Food Sovereignty vs. Food Security: Why it’s different and why it matters.

What is REAL Food  Security?

Food security, despite all of its good intentions, is an outdated term that needs to be retired.  We understand the power of our words when we see them heard and responded to.   Keeping this in mind, the definition of the term “food security” is not reaching far enough to make changes that help people and the environment in a lasting or real way.  So…

Soberanía Alimentaria =Food Sovereignty!

Why this article?

Defining Food Security

Defining Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty in the World

Final words

Why this article?

My mother just joined her city council’s food security task force– Yeah mama! — and asked for resources and my general opinion.  At the time, the council had still not defined what their mission was. So, instead of focusing energy on specific resources, I looked deeper at my previously-held opinions.  And I have so many opinions– opinions that I find morphing as they leave my mouth  in conversation with others.

A year or so ago, I wrote “What is Food Security, Part 1.”

This blog explains why I’ve changed my terminology, and the difference between food sovereignty and food security, for my mother and for you!

Defining Food Security

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1974

World Food Conference

First of all, yes– excellent, I agree.  This point standing alone seems to be straight forward enough.  But what happens?  When focusing on food as an energy source “for an active and healthy life,” the problem and solution become an equation that is easily solved with numbers.  X country has y people needing z amount of food.  If we stop here, we are missing the point; the relationship between food and people is more than a mathematical equation. It’s also affected by food’s relationship with the environment, with the people that produce it, with the cultural practices while consuming it, and with the societal and political powers that control it.

For example, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen has reminded us that even famines are not necessarily caused by a lack of supply, but by a failure to get the food that exists to the people who need it. This was true in the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s, when British masters were exporting food even while the Irish  citizens died of starvation.

Do you hear yourself saying, “Oh, well that was a long time ago, we don’t do that anymore”?  Take a look at this.   In the United States alone, one in seven Americans faces food insecurity because they can’t afford the basic necessities of life.  And this rate has not been on the decline.  The number of Americans on food stamps went up by more than 80 percent between 2007 and 2013.

During this last year, the United States continued to support policies and budgets that emphasized production for export only, which greatly limits diversity and focuses on crops with low nutrient value, such as soy, wheat and corn.  Last year, profits from these exports totaled some $14.9 billion, money that did not go to hungry mouths, instead prioritizing internationally marketable crops.

Or let’s take a quick look at the environmental and political implications of prioritizing caloric needs and overlooking the people involved.  When people urge  to increase food production, many factors steer the solutions   towards the industrialization of the food system.

On the ground level, this includes the use of genetically modified (GM) technologies:  greater uses of chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers: and mono-cropping.  While sometimes, though not always, does production increase initially, many other key components for a productive farm are degraded, especially in the long term.  Farming communities experience decreases in diversity of crops and biodiversity of plant and animal species, increases in pollution of water sources, and decreases in soil fertility through such hard and unvaried use, which further increases dependency on fertility inputs, again often chemical. The intention of an industrialized food system may be to increase food production, in order to improve the lives of the poor, yet where is the benefit of a short-term food production increase if it leads to a decline in both long-term production and the quality of the environment?

One of the world’s largest international philanthropy organization, the Gates Foundation, is currently supporting not only the industrialization of agriculture, but also the use of GMO seeds, to

Seed diversity for food sovereignty

increase food production in Africa.  Large seed companies also have had a heavy hand at promoting their seeds as the best option for countries around the world at the national political level.  These policy changes and the national support given to them have already greatly reduced diversity of crops and farmer control in several countries, such as in India.

Under pressure from free trade agreements supporting international seed corporations, Colombia passed in 2010 the Resolution 970, making it illegal to save, use and trade native seed.  This led to national protests, leaving in its wake the death of 12 protesters and nearly 500 others injured.  With this national organization, the Colombian farmers successfully influenced the government to suspend the law, starting in September 2013.  This is a suspension and not a repeal, so keep your eyes peeled for what happens.

In the guise of supporting the increase of international food production, small farmer rights are being taken away.There are numerous examples showing why simply fulfilling caloric needs does not actually address the goal of “food security”.  The food security movement may have intended to improve the lives of the poor, but it has not been effective thus far.

Defining Food Sovereignty

The term “food sovereignty” was first coined in 2006 by Via Campesina, a coalition which coordinates peasant organizations from Asia, Africa, America and Europe advocating family-farm-based sustainable agriculture.  Combining several definitions, food sovereignty is the right of peoples and sovereign states to democratically determine their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems and policies.

“In a nutshell, food sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities and countries to define their own policies regarding their seeds, agriculture, labor, food and land. These policies must be appropriate to their unique ecological, social, economic and cultural circumstances. Food Sovereignty includes the true right to food and to produce food.

It began as a movement of marginalized peoples demanding that their voice be heard in the official world of UN agencies and governments. It has grown into a new mindset that will lead to more just and ecological food and farming systems, new democratic decision-making in governments and new international market cooperation aimed at fair prices for farmers.”

Why Hunger , a blog dedicated to the conversation of food from a world perspective.

Expanding on these ideas are The 6 pillars of food sovereignty:

1. Focuses on food for people: The right to food which is healthy and culturally appropriate is the basic legal demand underpinning food sovereignty. Food is not simply another commodity to be traded or speculated on for profit.
2. Values food providers: Food sovereignty asserts food providers’ right to live and work in dignity. Many smallholder farmers suffer violence and marginalisation from corporate landowners and governments and agricultural workers can experiance severe exploitation.  And although women produce most of the food in the Global South, their role and knowledge are often ignored, and their rights to resources and as workers are violated.
3. Localizes food systems: Food must be seen primarily as sustenance for the community and only secondarily as something to be traded. Under food sovereignty, local and regional provision takes precedence over supplying distant markets.
4. Puts control locally: Food sovereignty places control over territory, land, grazing, water, seeds, livestock and fish populations under local food providers and respects their rights. They can use and share them in socially and environmentally sustainable ways which conserve diversity. Privatization of such resources, for example through intellectual property rights regimes or commercial contracts, is explicitly rejected.
5. Builds knowledge and skills: Food sovereignty calls for appropriate research systems to support the development of agricultural knowledge that is already used and supplement with new skills and appropriate technologies.  Technologies and the policies that accompany them, such as genetic engineering, are not prioritized as they undermine food providers’ ability to develop and pass on knowledge and skills needed for localized food systems.
6. Works with nature: Food sovereignty requires production and distribution systems that protect natural resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, avoiding energy-intensive industrial methods that damage the environment and the health of those who inhabit it.

Nyéléni 2007 – Forum for Food Sovereignty, Sélingué, Mali

(In future articles, I plan to expand on these even more.)

Food Sovereignty in the World

In September 2008, Ecuador became the first country to place food sovereignty in its constitution.  Since then, Venezuela, Mali, Bolivia, Nepal and Senegal have also added it into their constitutions or laws.  In terms of policy, this has included making food sovereignty a basic human right, banning or restricting genetically modified organisms, prioritizing and protecting nature and non-renewable resources, prioritizing the consumption of foods produced within the country and discouraging monoculture.

Final thoughts:

Madre Tierra

I understand why it is easy to want to say food security over food sovereignty.  On a very simple level, security is a more accessible word to work with and understand.   But when it comes to making international policy and trying to protect and make changes to improve the lives of the people that produce our food, food sovereignty is what we should be focusing on.

It took from 1974 until 2006 to begin to move beyond the term “food security.”  We need to continue to work together, educating people who are unfamiliar with this topic, who take for granted that food will be on the table the next time they are hungry, because the system we are currently using is not sustainable.  Only by facilitating that the voices of all food system participants are heard and understood, that their needs are clear, will politicians be receptive to creating policies meeting our environmental, social and economic needs.

 “To me food sovereignty is the heart of democracy. It expresses and meets the deep human need for a voice in what matters most in life; for food is so much more than fuel to keep us going. It is the center of family life, culture, ritual— connecting us to each other and to the Earth.

“To me food sovereignty is about establishing justice in market relationships, but so much more! It is our power as human beings to re-embed economic relationships in communities aligned with nature.

“It is reclaiming our belief in ourselves — our power and capacity to create inclusive, engaged, living democracies. I celebrate Food Sovereignty Voices!”
–Frances Moore Lappé, author of EcoMind and Diet for a Small Planet