Deep Roots

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Food sovereignty: the bulwark of

family farming and agrobiodiversity

Elizabeth Mpofu, La Via Campesina

hen the farmer and peasant organizations came

up with the principle of food sovereignty, they

were reacting to the dominant idea at that time,

food security. They felt that food security was weak because

it said nothing about where food was produced, who

produced it, or how they produced it. Thus, food produced

by industrial agriculture, mainly processed and traded

by transnational corporations using pesticides and other

harmful agrochemicals, and heavily reliant on fossil energy,

was supposedly just as good as food produced locally by

peasant, family farms, organically or agroecologically.

However, that is clearly not the case, the second kind of

food is better, because it is healthy, provides livelihoods for

local farmers, sustains the agrobiodiversity and mirrors the

local cultural eating habits and religious requirements. It

is, therefore, a necessity in order to preserve food customs

and local culture, and local diversity.

So the peasant organizations came up with the concept of food

sovereignty, based on the need to grow and control our own

food locally, agroecologically, by small farmers who get land

through agrarian reform. It is also based on the need for human

communities to define the food policies of their own territory.

Today food sovereignty is a living concept, because it is the

banner of struggle of the world’s largest social movement, La

Via Campesina and its allies who include the consumers, urban

poor, indigenous people, environmentalists and many others.

All the members of La Via Campesina and allies have contrib-

uted ideas to this growing concept which reflects their elements.

Food Sovereignty is an alternative way of relating to nature

and other people, which guarantees the survival of humanity

even under extremely difficult conditions. It prioritizes local

food systems and markets, access to and control over produc-

tive resources such as land, water and seeds. It recognizes

peasant rights and protection against industrial agriculture,

agrofuel production and the use of ecological production

methods. Thus, the importance and potential strength of the

peasantries of the world increasingly reside in their capacity to

establish and secure food sovereignty. In this concept lies both

social and economic transformation, hinged on agriculture

to anchor sustainable development. Only food sovereignty

based on genuine agrarian reform, and the defence of land

and territory against land-grabbing, offers a real alternative

to the current multiples economic and ecological crises. Such

resistance pressures the state to subject natural assets to a

collective, social function and under social control, in the

Image: Nelson Mudzingwa (ZIMSOFF)

Community-based seed systems are a driver towards food sovereignty and ensuring the right to food

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