Food Sovereignty

Is a transnational movement that advocates for communities’ ability to determine what their food systems look like. It highlights the need to change the ways that people relate to each other and their food systems and includes seven pillars: focusing on food for people, building knowledge and skills, working with nature, valuing food providers, localizing food systems, placing control locally, and recognizing food as a sacred responsibility rather than a commodity. Food sovereignty also encompasses the concept of food security, which means that all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, and nutritious and culturally appropriate food. La Via Campesina, an international movement that brings diverse groups together defines food sovereignty as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainably methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.”