.

Sales requires influence. Influence requires trust, alignment of interests, and a plan. That’s why the most effective salesmen are also leaders. Because leaders do not command; they bring one or more people together around a plan to reach a destination shared in common.

Influence requires sales. The two are symbiotic, like Yin and Yang. To influence someone, you must sell, you must persuade them of three things: that you are trustworthy, that your interests are aligned with theirs, and that your plan is the best possible workable option.

There are many lessons in the art of sales, but one, by far, is the most important. It is a pre-condition. Without it, all the skills and techniques will feel manipulative. With it, all the skills and techniques will have their desired effect.

The lesson is that people are incredibly sensitive to how you feel towards them, so they are very hard to fool. If you do not respect them, or if you do not have their best interests at heart, or if you perceive them as an object to be won, rather than a person like yourself, with legitimate desires and needs and concerns, then they will feel it. If they feel that from you, your logic will not be trusted.

That is why great salespeople listen. Listening shows that you care about what motivates the other person and that you want to know what they think.

To sell with integrity, one must truly believe that the agreement being proposed is the right thing to do, not just for yourself, but for other person, such that, if you were them, you would agree to it too.

Once you master this lesson, then you will likely have also gained influence with the other person; for, to feel such a strong sense of conviction in the deal and empathy for the counter-party, you have probably had to convince yourself that this is indeed a workable plan that aligns interests on both sides.

Imagine, for example, the chief executive of a company. Like so many bosses, he may entertain the delusion that he has power, and may attempt to tell people what to do. When they don’t want to do what he wants them to do, he will boil with frustration. They will argue or reason with him. Instead of persuading them that a strategy is sound, he will want to say, “Don’t ask questions! I’m the boss, do as I say! I pay you to work for me!” As a management tactic, this is like pointing a gun at someone. If they don’t do what you want, you are threatening to fire (at) them. For the most talented people working at the company, this is an empty threat, because there are always other opportunities for them elsewhere, at other companies, and most of them probably pay better. So if the CEO insists on wielding his ‘power’ in this way, his best people will leave.

Conversely, if the CEO wants to get his way, he can also threaten his employees with promotions and bonuses and titles. This is an expensive and unsustainable tactic as well, and will not motivate people on a day-by-day basis.


A more effective approach begins with realizing that the people working at the company each have their private interests, and they work there, despite all the opportunity costs, because they see it as the best of all possible options currently available to them for achieving the things that they want to achieve in life, whatever they may be.

You, the leader, on the other hand, have a strategy and plan that you believe the company should follow in order to succeed, and you need them, the people on the team, to go where you want them to go, and do what you want them to do.

The best way to achieve results together is to influence each other. Encourage them to gain influence over you. Seek permission to gain influence over them. It is a profitable trade that begins with trust, then lets the best ideas win. If you truly believe that your plan is the right one for the team, then your arguments should be persuasive to them. They will feel your integrity and they will hear your logic. Similarly, if they truly believe their plan is the right one for the team, then their arguments may also sway you.

How much smarter will smart people become, how much harder working will hard working people become, if they are aligned with a common purpose?

In this way, a leader gathers the interests of many behind a journey to a shared destination. So that victory, when it comes, will be as much theirs as yours.

Amazinly nice

Mind of Malaka

So I got this in my email this morning…

 

They call the Third World the lazy man’s purview; the sluggishly slothful and languorous prefecture. In this realm people are sleepy, dreamy, torpid, lethargic, and therefore indigent—totally penniless, needy, destitute, poverty-stricken, disfavored, and impoverished. In this demesne, as they call it, there are hardly any discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Africa is the trailblazer. Some still call it “the dark continent” for the light that flickers under the tunnel is not that of hope, but an approaching train. And because countless keep waiting in the way of the train, millions die and many more remain decapitated by the day.

“It’s amazing how you all sit there and watch yourselves die,” the man next to me said. “Get up and do something about it.”

Brawny, fully bald-headed, with intense, steely eyes, he was as cold as they come. When I first discovered…

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I like this, looks so gorgeous

bendupreezphotography

This photograph was taken during a fashion shoot. I chose this image as the lighting works really well to represent definition and contrast within the models face.

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