Learning Circle 4:
Ashley, Lucy, Nate, Randall, & Jeremy
April 22, 2011
introducing
Food Sovereignty
illars of Food Sovereignty
1. Food For People
4.Making Decisions Locally
2.Values Food Providers
5.Build Knowledge & Skills
3.Localizing Food Systems 6.Working with Nature
ntegrating Dimensions of Food
Sovereignty with
Class Readings
1.Food for People
Food for
People
FOOD SOVEREIGNTY STRESSES THE RIGHT TO
SUFFICIENT, HEALTHY AND CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE
FOOD FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS, PEOPLES AND
COMMUNITIES, INCLUDING THOSE WHO ARE HUNGRY
OR LIVING UNDER OCCUPATION, IN CONFLICT ZONES
AND MARGINALIZED. FOOD SOVEREIGNTY REJECTS
THE PROPOSITION THAT FOOD IS JUST ANOTHER
COMMODITY FOR INTERNATIONAL AGRIBUSINESS.
Source: www.foodsecurecanada.org
Food is NOT a Commodity
 Agrofuels- “crime against humanity”
 Furthers commodification, capitalization, &
corporatization of agriculture
 Patent Monopolies
 Farmer knowledge of ingenious crop and
livestock threatened
 Estimate about $5 billion of royalties to
developing countries for patented resources
and knowledge
 Food Sovereignty gives the priority to food for
people over industry.
Challenges for Food Sovereignty
 Autonomy: Production and Consumption Suppan:
Menezes: Food Sovereignty
Patel: Food Sovereignty
Wittman: The Origins & Potential of Food Sovereignty
Food is NOT a just a Commodity
The Price of Knowledge Exploitation
Monsanto Bt cotton seed resulting 17,000
Indian farmer suicides
Suppan: Challenges for Food Sovereignt
People’s need for food first
Preserving nutritional culture
Food choices and cooking habits
Melting Pot of cuisine
Destroying cultural heritage
Self-sufficiency due to eating habits
Must be preserved
Represents cultural identity
2.Valuing Food Providers
Valuing Food
Providers
Role of Women
Seed
sovereignty
Fair Trade &
Fair Price
Paul Nicholson, La vía campesina
Valuing Food Providers:
Providing equal access to knowledge and food to providers of food, providers of
families, and anyone in a position to give.
• Patel (2009) La vía campesina-and the right to
have rights (especially for women).
• Wittman (2010) “Contemporary food policies
offer no real possibility for changing existing,
inequitable, social, political, and economic
structures.”
• Menezes (2011) “The poorest groups are
always the most vulnerable to a mass
approach to nutrition,” or agriculture or
information.
3.Localizing Food Systems
Localizes Food Systems
• Reduces distance between food providers and
consumers
– Collective decision-making among providers and
consumers
– Jaffee et al 2004: Limitations and deficiencies in current
North-South focus of fair trade initiatives
• Regional “solidarity markets” and “engaged localism”
• Rejects dumping and inappropriate food aid
– “Preserving nutritional culture”
• Food aid based on globalized eating standards
• Poor most vulnerable to generic concepts of nutrition
– Menezes 2001: “Food as a political and economic
weapon”
Localizes Food Systems
“Global agricultural food policies must be market-oriented…
they must integrate agriculture into the global economy, not
insulate us from it.”
Former Sec. of Ag. Ann Veneman, 2001
• McMichael 2005: “Globalization as progressive
realization of economic liberalization”
• Food sovereignty resists dependency on distant
corporations
– Rejection of trade agreements that limit availability of
locally and sustainably sourced foods
– Avoids food policy that requires transfer of local powers
to ensure adequate and equitable availability of food
4.Making Decisions Locally
Puts Control Locally
• Places control in the hands of local food providers
– Wekerle’s (2004) Example: Toronto’s Food Policy
Council
• Established as part of a city department (not advisory)
• Coordinates among a broad range of community food
stakeholders
– Menezes 2001: Four attributes affecting food
availability require local control
•
•
•
•
Sufficiency
Stability
Autonomy
Sustainability
Puts Control Locally
• Recognizes a need to inhabit and share
resources
– Avoids market schemes as a means of efficiently
distributing common pool resources
• Rejects privatization of natural resources
– Menezes 2001: “Resisting biopiracy and patenting
of genetic resources”
• Connects corporate takeovers of land, water, and seeds
• Food aid connection: Transgenic soy and corn in aid
supplies
5.Building Knowledge
& Skills
Food sovereignty builds on the skills and local
knowledge of food providers and their local
organizations that conserve, develop and
manage localized food production and
harvesting systems, developing appropriate
research systems to support this and passing
on this wisdom to future generations
– Foodsecurecanada.org
The problem
• Opposite of local knowledge
• Mega corporations in control of agribusiness
• Challenges for food sovereignty
(Suppan,2008)
Tobacco Buyout
1998 Settlement
$ 206 billion dollars
NC $4.6 billion over 25 years
Tobacco Trust fund Commission
Assist tobacco farmers and quota holders
due to affects of the settlement
• Disperse funds through compensatory
programs and qualified Ag programs
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•
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Sustainable Agriculture Tool Lending Library
6.Working with Nature
Principle Six: Works with nature, rather than
using methods that harm beneficial