Food Sovereignty

Food sovereignty is a concept introduced by La Via Campesina in 1996. It champions the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods. It argues that the right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, social class or ideology. It also argues for peoples' rights to define their own food and agricultural systems, putting those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies, rather than at the mercy of governments, markets and corporations. The UK now has its own food sovereignty movement.

From Corporate Watch's Rough Guide to the UK Farming Crisis:

What kind of food system do we want? Via Campesina, the international movement of small farmer and peasant organisations, proposes that we replace neoliberal economic policies with a more democratic approach to agriculture and food supply - the concept of food sovereignty, or possibly a better term for use in the UK, food democracy. This approach begins from the principle that people, communities and countries have the right to control their own agriculture and food systems. Unlike food security, which suggests only that people should have enough to eat, but fails to address who produces it or how, food sovereignty emphasizes the right of communities to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade to achieve sustainability, guarantee a livelihood for farmers, and ensure the members of that community are fed.

Food sovereignty promotes sustainable, small scale family farm based food production with adequate prices for all farmers, supply management, abolition of export support and the regulation of imports to protect local food production. It emphasises equitable access to land, seeds, water and other productive resources, and the development of local markets and economies rather than export economies. Food sovereignty puts people, access to healthy food and protecting livelihoods above trade and corporate profits. It is not anti-trade, but promotes trade policies and practices that serve people and their right to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable food production. Food sovereignty is a concept that should make sense to farmers and consumers in both the developing and industrialised world.

All are facing rural crises and are feeling the effects of free trade policies and the control that the big food corporations are exerting over the food system.