Happy Friday, and welcome to 2021! What better time to ring in the New Year with a new Food Justice Friday? Today, we’ll explore another food justice movement: food sovereignty. What is it, and what does it look like here in the United States?
Food sovereignty is peoples’ right to healthy and culturally-appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.
Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007
What is culturally appropriate food?
Food that is available and accessible for the population should fit with the cultural background of the people consuming it
Food sovereignty traces its roots back to the 90s, where Via Campesina, an international farmers’ organization, pioneered the movement that those who produce, distribute, and consume food should control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution.
Food sovereignty is a global movement. One in nine people worldwide are undernourished today. Although our agricultural systems are the most productive they’ve every been, people are still going hungry worldwide. Under our present corporate food regime, large corporations and market institutions dominate the global food system.
Led by family farmers, fishers and other local food producers, the food sovereignty movement offers an opportunity to take back control from the bottom up and reclaim power in the food system.
Food sovereignty is based on the following six principles:
- Focuses on Food for People: By putting all those who grow food first, food sovereignty rejects the proposition that food is just another commodity or component for big international agribusiness.
- Values Food Providers: Food sovereignty values and supports the contributions and rights of all those who grow, harvest, and process food, including women, peasants and small-scale family farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fisherfolk, forest dwellers, migrants, indigenous peoples, and workers.
- Localizes Food Systems: Food sovereignty brings food providers and consumers closer together and puts both the providers and the consumers at the center of decision-making.
- Puts Control Locally: Food sovereignty places control over territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock, and fish populations into the hands of local food providers, and asserts their right to use and share these resources in socially and environmentally sustainable ways.
- Builds Knowledge and Skills: Food sovereignty builds on the skills and local knowledge of food providers that conserve, develop, and manage localized food systems.
- Works with Nature: Food sovereignty focuses on production and harvesting methods that maximize the contribution of ecosystems, avoid costly and toxic inputs and improve the resiliency of local food systems in the face of climate change.
What does food sovereignty look like in the United States?
Colonization and other factors have disrupted indigenous communities’ ability to control their own food system. Centuries of policy have disrupted tribal access to traditional lands, disconnected tribal communities from their traditional food systems, disrupted trade relationships between tribes, increased dependence on food distribution programs and created barriers for accessing agriculture programs.
One out of every four indigenous people experience food insecurity compared to 1 in 9 Americans overall. 30% of Native Americans are unable to access quality healthcare. Native Americans report the highest rate of type II Diabetes and the highest rate of diabetes-related death.
Remember those food deserts we talked about last time? The Navajo Nation is the biggest and most populous reservation, as well as one of the biggest food deserts. There are just 10 grocery stores serving the 150,000 Navajo people living there — that’s one grocery store for every 15,000 people.
Food sovereignty just makes sense for tribal communities here in the United States. This movement empowers tribal members living on the reservations to grow their own healthy, fresh produce, low food insecurity and prevent heart disease and type II diabetes. Food sovereignty allows these people to reclaim their food system with dignity, nourish their communities, and rebuild their food systems from the bottom up.
Access to nutritious food saves lives in all of America’s communities.
Recommended Readings
Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States
https://amzn.to/380jTkP
Via Campesina – https://viacampesina.org/en
Great post, super important topic!