Food sovereignty and the right to adequate food supply: For an overhaul of food security policies

Abstract

The right to Adequate Food Supply and Food Sovereignty carry alternative frames of reference against the liberal contents of the national and international policies set up since the end of 1980s (liberalization of the agrarian markets, privatization of means, withdrawal of States). They have recently tended to add protectionist, populist and voluntarist accents to the national and international policies fighting food insecurity in Africa. Beyond the different status of these two concepts, we look at the connection between the ideas, as well as speeches which they produce. Our results rely on a textual analysis of secondary documents and interviews with representatives of French international solidarity organizations present in Africa and international networks hired to advocate food sovereignty. We begin by exploring the Right to Adequate Food Supply and Food Sovereignty and focus on their well differentiated contexts of emergence to underline their present-day relationship as parts of supplementary strategies of influence: the former favours the judicial treatment of the food issue and the second its political treatment. We show that both ideas refer to an actual renovation of food security policy objectives and governance which possibly implies an alternative food system based on a certain level of food autonomy and political regulation of agro-food sectors.