
Foundation
The Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has emphasized that the right to food is intrinsically linked to the inherent dignity of humanity.
It is indispensable for the realization of other human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and cannot be separated from social justice. The Committee has highlighted that the root cause of hunger and malnutrition lies not in the absence of food but in the lack of access to it.
Hunger is not merely a matter of statistics, such as the number of calories people should consume daily or the number of lives lost to hunger each year. It represents a state of helplessness that no one should have to endure—a condition often perpetuated across generations. Worse than the physical pain of hunger is perhaps the fear of hunger. This fear is not limited to those who are hungry but affects all humanity, rooted in our survival instinct. Throughout history, this fear has been exploited to establish hegemony over people, and it continues to be used today. No one deserves to live under the shadow of this fear.
Food is a fundamental right for all. In a world capable of producing enough food for everyone and more, hunger persists as a daily tragedy. The solution lies not in producing more food but in sharing existing resources equitably. Ensuring the production of healthy and safe food and making it accessible to all is both a requirement of the right to food and one of the most fundamental duties of states.
The right to food is the sole legal foundation for creating a food system where free farmers sow their seeds into the soil, harvest healthy and safe food, and ensure that it reaches the plates of every individual.
Gıdanın Durumu - Association for Research on the Right to Food is a think tank and research community established to examine the state of food in Turkey and globally through the normative framework of the right to food. Its mission is to monitor Turkey’s steps toward fulfilling its national and international legal obligations concerning the right to food and to propose legal regulations that could serve as a foundation for national policies and plans.