Campaigns to create fair and sustainable food systems reach Europe.
A growing number of grassroots groups across the globe are promoting a new framework to radically change the way food is produced and distributed.
United under the motto of “food sovereignty”, the people who support this movement not only work to improve access to food - as the concept of food security itself describes - but also so that communities have the right to define democratically their own food and agricultural systems without harming other people or the environment.
More than 500 representatives from 80 countries have signed a declaration establishing the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food, and that includes groups such as La Vía Campesina, which represents 200 million small-scale farmers and peasants at the level international.
Conceived at the Food Sovereignty Forum in Mali, Africa, in 2007, the Nyéléni Declaration states that it is the peasants and citizens who must be the central axis of food systems and policies, rather than the demands of the markets or the companies.
Likewise, the concept of food sovereignty in practice may vary from place to place, given that the concept itself enhances and promotes cultural and ecological diversity.
“Both those who try to grow their own food, and those who design their own plan to promote local products, who campaign against genetic engineering or to enhance access to land or to achieve better conditions for agricultural workers, all these people around the world, are working towards food sovereignty in a million different ways, ”says Tomas Remiarz, a member of the Permaculture Association of the United Kingdom, who has recently encouraged members of his association to vote for the association to sign the Nyéléni Declaration.
Tomas attended the first European Forum for Food Sovereignty, which took place in Krems, Austria, this summer. There, more than 400 people from 34 countries gathered - from Turkish trade unionists to Swiss activists in defense of the land.
"The question that gathered us there was: What can we do the peoples of Europe to feed ourselves without destroying other people's opportunities to feed themselves?"
In the United Kingdom, the seeds are being sown for the establishment of a practical understanding of what food sovereignty means and many see in the peasant organizations in the south of the planet the pioneers who have paved the way to take action in this regard.
War on Want, an NGO that fights against poverty in developing countries, together with the Agroecology Parliamentary Group, organized Food Sovereignty Day in the House of Commons in October. Personalities from Brazil, Nigeria, Cuba, Mozambique and Sri Lanka were invited to speak to attendees to encourage the British people to build a movement to recover their food system.
Luis Machanga, of the National Union of Peasants of Mozambique, described the current food system as "a straitjacket", while food sovereignty "is a liberation."
This framework of liberation has often been used in international development contexts, but now soil and food activists in the United Kingdom are recognizing the power of its principles. In view of the vibrant community food movement and the growing interest in the United Kingdom to "grow your own food", food sovereignty adds a positive political element that encourages anyone concerned about their food to consider the context in which these foods have been produced.
Young people are also at the forefront of the development of food sovereignty, with groups such as "Reclaim the Fields" that address inequalities in land distribution in the United Kingdom. Their desire for a food system that is not dominated by multinationals or by a handful of supermarket chains is on the rise, while people across Europe are working to gain greater access to land and produce food for their communities.
Varied groups ranging from NGOs that promote social development to the so-called “city in transition” are considering the possibility of organizing a forum for food sovereignty in the United Kingdom in 2012, which would create a space to explore how we can decide our own food systems so that local foods produced in an ethical and ecological way become the norm and not the exception in our communities.
Translation: Javier Gil
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