Agribusiness, food security and human rights

In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 53/3, the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises explores the implications for human rights of ongoing food security and food systems transformation programmes around the world. The Working Group considers how States, businesses, investors and other stakeholders in the food and agribusiness sector can best design and implement sustainable and rights-based food security programmes, in line with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In the report, the agribusiness sector is understood to consist of people, businesses, financial institutions, trade organizations and State-owned enterprises that are involved in the production, aggregation, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal of food and food products that originate from agriculture, forestry or fisheries.¹

1. See https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b620989c-407b-4caf-a152-f790f55fec71/content. ↩

The report is mainly focused on “food fraud practices”, a term that refers to the economically motivated adulteration of food; misleading food labelling and advertising, especially in connection with climate and environmental impacts; fraudulent or unsustainable packaging; seed misinformation and theft; manipulation of food access; abuse of food assistance programmes; and illicit agrifood trade. It considers the adverse impacts of food fraud practices on the promotion and protection of human rights and the effective implementation of food security programmes. In the report, the term “food security programmes” refers to activities, initiatives, policies, projects and investments in the agribusiness sector that are aimed at advancing food security. This may include investments aimed at scaling food production and promoting reliability and resilience across the food supply value chain, food assistance schemes, trade in food and food products and the reporting of food security-related sustainability actions.

The report offers action-oriented recommendations to States, businesses and other stakeholders on how to infuse food security programmes with human rights safeguards to address food fraud and enhance food justice. The recommendations in the present report can also inform wider reforms aimed at integrating and promoting human rights-based and responsible business conduct across the entire food and agribusiness sector value chain.

The Working Group examines how stakeholders in the agribusiness sector can advance sustainable and rights-based food systems that address food fraud, while also advancing food security and justice. First, as part of the State duty to protect individuals and communities from business-related human rights abuses, the Working Group examines regulatory and policy requirements necessary to ensure responsible business conduct in food security programmes and across the food value chain. It explores progress made, and challenges that remain, in advancing rights-based food systems that address food fraud, while advancing food security. Second, within the framework of the second pillar of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which applies to the activities and operations of businesses in the food and agriculture sector, the report analyses the responsibility of agribusiness and fast-moving consumer goods value chains to advance sustainable and rights-based food systems. Third, the Working Group evaluates the limits of existing international, regional and domestic regulations, legislation and national action plans on business and human rights in providing access to remedy for individuals and communities affected by agribusiness investments, especially food fraud practices and corporate manipulation of food quality and access. The Working Group also considers how existing dispute resolution provisions and frameworks in food-related agreements may be improved to address complaints about human rights abuses across the entire food value chain in a fair and timely manner.

The present report builds on the work previously undertaken by the Working Group, the other special procedures of the Human Rights Council,² other organizations and mechanisms, such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, the International Seed Federation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and other international and non-governmental organizations, by addressing the various dimensions of the interface between food security and human rights. The report also draws on submissions received from stakeholders in response to a call for input³ and consultations organized on the topic with partner institutions. These included consultations with the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, with the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and with participants in the 2025 African Forum on Business and Human Rights⁴ and the 2025 Forum on Business and Human Rights.⁵

2. See A/HRC/61/51; https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-interlinkages-between-land-rights-and-right-food; and https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2026/call-input-transforming-food-systems-protect-human-rights-and-prevent-climate. ↩
3. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-report-agri-business-food-security-and-human-rights. ↩
4. See https://www.bhrafricaforum.org/. ↩
5. See https://forumbhr2025.sched.com/event/27V9a/consultation-for-the-2026-human-rights-council-and-general-assembly-reports-of-the-working-group?linkback=grid. ↩

While drafting the present report, the Working Group developed a thematic study to help States and businesses to understand and fulfil their obligations and responsibilities related to the right to free, prior and informed consent.⁶ This also informed the present report. Finally, the Working Group was aware of the development, by the Government of Bhutan, the Conscious Food Systems Alliance⁷ and the United Nations Development Programme, of the first Global Conscious Food Systems Summit, a food systems summit bringing together various stakeholders, including policymakers, consumers, farmers and civil society organizations from around the world, to be held in Bhutan from 31 August to 4 September 2026.⁸ The practices highlighted in section IV of the present report are based on information received from consultations and submissions sent following the Working Group’s call for input.

6. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-inputs-indigenous-peoples-free-prior-and-informed-consent-business-and. ↩
7. See https://www.undp.org/facs/conscious-food-systems-alliance. ↩
8. See https://consciousfoodsystems.org/bhutan-summit-2026/. ↩

Access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food is inextricably linked to all aspects of human life: the ability to work, live, survive and execute tasks. In addition to its nutritional and health value, the medicinal, cultural, religious and ecosystem-related importance of food has been recognized in several international instruments. As far back as 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized the right to food as a component of an adequate standard of living.⁹ Similarly, the right to food is enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,¹⁰ the Convention on the Rights of the Child,¹¹ the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,¹² the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples¹³ and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 2 See A/HRC/61/51; https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-interlinkages-between-landrights-and-right-food; and https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2026/call-input-transforming-foodsystems-protect-human-rights-and-prevent-climate. 3 See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-report-agri-business-food-security-andhuman-rights. 4 See https://www.bhrafricaforum.org/. 5 See https://forumbhr2025.sched.com/event/27V9a/consultation-for-the-2026-human-rights-counciland-general-assembly-reports-of-the-working-group?linkback=grid. 6 See https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-inputs-indigenous-peoples-free-prior-andinformed-consent-business-and. 7 See https://www.undp.org/facs/conscious-food-systems-alliance. 8 See https://consciousfoodsystems.org/bhutan-summit-2026/. 9 Art. 25 (1). 10 Art. 11. See also general comment No. 12 (1999) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Social Rights, which defines the right to adequate food. 11 Arts. 24 (2) (c) and 27 (3). 12 Arts. 25 (f) and 28 (1). 13 Art. 20, on the right “to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence”. GE.26-05307 Discrimination against Women.¹⁴ 14 Several human rights instruments at the regional and national levels also recognize the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food, placing “legal obligations on States to overcome hunger and malnutrition and realize food security for all”.¹⁵

9. Art. 25 (1). ↩
10. Art. 11. See also general comment No. 12 (1999) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Social Rights, which defines the right to adequate food. ↩
11. Arts. 24 (2) (c) and 27 (3). ↩
12. Arts. 25 (f) and 28 (1). ↩
13. Art. 20, on the right “to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence”. ↩
14. Art. 12 (2). ↩
15. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/FactSheet34en.pdf. See also https://www.fao.org/right-to-food-around-the-globe/countries/en/. ↩

As elaborated in the World Food Summit Plan of Action of 1996, food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Without food security, it is difficult, if not impossible, to enjoy the right to food. In recognition of the urgent need to accelerate food security globally, Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals, on ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture, calls upon States to accelerate access to safe and nutritious food to create a world free of hunger and malnutrition by 2030. In 2025, the General Assembly, in its resolution 79/276, decided to extend the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition and expressed deep concern that the world was off track to end hunger and malnutrition by 2030.

In response, and with just a few years until 2030, a growing number of stakeholders in the agribusiness sector have announced or are currently developing or implementing food security programmes with the dual objectives of ramping up food production and promoting reliability and resilience across the food supply value chain. Examples include the Common Agricultural Policy and General Food Law Regulation of the European Union, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme of the African Union, the Arab Agriculture Transformation Fund, the Gulf Cooperation Council unified strategy on food security and the Global Flagship Initiative for Food Security, launched by private sector and development institutions, among others, which aim to boost crop diversity, agricultural productivity and food security worldwide.¹⁶ Domestic legislation and policies, such as the National Food Security Act (2013) of India, the food security law (2024) of China and the National Food Security Strategy 2030 of Qatar, which aim to advance food security, have also emerged at the national level. Social protection and food assistance programmes aimed at expanding access to safe, nutritious and affordable food through cash and vouchers, school meals, mother-and-child nutrition and fair price shops have also gained increased prominence.¹⁷

16. See, e.g., https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-glance_en. ↩
17. See https://www.wfp.org/food-assistance. ↩

The green revolution and food systems transformation have already resulted in agricultural innovation and a progressive global increase in food production and supply, especially grains, oil crops, sugar, meat, dairy products and fish.¹⁸ However, with more than 2 billion of the world’s population still affected by moderate or severe food insecurity,¹⁹ the need for coherent and effective food security programmes that enhance food availability, affordability and accessibility remains pressing and urgent to avert and minimize catastrophic human rights harms related to food poverty.

18. See https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ad4c7c0b-4488-4494-b64b-bf40e102aa48/content. ↩
19. See https://www.who.int/news/item/28-07-2025-global-hunger-declines-but-rises-in-africa-and-western-asia-un-report. ↩

Despite the continued importance of these efforts, food security programmes have been linked or have contributed to serious human rights violations and abuses, such as land-grabbing, forced displacement, forced labour, child labour, environmental pollution and adverse health impacts. The weaponization of hunger by corporate actors for economic gain, especially in conflict contexts,²⁰ exposes some of the world’s food-poorest people to human rights abuses and food injustice.²¹ Furthermore, concerns have emerged as to how the design and implementation of food security programmes, especially the rise in food fraud practices, may further exacerbate human rights violations and abuses related to the agribusiness sector.²² High-profile food-related scandals, including the 2013 horsemeat scandal across Europe, involving the sale of beef products adulterated with horsemeat, the adulteration of milk and addition of melamine to milk powder to give the appearance of high protein levels, the dilution of honey, the substitution and mislabelling of meat and seafood, the adulteration of olive oil, the packaging of non-organic products as organic ones, and the use of toxic chemicals and additives to rapidly ripen or preserve food, have shaken consumer confidence and trust in global food systems and have been linked to several adverse human rights impacts.²³ Deceptive and exploitative marketing of commercial milk formula for babies and young children has also been linked with high infant mortality, especially in developing and low-income countries.²⁴

20. See https://ipes-food.org/hunger-and-food-security-set-to-worsen-unless-corporate-influence-confronted/; and Joaquín David Rodríguez Álvarez, “The weaponization of hunger: an analysis of food security in conflict and post-conflict scenarios”, Journal of Human Security and Global Law, vol. 3 (2024). ↩
21. See https://www.ohchr.org/en/meeting-summaries/2023/03/conflict-and-violence-are-primary-causes-hunger-and-famine-special. ↩
22. See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/sh-proxy/es/?lnk=1&url=https%253A%252F%252Fworkspace.fao.org%252Fsites%252Fcodex%252FMeetings%252FCX-733-27%252FWorking%2Bdocuments%252Ffc27_05e.pdf (where “food fraud” is defined as “any deliberate practice intended to deceive others in regard to the prescribed specifications or expected characteristics of food to gain an unfair economic advantage”). See also https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7e4ed289-b286-4a15-b4ef-f8780bb13c17/content. ↩
23. See https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/320-tonnes-of-potentially-dangerous-dairy-products-taken-market-in-operation-opson-ix-targeting-food-fraud; https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/eurojust-helps-reveal-fake-organic-food-fraud; https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/830020-reps-probe-alleged-use-of-harmful-chemicals-to-preserve-frozen-foods-in-nigeria.html; and Catherine Barnard and Niall O’Connor, “Runners and riders: the horsemeat scandal, EU law and multi-level enforcement”, The Cambridge Law Journal, vol. 76, No. 1 (2017), pp. 116–144. ↩
24. See https://www.unicef.org/media/115916/file/Multi-country%20study%20examining%20the%20impact%20of%20BMS%20marketing%20on%20infant%20feeding%20decisions%20and%20practices%2CUNICEF%2CWHO2022.pdf. ↩

Food fraud practices and the corporate manipulation of food security programmes pose profound threats to human rights, affecting every aspect of people’s lives. A recent World Trade Organization (WTO) report highlights how the “fake, substandard, smuggled and illegal agri-foods cost the global food industry an estimated US$ 30–50 billion per year”.²⁵ In addition to its high adverse economic impacts, food fraud by businesses and other actors in the food value chain can directly harm consumer health and exacerbate food waste, thereby slowing progress on a wide range of the Sustainable Development Goals, including those relating to health and well-being, ending poverty, and responsible consumption.²⁶ Similarly, recent reports of the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas and the Special Rapporteur on the right to food show how the concentration of food supply in large corporations is resulting in corporate capture of global food systems, undermining food security and the rights of small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists and rural agricultural workers.²⁷

25. See https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/illicit_trade_in_food_and_food_fraud_e.pdf. ↩
26. See Anastassia Demeshko and others, “The role of corruption in global food systems: a systematic scoping review”, Globalization and Health, vol. 20 (2024). ↩
27. See A/80/180 and A/80/213. ↩

The design, financing and implementation of food security programmes should not replicate or create new forms of human rights abuses, including environmental, health, fraud and corruption risks. Human rights must be placed at the heart of efforts to advance food security and sustainable food systems. Comprehensive international human rights responses are urgently required to address the drivers and dimensions of food fraud in the agribusiness sector, in a manner that complements other efforts spearheaded by health, food, agriculture and trade, anti-corruption and development institutions. However, specific mention of food fraud remains largely absent in international, regional and national human rights instruments. 21 See https://www.ohchr.org/en/meeting-summaries/2023/03/conflict-and-violence-are-primary-causeshunger-and-famine-special. 22 See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/shproxy/es/?lnk=1&url=https%253A%252F%252Fworkspace.fao.org%252Fsites%252Fcodex%252FM eetings%252FCX-733-27%252FWorking%2Bdocuments%252Ffc27_05e.pdf (where “food fraud” is defined as “any deliberate practice intended to deceive others in regard to the prescribed specifications or expected characteristics of food to gain an unfair economic advantage”). See also https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7e4ed289-b286-4a15-b4eff8780bb13c17/content. 23 See https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/320-tonnes-of-potentiallydangerous-dairy-products-taken-market-in-operation-opson-ix-targeting-food-fraud; https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/eurojust-helps-reveal-fake-organic-food-fraud; https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/830020-reps-probe-alleged-use-of-harmfulchemicals-to-preserve-frozen-foods-in-nigeria.html; and Catherine Barnard and Niall O’Connor, “Runners and riders: the horsemeat scandal, EU law and multi-level enforcement”, The Cambridge Law Journal, vol. 76, No. 1 (2017), pp. 116–144. 24 See https://www.unicef.org/media/115916/file/Multicountry%20study%20examining%20the%20impact%20of%20BMS%20marketing%20on%20infant %20feeding%20decisions%20and%20practices%2CUNICEF%2CWHO2022.pdf. 25 See https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/illicit_trade_in_food_and_food_fraud_e.pdf. 26 See Anastassia Demeshko and others, “The role of corruption in global food systems: a systematic scoping review”, Globalization and Health, vol. 20 (2024). 27 See A/80/180 and A/80/213. GE.26-05307

The question therefore arises as to how to achieve sustainable and rights-based food systems that prevent food fraud and uphold the rights of, inter alia, consumers, peasants, agricultural workers, Indigenous Peoples and affected communities, through social dialogue, stakeholder engagement and access to information.

In the present report, the term “sustainable and rights-based food systems” is used to refer to the production, aggregation, processing, marketing, labelling and distribution of food and food products in a manner that is just and inclusive, protects the environment and natural resources, creates decent work opportunities and upholds the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and populations affected by food poverty, through meaningful participation, particularly with regard to access to accurate and reliable information on food and food products. Critical to achieving food justice is the need for States, businesses and other stakeholders to align food security programmes, including trade and investment in food and food products, with human rights obligations and commitments, particularly the realization of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, as well as Goals 2 (End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture), 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages), 12 (Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns) and 16 (Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels) of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Food fraud undermines the efficiency of food security programmes and the promotion of a sustainable and rights-based food system that leaves no one behind. There are four key drivers and dimensions of food fraud and food injustice across global food supply value chains.

The first is the increasing infiltration of legitimate food security programmes by organized criminal groups to perpetrate food fraud practices of various types, such as adulteration, exploitation of labour and illicit trade in food.²⁸ Recent reports by the National Anti-Mafia Prosecution Office of Italy, for example, document how mafia-type groups infiltrate different stages of the food supply chain, including by using smallholder farmers, restaurants and other service providers in the agribusiness sector as fronts for subsidy frauds, money-laundering, food smuggling, drug trafficking, fraudulent land schemes and other economic crimes.²⁹ Such practices, often enabled by institutional corruption, not only allow adulterated and unsafe food products to cross borders seamlessly and reach consumers, but also hijack food security interventions, preventing them from reaching their intended beneficiaries.³⁰ For example, the European Union has recently led a large-scale investigation leading to arrests and prosecutions of farmers and other agribusiness stakeholders across Europe for claiming subsidies for non-existent land, livestock and food products, taking undue advantage of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union.³¹ Similarly, in the United States of America, the corporate manipulation and abuse of food assistance programmes such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for economic gain remains a pressing concern.³²

28. See Alice Rizzuti, “Organised food crime: an analysis of the involvements of organised crime groups in the food sector in England and Italy”, Crime, Law and Social Change, vol. 78 (2022), pp. 463–482. ↩
29. See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-021-09975-w. See also https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/media/news/italy-eppo-cracks-down-eu20-million-agricultural-fraud-scheme-linked-to-organised-crime. ↩
30. See Demeshko and others, “The role of corruption in global food systems”. ↩
31. See https://www.eppo.europa.eu/en/media/news/greece-eppo-arrests-37-members-organised-criminal-group-involved-large-scale. ↩
32. See Andrew Fisher, Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups (Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 2017). ↩

In recent decades, a wide range of international instruments, such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the protocols thereto, the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, the WTO Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the United Nations Convention against Corruption, have been adopted to address illicit trade in food and agricultural products and other food fraud practices. The Codex Alimentarius, established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission of FAO and the World Health Organization, also provides international standards on food safety and illicit food trade.³³ However, lack of explicit integration of human rights standards remains a key gap. The corporate capture of global food supply value chains by agribusinesses that collude with criminal groups to profit from hunger undermines the right to life, the right to food, the right to health and other international human rights and requires comprehensive rights-based responses.

33. See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/codex-texts/en/. See also the Code of Ethics for International Trade in Food including Concessional and Food Aid Transactions. ↩

The second is the rise in misleading food labelling and advertising, otherwise known as greenwashing, especially false and deceptive claims in connection with climate and environmental impacts. As the implementation of international frameworks related to climate, the environment and health is growing across the world, the global food supply value chain has been increasingly linked with misinformation relating to food labelling, in relation to origin, environmental footprint, climate neutrality, types of processing and ingredients.³⁴ In response to growing demand for sustainable products globally, and in an effort to evade, or exaggerate, compliance with health, safety, environmental and religious dietary standards, some agribusinesses increasingly describe products as “organic”, “fair trade”, “cage-free”, “green”, “carbon-neutral”, “non-GMO” (non-genetically modified), “bio” or “halal”, as well as making other claims about how agriproducts were cultivated, grown or processed.³⁵ However, according to the European Commission, “53% of green claims give vague, misleading or unfounded information”.³⁶ In recent reports, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission expressed concern that about 57 per cent of businesses reviewed made “concerning” green claims.³⁷ Another report finds greenwashing to be rife across grocery stores and supermarkets in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.³⁸ The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems has also documented how “agrifood corporations, international philanthropic organizations, and some governments are using the term nature-based solutions to ‘hijack’ the food system sustainability agenda”.³⁹

34. See Denise Dreist and others, “Greenwashing in food labelling: consumer deception by claims of climate neutrality and the importance of an interpretative labelling approach”, Food Quality and Preference, vol. 122 (January 2025). ↩
35. See https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/agri-food-businesses-at-risk-of-greenwashing-over-unsubstantiated-regen-ag-claims/683374.article. ↩
36. See https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-topics/green-claims_en. ↩
37. See https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-greenwashing-internet-sweep-unearths-widespread-concerning-claims. See also https://sustainablebrands.com/read/marketing-and-comms/ftc-cracking-down-on-misleading-unsubstantiated-biodegradability-claims. ↩
38. See https://foodrise.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Greenwash-Grocers-Scorecard-Report-July-2023.pdf. ↩
39. See https://ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/SmokeAndMirrors.pdf. ↩

In response, regulatory frameworks aimed at addressing greenwashing are emerging around the world, including the Green Claims Directive of the European Union, which would require companies across all sectors, including agribusinesses, to substantiate their green claims.⁴⁰ In the United States, the Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, known as the Green Guides, also aim to “help marketers avoid making environmental marketing claims that are unfair or deceptive under Section 5 of the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] Act”.⁴¹ Domestic legislation or guidelines on greenwashing have also emerged in other jurisdictions, most notably Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United 33 See https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/codex-texts/en/. See also the Code of Ethics for International Trade in Food including Concessional and Food Aid Transactions. 34 See Denise Dreist and others, “Greenwashing in food labelling: consumer deception by claims of climate neutrality and the importance of an interpretative labelling approach”, Food Quality and Preference, vol. 122 (January 2025). 35 See https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/agri-food-businesses-at-risk-of-greenwashing-overunsubstantiated-regen-ag-claims/683374.article. 36 See https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/circular-economy-topics/green-claims_en. 37 See https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-greenwashing-internet-sweep-unearths-widespreadconcerning-claims. See also https://sustainablebrands.com/read/marketing-and-comms/ftc-crackingdown-on-misleading-unsubstantiated-biodegradability-claims. 38 See https://foodrise.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Greenwash-Grocers-Scorecard-Report-July2023.pdf. 39 See https://ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/SmokeAndMirrors.pdf. 40 See https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0131_EN.html. 41 See https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-issues-revised-greenguides/greenguides.pdf. GE.26-05307 Kingdom, among others.42 Despite these efforts, unsubstantiated green claims, the use of misleading food labels, adulteration, and substitution of food ingredients with cheaper or less green alternatives remain pervasive in the agribusiness sector.⁴³

40. See https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2024-0131_EN.html. ↩
41. See https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/press-releases/ftc-issues-revised-green-guides/greenguides.pdf. ↩
43. See Joshua M. Njiru and others, “Food fraud in selected sub-Saharan Africa countries: a wake-up call to national regulatory bodies to support enforcement and food safety”, Frontiers in Food Science and Technology, vol. 5 (2025). ↩

A third and related dimension of food fraud is the proliferation of fake and substandard crop protection products – fertilizers, pesticides, biopesticides, seeds and biotechnology – for economic gain.⁴⁴ Counterfeit crop protection products not only endanger the health of farmers and workers who are directly exposed to them, but also contaminate the environment, infringing on the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Counterfeit crop protection products also have significant economic consequences. With global revenues from fake pesticides estimated to be between $8 billion and $20 billion annually,⁴⁵ several States face reduced taxable revenue that could have been used to finance food security and other development programmes.⁴⁶ Estimates indicate roughly €1.3 billion in lost revenue each year in Europe due to counterfeit pesticides, while other reports indicate significant revenue losses in Africa, Asia and Latin America due to counterfeit crop protection products.⁴⁷ The adverse impacts of counterfeit crop protection on human rights and on food security call for rights-based solutions, including product verification and monitoring across the food supply value chain.

44. See https://croplife.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/160912-UNICRI-paper-illicit-pesticides-Apr-2016-6.pdf; and https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sustainability/shortage-to-scam-fake-fertilisers-pesticides-flood-farms-how-much-is-china-to-blame/articleshow/123645752.cms?from=mdr. ↩
45. See https://www.tracit.org/pesticides.html#:~:text=Financially%2C%20the%20impact%20of%20counterfeit,about%2014%25%20of%20the%20market. ↩
46. See https://euipo.europa.eu/tunnel-web/secure/webdav/guest/document_library/observatory/resources/research-and-studies/ip_infringement/study10/pesticides_sector_en.pdf. ↩
47. Ibid. ↩

Fourth, poor oversight of or support for the informal food economy, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, remains a key driver of food fraud and waste. Small-scale farmers, pastoralists, forest keepers, fishers and retailers account for as much as 80 per cent of the food supply value chain in many parts of Africa and Asia.⁴⁸ According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), globally, 9 in 10 workers in the agricultural sector work informally.⁴⁹ However, as recent reports indicate, the domination of global food supply value chains by large agribusinesses often means that smallholder farmers and retailers face increased pressure and threats to their livelihoods.⁵⁰ Reduced access to financing, land tenure concerns, poor infrastructure, inadequate storage facilities, limited access to technologies, and the weak capacity of informal actors, among other factors, continue to exacerbate food loss and waste during the production, post-harvest and processing stages in the informal economy.

48. See https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/nr/sustainability_pathways/docs/Factsheet_SMALLHOLDERS.pdf. ↩
49. See International Labour Organization, Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Update (Geneva, 2023). ↩
50. See A/80/180 and A/80/213. ↩

In addition to the impact of food waste on food availability and security, efforts by informal actors to minimize economic loss may result in the use of false measurements, wrong labelling, the use of dangerous chemical preservatives or the sale of spoiled, adulterated or substandard products that compromise food safety and quality, especially in States where regulation or oversight is weak. Consumer protection laws alone are often insufficient to address all the underlying human rights issues involved. In Nigeria, for example, between July and December 2024, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration Control confiscated and destroyed more than 120 billion naira (approximately US$ 90 million) worth of fake, expired or substandard goods, including counterfeit food products, beverages and edible oils from small and medium-scale enterprises in the informal economy.⁵¹ While such efforts are important to protect consumers from food fraud, anticipatory efforts to support, empower and integrate informal actors into the formal economy are equally important in reducing food waste and the associated energy and water resources deployed in producing such confiscated products. Holistic and comprehensive responses are required to tackle food fraud in a manner that enhances food safety, without compromising food security and human rights. This will include scaling up support for smallholder farmers, food entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises to access the training, resources and financing needed to participate meaningfully in food security programmes.

51. See https://guardian.ng/news/nigeria/national/nafdac-destroys-over-₦120b-worth-of-fake-products-in-six-months/#:~:text=The%20National%20Agency%20for%20Food,approximately%20₦5%20billion%20seized. ↩

Despite the increased commitment by stakeholders to promote awareness and understanding of food fraud and waste in food security programmes, little progress has been made in providing the corresponding regulatory and governance frameworks needed to advance an inclusive, sustainable and rights-based food system. Among the main barriers that must be urgently addressed, the Working Group identified the following: regulatory gaps; lack of meaningful participation of affected communities; lack of access to information, including data transparency; and lack of access to effective remedies for victims.

While several State and non-State actors are announcing food security programmes and policies, specific recognition or mention of the human rights dimensions of food fraud remains significantly lacking in such efforts. Food fraud practices are often considered as crimes or violations under consumer protection or criminal laws in many States, attracting fines, sanctions and enforcement actions. The implementation and enforcement of such consumer protection and food safety legislation often go beyond the purview of human rights institutions. In addition, while food security programmes are often designed by food and agriculture ministries and agencies, the implementation of human rights protections is often within the remit of human rights institutions. Lack of coordination by different actors in the design and implementation of food security programmes produces adverse human rights implications in the agribusiness sector, especially for typically marginalized groups such as small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, rural agricultural workers, women and Indigenous Peoples. For example, while mobilizing law enforcement to respond to food fraud is required, such enforcement actions often neglect pre-existing patterns of social exclusion, land tenure practices and lack of equal access to financial and educational opportunities that make it difficult for smallholder farmers, especially those in Indigenous communities, to access food preservation infrastructure, technologies and financing. Reassessing the connections between human rights, indigeneity, gender vulnerability and food security programmes can help States and businesses to develop coherent, gender-responsive policies that ensure the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people.⁵²

52. See Claudia Coral and Dagmar Mithöfer, “Integrating social vulnerability into food fraud vulnerability assessment: policy implications for authenticity in Spanish honey”, Food Policy, vol. 136 (October 2025). ↩

The importance of domestic food security legislation and regulations, in line with international human rights law, in advancing rights-based food systems cannot be overemphasized. Without laws that identify food fraud as a human rights violation, rather than only a consumer protection issue, appropriate rights-based responses will remain absent. A clear legal framework on food security can provide a legal basis for integrating human rights considerations into the prevention and control of food fraud and place an obligation on all actors to do so. Food security legislation can also provide clarity on the key human rights due diligence standards and measures with which agribusinesses must comply at the project design and approval stage.

Similarly, at the international level, the lack of clear integration of human rights standards in food security instruments, including the lack of an explicit treaty on food security, remains a key gap. Efforts to clarify the obligation of agribusinesses in the context of food fraud mainly take the form of voluntary and non-binding guidelines. Similarly, international organizations often receive little or no cooperation in the design and implementation of the training, capacity-development and other knowledge programmes required to detect, prevent, mitigate and control food fraud in a rights-based manner. The lack of clear and explicit application of rights-based standards on the human rights responsibilities of food and agriculture sector businesses (and investors) in the context of food security and safety continues to result in a proliferation of sector-specific and incoherent standards, guidelines and frameworks on food fraud. Given the adverse impacts of food fraud on human rights, including the rights to food, health, life and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, human rights must be placed squarely at the heart of all international food security programmes, as part of a coherent effort to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. There is a need for greater interoperability and standardization approaches that foster cooperation and minimize duplication among all actors in the design and implementation of food security programmes.

Flowing from regulatory and institutional fragmentation is the lack of meaningful participation of affected communities in framing responses to food fraud. The commodification of food and the domination of the global food value chain isolate small-scale farmers and other at-risk groups. Land-grabbing by large corporations, corporate lobbying and abuse of food assistance programmes, and inadequate access to financing and crop protection products all create unfair competition and exclusion for farmers in the informal sector.⁵³ Efforts to address the impacts of climate change in agriculture through carbon farming and land-based offset projects have also been linked to land grabs and other human rights violations and abuses, especially in Indigenous communities.⁵⁴ Lack of free, prior and informed consent processes with Indigenous Peoples, and of meaningful consultation and engagement with local communities in the design and implementation of food security programmes, often result in little or no protection of the rights of local farmers to land and to equitable access and benefit-sharing in relation to traditional knowledge and genetic resources such as seeds and crops.

53. See https://ipes-food.org/land-grabs-squeeze-rural-poor-worldwide/. See also https://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/tippingthescales.pdf. ↩
54. See https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/carbon-offsets-2023/mapped.html. ↩

Participatory approaches are required when crafting food security and safety laws so as to ensure that international human rights, including the rights enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, are reflected and to ensure that the benefits of food security programmes are accessed by Indigenous Peoples, peasants, smallholder farmers and local communities in a just and equitable manner. Upholding public participation standards and free, prior and informed consent requirements ensures that the voices of those who are most directly affected can be heard and taken into account when shaping policies and actions that affect their lives. Failing to involve affected rights holders not only perpetuates power imbalances, inequalities and marginalization but also hampers the creation of sustainable and rights-based food systems that coherently tackle food fraud.

Efforts to formalize and empower actors in the informal food economy are also crucial to addressing food fraud and waste. By supporting and assigning greater roles to informal food economy actors, and providing them with the training, capacity development and resources necessary to be more effective in supporting rights-based food systems, more peasants, pastoralists and farmers can acquire the knowledge and motivation to effectively address food fraud and waste and to contribute meaningfully to food security programmes. This will include designing and implementing rights-based land laws that recognize, formalize and protect the legitimate communal and Indigenous land rights needed to freely own, use and control land, fisheries and forests.⁵⁵ In this regard, although not legally binding, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security call upon States and businesses to respect all legitimate tenure rights, including those not currently recognized by national laws.⁵⁶

55. See https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4e08d38d-b1f5-4c74-8478-7cbd61a1e90a/content. ↩
56. Ibid. ↩

Even when regulatory standards on food security and safety are set out in consumer protection and food legislation, the lack of credible, transparent and accessible data and information on the level of compliance remains a critical barrier to eliminating food fraud. In many States, information on how businesses are complying with such laws, names of defaulters and the level of enforcement action taken are simply not easily accessible, even when required to make rights-based investment decisions. The lack of safeguards on e-commerce platforms, including verification of the seller and product authenticity, also mean that counterfeit food and crop protection products are easily distributed online, leaving consumers with little or no recourse in case of food fraud.⁵⁷

57. See https://www.tracit.org/uploads/1/0/2/2/102238034/tracit_illicitepesticides_ecommerce_april2024_full.pdf. ↩

Obstacles to access to information are often coupled with a lack of clear legal requirements on the transparent reporting and verification of human rights and sustainability progress by stakeholders in the agribusiness sector. The proliferation of different food labelling, reporting and measurement standards and lack of consistency in the use of terms and labels across different forums make it difficult for consumers to understand and interrogate the information provided, often resulting in uninformed choices. For example, while some agribusinesses report the sustainability or green credentials of their products in terms of calories and manufacturing process, others report sustainability in terms of the climate neutrality of the end product, making it difficult to effectively compare products and make informed choices. Such ambiguity leaves space for deliberate disinformation and greenwashing, while the lack of accuracy and consistency in reporting standards continues to limit the reliability of sustainability and food security reports prepared by businesses. This gap is often closely related to the lack of a specific reference to human rights measurement or reporting in food security legislation in many States, despite evidence of the human rights risks of implementing food security programmes. Furthermore, failure by agribusinesses to provide food safety and sustainability reports in accessible formats and languages limits the reports’ utility, especially for communities.

There is an urgent need for States to enforce comprehensive and standardized approaches to data collection and reporting by agribusiness stakeholders, in order to properly evaluate and monitor the level of compliance with human rights obligations in food security programmes. Such information should be transparently released by agribusinesses through publicly accessible online portals and in languages accessible to all end users. Existing food safety and transparency regulations that apply to the physical sale of food products should also be uniformly enforced on e-commerce platforms.

Adopting standard contractual provisions that mandate stakeholders in the agribusiness sector to provide accurate and accessible information on their products and their labelling will also be important in clarifying expectations and enhancing transparency and accountability. Similarly, it is crucial to integrate transparency and disclosure clauses and provisions, which clearly provide broadly agreed definitions, principles and practices across the entire value chain, including the obligation on agribusinesses to substantiate claims about how products were cultivated and grown, into investment contracts in the agribusiness sector.

States and businesses have a shared responsibility under pillar III of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to ensure that impacted rights holders have access to effective remedy in relation to adverse human rights impacts across the entire food value chain. However, procedural barriers in judicial systems make it difficult for victims of human rights abuses to seek and obtain justice. The high cost of litigation and legal representation, inadequate legal aid programmes and general delays in the dispensation of justice make it difficult for communities, especially Indigenous Peoples and smallholder farmers and peasants, who continue to face challenges in accessing State-based judicial mechanisms, to obtain remedy for human rights abuses in a fair and timely manner.

At the same time, despite increased awareness of the roles that alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, such as investment arbitration, can play in facilitating fair and timely access to remedy, a wide range of legal and institutional barriers still limit their application in the agribusiness sector, especially by adversely impacted local communities. The use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to settle disputes in the food and agriculture sector should not be restrictive. On the contrary, it should allow States and affected communities to resolve their grievances in a transparent, fair, timely and accessible manner. Integrating clear and specific rules to guide the arbitration of disputes related to the human rights impacts of agribusiness activities can help in this regard.⁵⁸

58. See Judith Levine and Sarah Castles, “The use of international arbitration tribunals for business and human rights disputes”, in The Cambridge Companion to Business and Human Rights Law, ed. by Ilias Bantekas and Michael Ashley Stein (Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 428–454. ↩

The following is a synopsis of the key trends and emerging best practices aimed at addressing the above-discussed gaps, as elaborated in the submissions received by the Working Group in response to its call for input.

Submissions emphasized that advancing food security and the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 2 requires mechanisms, processes and systems to promote sustainable and rights-based food systems in States, businesses and the communities most impacted by pervasive food fraud.

Under pillar I of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, States are accountable for establishing policies and regulatory frameworks, enforcing corporate compliance and expanding access to remedy where abuses occur. This includes every level of the agribusiness chain. Mechanisms highlighted in the submissions provide examples of how States can enhance policy coherence to advance rights-based food systems, for example by strengthening systems of legal accountability, democratizing decision-making by affected communities and organizing interministerial committees to coordinate the oversight of food security programmes in a just and rights-based manner.

In relation to legal accountability, strengthening regulatory frameworks is critical to keeping the agribusiness industry compliant with national and international labour, food and environmental standards. This includes ratification and implementation of applicable core ILO conventions. In addition, the ILO Right of Association (Agriculture) Convention, 1921 (No. 11), which reaffirms that workers in agriculture must have the same rights to freedom of association as industrial workers, is highly relevant to the agribusiness sector. Similarly, the ILO Occupational Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention, 2001 (No. 184), provides a comprehensive framework for occupational safety and health in agriculture, including requirements for training, safe chemical handling, machinery protections and safeguards for young workers to address perennial concerns about hazardous working conditions in the agribusiness sector. Furthermore, the adoption of the ILO policy guidelines for the promotion of decent work in the agrifood sector, the joint ILO and FAO policy guidance on the elimination of child labour in fisheries and aquaculture, and the outcomes of the ILO tripartite technical meeting on the promotion of decent work and a just transition, including skills and lifelong learning, in the food and beverages industry are significant steps in recognizing the vulnerabilities of agricultural and food workers and articulating clear standards for decent work across global food systems. A good practice is for States and businesses to actively integrate these labour, environmental and safety standards into human rights due diligence systems, procurement processes and sector-specific regulations across the entire agribusiness value chain.⁵⁹

59. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-21-international-union-food-agricult-tions.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-5-raoul-wallenberg-institute-defend-bio-linic.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-priv-sect-3-camara-del-agro-guatemala.pdf (in Spanish). ↩

Having clearly defined organizational structures and designated authority, including clearly defined intended beneficiaries of policies and implementation mechanisms, could ensure that regulatory processes sharpen, rather than impose administrative burdens on, States’ capacity to hold businesses to account effectively.⁶⁰ The Official Controls Regulation of the European Union offers an example of an effective model of enforcing regulation, as it provides national authorities and the European Commission with the powers necessary to ensure effective enforcement of regulatory requirements and with mechanisms allowing for the cooperation of all parties involved in ensuring the correct application of the law across national borders. The Regulation also provides the European Commission with audit and control powers in countries that are members of the European Union and those that are not and with the power to take action at the European level.⁶¹

60. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-6-instituto-internacional-responsabil-manos.pdf (in Spanish); https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-15-university-derby-e-ekhator-w-alude.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-Business-food-cso-18-national-indigenous-wm-forum.pdf. ↩
61. See https://food.ec.europa.eu/horizontal-topics/official-controls-and-enforcement/legislation-official-controls_en; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-6-instituto-internacional-responsabil-manos.pdf (in Spanish); https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-15-university-derby-e-ekhator-w-alude.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-oxfam-us.pdf. ↩

Concerning the democratization of decision-making by involving directly affected populations, a cornerstone of rights-based food governance is the meaningful involvement by States of marginalized populations, particularly local communities and Indigenous Peoples, women, widows, youth, landless labourers, migrant workers and smallholder farmers across the global South.⁶² Good practices relating to public participation in food system regulation include expanding gender-sensitive access to quick response (QR) code tracking and other digital traceability technologies and the practice by smallholder cooperatives in Nampula and Zambézia Provinces in Mozambique of implementing community-based traceability and certification systems to improve transparency and trust in local food systems.⁶³ Another good practice is external independent monitoring in relation to land titling, such as that of ILEX Acción Jurídica in Colombia, to link territorial rights to the human rights relating to adequate, accessible, dignified food systems directly.⁶⁴ In the light of the State’s duty to provide education, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, operated by the Government of Zimbabwe, was highlighted as facilitating grass-roots consumer action clubs to educate consumers on agroecological processes, including sustainable dietary intake, home gardens and national food basket costs.⁶⁵ Finally, allocating State funding, or tax breaks, for university-led research, technological development and innovation in rights-based agribusiness systems offers a tool to optimize ethical and technology-driven production processes and expand the access of underrepresented groups to decision-making concerning food systems.⁶⁶

62. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-14-global-centre.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-Business-food-cso-20-association-reintegration-crime-rimea.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-18-national-indigenous-wm-forum.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-14-ritu-dhingra.pdf. ↩
63. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-10-manuel-jose-manuel.pdf. ↩
64. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-1-ilex-accion-juridica.pdf (in Spanish). ↩
65. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-un-enti-1-fao.pdf. ↩
66. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-priv-sect-2-grupo-bios-1.pdf (in Spanish); https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-13-bismark-bobilla.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-5-raoul-wallenberg-institute-defend-bio-linic.pdf. ↩

In relation to enhancing coordination among regulatory institutions on food security, establishing interministerial committees that bring together key actors can serve as a mechanism for ensuring that linkages, interconnectedness and diverse perspectives directly shape policymaking, implementation and enforcement concerning the activities of agribusinesses. Interministerial committees are often most effective when assisted by experts, including forensic food scientists, ethicists and civil society auditors, and when functioning semi-autonomously to exercise veto power over high-risk agribusiness approvals across the agriculture, health, trade, labour and environment sectors.⁶⁷

67. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-15-university-derby-e-ekhator-w-alude.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-18-national-indigenous-wm-forum.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-14-global-centre.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-16-world-food-forum-youth-assembly-1.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-13-bismark-bobilla.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-9-kelvin-macharia-kuria.pdf. ↩

Several businesses detailed in their submissions their efforts to design, adopt and evaluate formal grievance mechanisms and supply chain compliance systems. Submissions from civil society organizations emphasized that internal business compliance mechanisms without independent oversight or community input lack the rigorous, independent assessment necessary to mitigate human rights abuses of often disempowered communities. This lack of external checks perpetuates adverse human rights and environmental impacts in agribusiness, particularly in the context of informal markets, weak state capacity and power asymmetries between businesses and rural farming communities. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are crucial in this regard to foster collaboration and compliance across the entire supply chain, with an understanding that investing in equitable food systems maximizes sustainable economic growth.

The partnership between Oxfam and Bolton was highlighted as illustrating concrete ways to make human rights due diligence a core, value chain-wide business function, for example by facilitating independent assessment of the food supply chains of Bolton in 63 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-ind-10-manuel-jose-manuel.pdf. 64 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-cso-1-ilex-accion-juridica.pdf (in Spanish). 65 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-un-enti-1-fao.pdf. 66 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-priv-sect-2-grupo-bios-1.pdf (in Spanish); https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-ind-13-bismark-bobilla.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfisubm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-5-raoul-wallenberg-institute-defend-biolinic.pdf. 67 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-aca-15-university-derby-e-ekhator-w-alude.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-cso-18-national-indigenous-wm-forum.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-cso-14-global-centre.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agribusiness-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-16-world-food-forum-youth-assembly-1.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-ind-13-bismark-bobilla.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfisubm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-9-kelvin-macharia-kuria.pdf. GE.26-05307 Colombia, Ecuador and Morocco (including through confidential focus groups with workers), revising contractual codes of conduct to incorporate human rights and food safety obligations and establishing local grievance channels through local women’s rights organizations to ensure gender-inclusive access.⁶⁸

68. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-priv-sect-7-bolton.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-oxfam-us.pdf. ↩

Public-private partnerships were also suggested as a good practice to facilitate more direct food supply chains that strengthen the food autonomy of local communities. For example, the Food Acquisition Programme of Brazil elevated the central role of producers in the food system by enabling public institutions to purchase food directly from family farmers and smallholder cooperatives at guaranteed prices. This, in turn, supported crop diversification and agrobiodiversity while bypassing the potentially corrupt intermediaries. The Programme, established under Law No. 10.696 of 2003 and subsequently expanded under Law No. 12.512 of 2011, enabled public institutions, including schools, hospitals and food banks, to purchase food directly from family farmers and smallholder cooperatives at guaranteed prices.⁶⁹ The “Agriculture responsable NC” label in the French island territory of New Caledonia is another example of a publicly procured and publicly financed certification mechanism, through which local producers and government entities closely collaborate to ensure traceability, food safety and compliance with Indigenous regenerative farming practices.⁷⁰

69. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-1-clinique-droit-international-d-a-assas.pdf (in French). ↩
70. Ibid. ↩

Building thriving and responsive food systems that foster community trust requires proactive public engagement between corporate distributors and local stakeholders. To this end, there is a need for businesses to move beyond a compliance mindset towards more responsible, transparent, proactive and community-centred internal mechanisms that promote trust and accountability.⁷¹ Several submissions identified industry schemes, multi-stakeholder initiatives and third-party verification processes required under the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive of the European Union as a leading model for transforming voluntary human rights due diligence and environmental protections into legally prescribed obligations that foster long-term capacity-building and collaboration with local stakeholders. Mandatory front-of-package warning labels in Mexico,⁷² the alignment in Colombia with the “best before” food quality standards of the Codex Alimentarius,⁷³ and the implementation of a reverse liability packaging covenant that requires every food package to have a machine-readable code to detail the human rights risk score⁷⁴ were additional interventions outlined in the submissions that could enhance real-time visibility to regulators, and communities, of conduct along supply chains. Such measures are especially important in economically disadvantaged, high-risk and low-connectivity agribusiness settings, in which children, women and Indigenous populations bear disproportionate impacts of corporate harm and have the least access to redress and remedy.⁷⁵

71. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-oxfam-us.pdf. ↩
72. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-sta-1-mexico.pdf (in Spanish). ↩
73. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-9-abaco-2.pdf (in Spanish). ↩
74. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-15-university-derby-e-ekhator-w-alude.pdf. ↩
75. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-9-kelvin-macharia-kuria.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-2-ciel.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-18-national-indigenous-wm-forum.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-un-enti-1-fao.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-21-international-union-food-agricult-tions.pdf. ↩

Ensuring access to remedies for individuals who have experienced harm in the agribusiness sector is an essential component of robust, rights-based food systems. However, legal costs, procedural complexity, fragmented regulatory authority and limited institutional capacity often cause grievance channels to become stagnant repositories, rather than enforceable pathways to provide redress for affected communities. While systematic access to remedy varied depending on political and social context, good practices to increase access to grievance channels, protect against retaliation and ensure transparent grievance tracking were highlighted in the submissions as tangibly improving outcomes for marginalized communities seeking redress.

Expanding access to equitable grievance reporting channels is an important first step in strengthening access to remedy. For example, having multiple reporting channels, for example through community-based intermediaries, anonymous complaint mechanisms, technology-based systems and non-digital access routes, has been shown to increasingly empower rural women and children, smallholder farmers and informal workers to voice their experiences.⁷⁶ In addition, judicial evidentiary requirements and processes for redress claims, particularly concerning issues of land restitution, need to reflect the realities of power imbalances between landowners and producers, corruption and a lack of documentation. For example, Law No. 1448 of 2011, of Colombia, enabling courts and restitution bodies to shift the threshold for burden of proof, exemplified an effective State-based grievance and redress mechanism to give leverage to community members to pursue claims that would otherwise have been dismissed under conventional property documentation requirements.⁷⁷

76. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-14-ritu-dhingra.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf. ↩
77. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-aca-3-universidad-del-rosario-colombia.pdf (in Spanish). ↩

Ensuring the protection of complainants from retaliation, in the form of robust protections put in place by States and businesses, is important in ensuring public confidence and trust in access to remedy mechanisms. For example, in high-risk environments, conventional human rights due diligence processes may not operate effectively and safely, leaving workers and affected populations at risk of dismissal, harassment or State-backed intimidation when attempting to bring complaints.⁷⁸ Alternative accountability tools, including extraterritorial legislation, trade-based conditionality, and reliance on third-party or remote evidence, were shown in the submissions to be necessary supplements to conventional protection systems.⁷⁹ Civil society networks and consumer organizations were also highlighted as powerful sources of protection and advocacy outside traditional bureaucratic channels.⁸⁰

78. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-19-victims-communism-memorial-foundat-ation.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-20-association-reintegration-crime-rimea.pdf. ↩
79. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-19-victims-communism-memorial-foundat-ation.pdf. ↩
80. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-un-enti-1-fao.pdf. ↩

Transparent grievance tracking, including through independent monitoring, is an important element of ensuring that actionable steps are taken to deliver remedy for harm caused. Youth-led monitoring and youth-friendly platforms are a good practice in this regard to promote honest, accountable grievance mechanisms that lead to tangible accountability for business-related human rights abuses.⁸¹ Pressure, applied by human rights advocates and civil 76 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-ind-14-ritu-dhingra.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfisubm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf. 77 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-aca-3-universidad-del-rosario-colombia.pdf (in Spanish). 78 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-cso-19-victims-communism-memorial-foundat-ation.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-cso-20-association-reintegration-crime-rimea.pdf. 79 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-cso-7-justice-all-save-uyghur-campaign.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-businessfood-cso-19-victims-communism-memorial-foundat-ation.pdf. 80 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-un-enti-1-fao.pdf. 81 See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agribusiness-food-ind-11-nitya-lohiya.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi GE.26-05307 society organizations on businesses, can also ensure that those harmed receive adequate compensation and access to justice. V. Conclusions and recommendations

81. See https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-11-nitya-lohiya.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-ind-13-bismark-bobilla.pdf; https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-un-enti-1-unicef-east-asia-pacific-regional-offi-group.pdf; and https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/agri-business-food/subm-agri-business-food-cso-16-world-food-forum-youth-assembly-1.pdf. ↩

Combating the adverse human rights impacts of the agribusiness sector, such as land dispossession, food fraud, labour exploitation, environmental degradation and supply chain disruption, requires actionable, enforceable and sustained intervention by States, businesses and other stakeholders. Achieving food justice requires States, businesses and other stakeholders to align food security programmes, including trade and investment in food and food products, with human rights obligations and commitments and with the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

States hold the primary duty to ensure the effective enforcement of regulatory frameworks and provide equitable remedy processes, promote the inclusion of marginalized communities, including Indigenous Peoples, and involve them in policy planning and decision-making. States also need to convene a range of stakeholders with different, and sometimes competing, vested interests to advance human and environmental rights-based food systems. Businesses have an independent responsibility to respect human rights and act in a manner consistent with that responsibility. States need to educate and regulate businesses accordingly. In contexts where corruption is prevalent, international multi-stakeholder initiatives have an important role to play in adequately identifying and responding to food fraud in the agribusiness sector. Public-private partnerships have proved to be useful in helping to keep businesses compliant with human rights due diligence requirements, while stimulating agroecological and diversified food production. While acknowledging the nuances of different regional, national and communal contexts, efforts to develop rights-based food systems require both imagination and coordination to move beyond the voluntary assertion of rights to enforceable and implementable good practice. In this regard, the Working Group provides the recommendations below.

The Working Group recommends that States:
(a) Recognize the role of agribusiness as a key driver of food security outcomes by framing corporate agrifood interventions as a public policy issue with direct implications for the right to food, nutrition and equity;
(b) Establish and enforce a robust legal framework (including constitutional provisions) to guarantee and give effect to the right to food and nutrition and rights-based labour policies in the agribusiness sector;
(c) Enforce a comprehensive redress system to ensure that rights holders impacted by food sector human and environmental rights violations have access to effective remedies;
(d) Penalize and discourage food fraud practices, greenwashing and misleading claims or labels, including those concerning climate and environmental footprints, by requiring businesses to verify and disclose, in a transparent manner, all environmental claims and claims about how agriproducts were cultivated, grown, processed and packaged;
(e) Enhance participatory governance by enabling avenues for the most food-insecure people, especially youth and children, Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, smallholder farmers, pastoralists, rural workers, smallholder organizations and people on the move, including migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons, to shape agrifood policies and investments made by the State;
(f) Adopt rural and Indigenous agroecological practices to strengthen trust between food producers, beneficiaries and suppliers, and advance food systems that help local agroecology to flourish;
(g) Develop and expand regenerative energy sources to mitigate environmental and human rights abuses within the agribusiness value chain;
(h) Strengthen national consumer protection and food safety legislation and standards in agribusiness to ensure alignment with existing international human rights standards, including those enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas;
(i) Recognize and safeguard legitimate land tenure rights, and protect tenure rights holders, especially rural farmers, pastoralists and smallholder farmers, against the arbitrary loss of their tenure rights, including displacements and forced evictions that are inconsistent with existing human rights obligations under national and international law;
(j) Take steps to shorten local supply chains to streamline food production and foster trust between State actors and local food producers;
(k) Mandate human rights due diligence frameworks for agribusiness and food companies, including transparent assessment of their impacts on children living and working in proximity to value chains in agriculture and fisheries;
(l) Recognize and regulate commercial food environments affecting children by acknowledging that food and beverage corporations influence their diets and health through products, marketing and retail environments, and establish regulatory measures to protect children from unhealthy food marketing and exposure;
(m) Support diversified and resilient food economies by encouraging policies that strengthen smallholder and local food systems, agroecological practices and equitable market access;
(n) Integrate agrifood policy into climate and sustainable development strategies by encouraging the alignment and interlinking of agribusiness, climate, trade, land, humanitarian, peacebuilding, water, energy, biodiversity and food security policy frameworks to minimize harmful impacts and maximize human rights protections;
(o) Convene semi-autonomous, interministerial, interregional committees to promote coordination and enhance holistic implementation and monitoring of agribusiness practices;
(p) Promote education, awareness and clarity on rights-based food security programmes, including nature-based solutions rejecting those that marginalize the interests of peasants, rural farmers, pastoralists, smallholder farmers and other social groups.

The Working Group recommends that businesses:
(a) Avoid food fraud practices, greenwashing and misleading environmental and food processing and packaging claims through clear, credible, transparent and accessible reporting;
(b) Engage in structured public-private partnerships with State entities to move beyond voluntary, self-organized audits and systematically integrate human and environmental rights across business operations;
(c) Fund and facilitate initiatives aimed at supporting non-anthropomorphic (nature-centred rather than human-centred) and native biodiversity systems, such as through rewilding, to allow natural processes to resume, and prioritizing the use of native species rather than non-native species;
(d) Establish internal, accessible grievance mechanisms for employees, and those impacted by agribusiness practices, to raise grievances and receive adequate redress;
(e) Promote and invest in human rights awareness and capacity-building for their workers, and for those at the base of the production chain, particularly in non-integrated supply chains with independent producers;
(f) Promote robust traceability and transparency systems across agribusiness supply chains;
(g) Conduct human rights due diligence in the design, financing and implementation of food security programmes throughout their operations, including with a gender-responsive approach;
(h) Conduct heightened human rights due diligence when promoting, financing or investing in food security programmes in conflict-affected and high-risk areas;
(i) Integrate human rights protections for workers into all levels of agribusiness supply chains, including by respecting freedom of association as a foundational human right without which food security, decent work and community resilience cannot be achieved;
(j) In the context of investment and other financial decisions, consider environmental and human rights compliance as key elements for investment decision-making;
(k) Support the work of food and environmental human rights defenders and demonstrate zero tolerance towards attacks and reprisals against these actors.

The Working Group recommends that international organizations:
(a) Align international standards to specify requirements of “meaningful participation” in agribusiness governance and human rights due diligence processes;
(b) Integrate human rights standards into food security, climate and sustainable development policies and strategies;
(c) Elevate agroecological alternatives to fossil fuels and agrochemicals that drive human rights abuses in global food systems;
(d) Extend international traceability and transparency standards to all levels of global agrifood supply chains;
(e) Coordinate international plans of action to mitigate food fraud and human rights abuses in conflict-affected, occupied and highly securitized environments;
(f) Formalize roles for youth-led and community-led monitoring within international accountability frameworks for agrifood systems;
(g) Strengthen legal safeguards in international trade to combat illicit food trading practices.

The Working Group recommends that civil society organizations:
(a) Engage with States to amplify awareness of the human rights abuses connected to the agribusiness sector suffered by marginalized and vulnerable populations;
(b) Engage with businesses in relation to their responsibility in addressing human abuses, and ensure that people that have been harmed by business-related human rights abuses receive adequate compensation and access to adjudication;
(c) Build the capacity of workers, farmers, youth, businesses and regulators to meaningfully participate in food system decision-making.

The Working Group recommends that academia:
(a) Spearhead ethical and responsible food-related research, technological development and innovation in rights-based agribusiness systems;
(b) Embed business and human rights-centred courses and programmes into university education, including in business schools.