Food sovereignty

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A Growing Culture describes food sovereignty in their organization's vision, as the following: "Healthy, accessible, and culturally appropriate food is a human right. Living wages, living environments, living traditions are human rights. Dignity. Diversity. Culture. All human rights. These are the bedrock of the food sovereignty movement."


La Via Campesina definition of food sovereignty focuses on the rights of farmers/consumers and local communities to determine their food systems and control the resources needed to produce (like land, water and seeds). [1] The definition is based on 6 pillars: valuing food providers; localizing food systems; making decisions locally; building knowledge and skills; working with nature. Indigenous peoples added a seventh pillar, which is that food is sacred. [2]


Within food sovereignty are the concepts of “agroecology” and “food democracy”. Agroecology means practicing agriculture in harmony with the environment and the community. Food democracy refers to the inclusion of public and local participation in food sovereignty projects. [3]


The knowledge included on this page comes from:

  • A webinar on Indigenous food sovereignty and community led research hosted by Research for the Frontlines, featuring Tiffany Traverse and Waba Moko.
  • An instagram post on abolition and food justice by Rania El Mugammar, artist, abolitionist, social justice educator and consultant.
  • A summary of a literature review on food sovereignty by Marie-Camille Théorêt. You can read their full literature review HERE.
  • There are also several additional resources cited throughout.

    • Food sovereignty is a climate justice issue

    Abuse of workers 

    • Migrants, including climate migrants, often end up in agriculture jobs plagued with poor working conditions. Migrants are surveilled, criminalized, detained and conditions of their stay are often tied to work permits in these exploitative jobs.-Migrant Workers Rights Canada [4]
    • Food workers, while 'essential labourers', are often in precarious positions. [5]
    • Those who do food labour have the least access to food themselves (e.g. migrant workers have little food security). [6]
    Abuse of the land
    • Current agricultural practices contribute to 1/3 of global greenhouse emissions. [7]
    • Land around the world has been exhausted by monoculture growing methods which result in a loss of biodiversity. Monocultural methods use tillage to plant crops more frequently, and apply one crop for mass production. Using only one crop increases the need for pesticides. Alternative agro-ecological growing methods do not aggravate the soil and plant several crop varieties to enrich the soil, produce crops with higher nutritional values and reduces the need for pesticides. [8]
    • Israel’s military prevents Palestinians from using the 20% of Gaza's arable land next to Israel’s militarized fence, and targets Gaza’s farmland with herbicides. A study by Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network explained in 2014 when Israel dropped 21,000 tonnes of explosives on the Gaza strip, it resulted in extensive soil damage and reduced agricultural productivity. [9]
    Colonialism's erasure of Indigenous food systems
    • Indigenous traditional food systems have been almost erased through government policies. [10] Land theft and displacement paved the way for industrial farming, fishing and food production. [11]
    • Ecocide and food system destruction has been used for power and control (e.g. burning Palestine's Olive tree, extermination of wild buffalo population on Turtle Island) [12]  
    • Indigenous food sovereignty is limited by colonial control (e.g. fighting and hunting rights are restricted against Mik'maw Peoples in their own waters)

    Access to food became a privilege, rather than a right, thanks to capitalism and racism

    • Foraging for food was integral to black people, free or enslaved. Foraging filled out small meals given to slaves, and finds could be sold as income. When slaves were freed, laws were put in place to curb foraging; thus, people were no longer able to gather food on land they didn't own (including Indigenous Peoples who were removed from their own lands). Hands off conservation was applied to parks as well, further preventing the collection of free food. -Alexis Nikole ('Black Forager') [13]
    • Surveillance technologies are used in food retail to prevent theft. [14] Theft and inflation take the blame for rising food prices, rather than the true culprit; corporate greed.
    • Mutual aid food redistribution is criminalized (e.g. unsold food is thrown away, and those who redistribute it are punished. Giving water to undocumented migrants crossing borders is also criminalized). [15]
    The direct impact of climate change on Indigenous food systems



    Further resources

    • A Growing Culture offers several written and visual resources related to food justice and sovereignty. See https://www.agrowingculture.org/ for more.
    • Black Forager, on instagram and tiktok, shares videos related to foraging practices.


    If you have any suggested revisions or additional resources to share related to the above content, please email them to kenzie@lehub.ca.


    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


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    1. ↑ Desmarais, A. A., Claeys, P., & Trauger, A. (Eds.). (2017). Public policies for food sovereignty : social movements and the state (Ser. Routledge studies in food, society and the environment). Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.
    2. ↑ Desmarais, A. A., Claeys, P., & Trauger, A. (Eds.). (2017). Public policies for food sovereignty : social movements and the state (Ser. Routledge studies in food, society and the environment). Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.
    3. ↑ https://www.nfu.ca/campaigns/agroecology/
    4. ↑ https://migrantrights.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/MigrantWorkers_Backgrounder.pdf
    5. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
    6. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
    7. ↑ Climate False Solutions. (2021). Hoodwinked in the hothouse: Resist false solutions to climate change. https://moodle.ubishops.ca/pluginfile.php/285048/mod_resource/content/1/HOODWINKED_ThirdEdition_On-Screen_version.pdf
    8. ↑ Ralph C Martin (2019), Food Security-From Excess to Enough. Dundurn Press.
    9. ↑ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/11/28/palestine-is-a-climate-justice-issue
    10. ↑ LaDuke, W. Hoover, E. (2019). Indigenous food sovereignty in the united states : restoring cultural knowledge, protecting environments, and regaining health. (D. A. Mihesuah & E. Hoover, Eds.) (Ser. New directions in native american studies, volume 18). University of Oklahoma Press.
    11. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
    12. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
    13. ↑ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMMPr16jL/
    14. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
    15. ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/C48PmJRgKjr/?img_index=1
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