Food sovereignty empowers farmers and regional people to make choices about food production, cuisine, and land use policies. It promotes healthy food consumption with a cultural basis and emphasizes sustainable land use practices. It aims to restore the power of peasant communities and recognizes food as a political tool.
Food sovereignty is a philosophy and social policy that suggests that the power of food production should be in the hands of the people, rather than under the control of multinational corporations. By empowering farmers and regional people to make choices about their food production, cuisine and land use policies, food sovereignty should address a variety of social justice issues, from hunger to racism. This concept was first developed by Via Campesina, an international organization founded in 1992 to assist peasant and agricultural movements in places such as South America, Asia and Africa.
One of the core principles of food sovereignty is that food is a basic human right to which everyone is entitled, but that individual populations should be able to make their own food choices. This differentiates the concept of food sovereignty from food security; food security simply involves ensuring that everyone has enough food, while food sovereignty promotes the consumption of healthy foods with a cultural basis. This is designed to promote the preservation of traditional cultures while also addressing the issues of food shortages.
Governments that engage in food sovereignty as a social policy must be prepared to promote land redistribution, ensuring that the land is under the control of the people who farm it. Food sovereignty also emphasizes a rethinking of the way people think about food, encouraging nations to abandon seeing it as a mere tradable commodity and to promote democratic methods of food production.
Supporters of food sovereignty are also concerned about the state of the environment. Sustainable land use practices are of paramount importance, to preserve the Earth for future generations and ensure that agriculture continues to be productive. Many traditional farming techniques are very environmentally sound, and switching from industrialized agriculture to these methods can sometimes help land recovery.
This philosophy also recognizes that food (or lack thereof) can be used as a weapon and political tool. Via Campesina and similar organizations want to restore the power of peasant communities by giving them more control over their own lives, and food sovereignty is one way to achieve this. Landowners with massive land holdings are discouraged by policies created within the framework of food sovereignty, as well as external controls on food production as dictated by the global market.
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