Food Sovereignty

by Windfuhr, Michael; Jonsen, Jennie

• ISBN13: 9781853397073
• ISBN10: 1853397075
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2013-12-30
• Publisher: Practical Action Pub

Summary

Food Sovereignty is the policy framework for the governance of food and agriculture, which has emerged from the social movements of food providers as a countervailing approach to the governance of food and agriculture at local, national and international levels. Although there are more than 1 billion hungry people, the dominant policies are designed to facilitate not the provision of locally sourced food but international trade. Food Sovereignty puts food providers centre-stage and prioritizes the human right to nutritious foods, sourced as locally as possible, rather than internationally tradeable commodities. It values food providers rather than eliminating them and localizes food systems rather than encouraging dependence on inequitable global trade. It puts control locally instead of by unaccountable corporations. It builds knowledge and skills that conserve and develop local food production and rejects proprietary technologies such as GMOs that facilitate corporate control. It works with nature in diverse agroecological systems rather than energy-intensive production methods which damage the environment and contribute to global warming. In this new edition, Michael Windfuhr describes the development of the food sovereignty policy framework and shows how it addresses the multiple crises and rapidly changing environment for securing future food supplies. He builds on the outcomes of the Nyéléni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty, considers the inclusion of aspects of Food Sovereignty in the policies of Bolivia, Mali and Nepal among others, and more recent processes. Windfuhr outlines the basic assumptions and provides a comparative analysis of the limitations of the concept of food security, analyzes how food sovereignty relates to the current and prospective challenges for rural development, food and agricultural policies, and discusses possible policy constraints to the adoption of the food sovereignty policy framework. What emerges is a persuasive and highly political argument for refocusing the control of food production and consumption within democratic processes rooted in localized food systems.