Food Sovereignty Framework Research Articles

Food security and disability in South Africa: an analysis of General Household Survey data

Purpose We investigated the relationship between disability and food security in South Africa using data from the General Household Survey (GHS). Materials and Methods Regression models were utilised with GHS data (2014–2018) to gauge the likelihood of food insecurity (the dependent variable) among individuals with disabilities. Socioeconomic and demographic traits of the 2018 GHS sample were analysed. All estimates were weighted and represented nationally at the individual level. Results In this study population (32 187) of food insecure people, 9.64% are disabled. Food insecurity impacts more Black people with disabilities (91%) versus those without disabilities (90%), and disabled women (65%) versus nondisabled women (58%). Most reside in KwaZulu-Natal. Those with disability grants lower food insecurity odds, while child support grant recipients face higher odds. Household size and education are significant predictors, while marital status and gender are not. Conclusion This study data justifies the need for disability-inclusive food security programmes in South Africa, especially amid crises like COVID-19. Significantly, there is a nil data finding about people with eating/swallowing disabilities whose needs intersect with food security. This emphasises the need for inclusive data collection that operates within a food sovereignty framework to increase the visibility of people with disabilities.

Influence of Digital Technologies on Diplomatic Practices within the Framework of Food Sovereignty and Continental Policy in Africa

Influence of Digital Technologies on Diplomatic Practices within the Framework of Food Sovereignty and Continental Policy in Africa

Food insecurity and its consequences in indigenous children and youth in Canada.

Food insecurity (FI) is at a crisis level in some Indigenous communities and impacts many of the half million First Nations Inuit and Métis (FNIM) children across Canada, particularly in isolated northern communities. This can lead to malnutrition and can have significant impacts on the physical, intellectual, emotional and social development of a child, often with lasting effects across the life course. This is a narrative review article with extensive search of the medical literature with input from the FNIM National organizations. The primary cause of FI is an imbalance between the high price of food relative to household income, where poverty is a driving factor. The cost and lack of availability to healthy foods has resulted in a transition to unhealthy market foods. Food security programs need to be prioritized, multi-faceted and multi-tiered within a framework of food sovereignty. Translational science, research, to practice is also important. The use of successful Indigenous based models of FI, towards food sovereignty using self-determination, Indigenous Knowledge, strength-based models, and ancestral sustainability are critical. Continued community-based evaluation of FI towards sustainable healthy food programs are important for communities to initiate track, evaluate, and grow robust community-based programs to counter-balance FI. Continued scientific research in the fields of FI, food sovereignty, and their relationship to co-occurring conditions related to healthy eating and beverage consumption are vastly important to the health of Indigenous Peoples. These are all part of many Indigenous connection to the earth, through food source, the maintenance of health through ancestral ways of living, set in the premise of looking forward multiple generations towards the continued resiliency through food, diet, relationship, and sovereignty. Food Security is a human right and needs to be urgently addressed for Indigenous children in Canada.

Food sovereignty and displacement: gardening for food, mental health, and community connection

ABSTRACT In this paper, we assess factors that underlie the relationship between gardening and improved mental health and food security outcomes among displaced people. Drawing on a mixed method study of refugee gardeners in New York, we argue that a food sovereignty framework better incorporates crucial factors such as cultural appropriateness of food, autonomy over food choices, and promotion of health and community, as compared with a food security analysis. We draw commonalities between Indigenous food sovereignty scholarship and the resettled refugee experience, making connections across conceptual and material divisions in scholarly literature and funding institutions. Our work helps researchers and practitioners understand the impacts of gardening on social and material outcomes for displaced people, and suggests global linkages between dispossessed immigrant and Indigenous peoples’ food sovereignty movements.

The Political Ecology of Hedgerows and Their Relationship to Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in the UK

Hedgerows can make an important contribution to agroecological transitions and to an overall contribution to multifunctional agro-ecosystems with multiple benefits for biodiversity, climate change mitigation, soil health, human health, well-being, and livelihoods. Where such agroecological transition assumes the form of political agroecology, this can underpin transformation of the farming system towards food sovereignty. Current mismanagement of hedgerows is constraining the optimum delivery of ecosystem services by these important features of the British landscape. This mismanagement is, moreover, an integral part of a (capitalist) productivist degradation of the countryside that is contributing to the delivery of ecosystem disservices and is, therefore, antithetical to the adoption of agroecological production practises. Being contrary to the requirements of political agroecology, it is similarly antithetical to the requirements of food sovereignty. In response, this paper outlines what appears to be required, in policy and political terms, for the adoption of an agroecological and food sovereignty framework enabling the sustainable management of hedgerows and maximising their potential for ecosystem services delivery.

Towards Producer-Consumer Cooperation: Collective Learning in Alternative Food Networks as a Food Sovereignty Practice

The paper analyses collective learning strategies aimed at the transformation of food systems in the framework of food sovereignty, in the context of such key issues as environmental sustainability, socially just relations in diversified economy, and citizen participation in food systems governance. In particular, the author proposes to focus on the systematisation created by Colin R. Anderson, Chris Maughan and Michel P. Pimbert on the basis of their qualitative and action research undertaken for the purpose of developing the European Agroecology Knowledge Exchange Network (EAKEN). The network is part of the broader process of knowledge circulation led by the La Via Campesina movement, which has introduced the concept of food sovereignty into wider public debates. The main objective of EAKEN is to strengthen bottom-up learning strategies and informal education processes in the field of agroecology, which is defined through reference to sustainable farming practices and their recognised transformative potential. The author considers the pillars of transformative agroecology learning identified by the above-mentioned researchers in combination with various approaches in social movement learning and critical pedagogy. The analysis recognises that the evolving concept of food sovereignty covers both rural and urban fields of activity, emphasising the connections between producers, workers, consumers and social activists. Consequently, this paper contributes to the discussion on the educational practices present in alternative food networks (AFNs). As studies indicate, although new AFNs in Poland are often inspired by initiatives created in Western Europe and USA, they adopt forms that depend on the local context. The analysis of learning strategies associated with such networks, taking into account different forms of power relations, as well as emerging opportunities and constraints, allows areas for future research to be identified.

Augmenting agroecological urbanism: the intersection of food sovereignty and food democracy

ABSTRACT Food sovereignty has emerged as a leading sense-making framework for the nascent conceptualization of an agroecological urbanism – a radically new paradigm for urbanization, grounded in political agroecology. At present, discourses like food democracy are often isolated from food sovereignty and agroecology in the urban context, potentially resulting in missed opportunities for creating holistic, inclusive, and scalable transformation in the urban food system. This study used data from existing municipal food policy in Seattle, U.S.A. and interviews with Seattle community gardeners to probe resident practices and policy recommendations in relation to the conceptual frameworks of food sovereignty and food democracy. The findings identify two key dimensions of food democracy as notably absent from the food sovereignty framework within this contextualized landscape, including mechanisms that enable vertical deliberation between food system stakeholders and opportunities for strengthened self and community efficacy – thus, exposing a potential gap in the ongoing development of an actionable agroecological urbanism. Working in tandem within the frame of agroecological urbanism, the food sovereignty and food democracy frameworks may support transition from unsustainable growth patterns and enable agroecological massification in an urban Global North context.

Las plantas comestibles empleadas por las comunidades comechingonas de San Marcos Sierras (Córdoba, Argentina). Primeras aproximaciones.

Introducción y objetivos: Desde la década de 1990, en Argentina se aprecia un proceso de visibilización y resurgimiento de grupos aborígenes que se creían extintos por parte de la historia oficial. Este es el caso del Pueblo Comechingón en la provincia de Córdoba. En otro sentido, se sabe que la recolección de plantas silvestres alimenticias es una práctica ancestral que contribuye a la subsistencia de muchas comunidades indígenas del país. En el marco de la soberanía alimentaria y la etnobiología, se planteó realizar una primera indagación sobre el uso de plantas silvestres comestibles por parte de pobladores que se auto-identifican pertenecientes al pueblo comechingón de San Marcos Sierras (Córdoba). M&M: Se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas, listados libres y la observación de un muestrario fotográfico guía, a un referente en tres comunidades comechingonas de la localidad. Resultados: Los entrevistados reconocieron 34 etnoespecies silvestres, correspondientes a 32 taxones botánicos. El 85% fueron nativas y el resto exóticas. Los “algarrobos” (Prosopis spp.) presentaron la mayor cantidad de partes utilizadas y formas de consumo registradas. Las estructuras vegetales más citadas fueron los frutos, seguido de las flores, hojas, cladodios, órganos subterráneos y resinas. Estas dos últimas, junto con las hojas de árboles no habían sido reportadas anteriormente para la región. Asimismo, se aludió a diferentes modos de colecta, conservación y productos culinarios. Conclusiones: Las comunidades comechingonas conocen y consumen una amplia variedad de plantas comestibles. Se espera contribuir a la visibilización de la cultura comechingón y a la consolidación de sistemas de alimentación soberanos.

Food Counts: Food systems report cards, food sovereignty and the politics of indicators

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems recognized that "current systems will be held in place insofar as these systems continue to be measured in terms of what industrial agriculture is designed to deliver, at the expense of many other outcomes that really matter in food systems" (IPES 2016: 57). In response, they called for new food systems indicators rooted in social justice, support for local economies, ecological regeneration and democratic engagement. This paper reflects on the ways that indicators can serve as a tool to understand the current state of food systems, challenge existing approaches and (re)frame a future vision of equity and sustainability. Our analysis focuses on the development of Food Counts: A Pan-Canadian Sustainable Food Systems Report Card, a first attempt to bring together existing measures of social, environmental, and economic well-being to help researchers, policy makers, and practitioners examine food systems more comprehensively. The report card used a food sovereignty framework and an integrated systems perspective and make connections to a global movement for collective social change. Beyond its practical value, and particularly in the context of Canada's development of a national food policy, our analysis illuminates the limited kinds of data available, the privileging of scientific expertise over traditional knowledge, the assumed value of certain indicators, and the reductionist nature of using data to represent complex food systems. We argue that while report cards can make visible numerous food systems' elements, they can also obscure divers experiences, reinforcing unsustainable practices and policies.

Analysing agricultural investment from the realities of small-scale food providers: grounding the debates

Over the past decade, agricultural investment has been presented as a catchall solution to a converging set of global crises, often with poor rural communities as the proclaimed beneficiaries. Yet the promises of such investment, such as poverty alleviation and improved food access, are routinely at odds with realities on the ground. This article offers frameworks for analysis of agricultural investment that are grounded in the realities of small-scale food providers, drawing from two studies. The first study employs a right to food framework to identify the main channels through which food for consumption is procured by small-scale food providers and the factors impacting these channels. It draws on empirical data from within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), an investment model promised to lift rural communities out of poverty, which reflects a regional trend. Based on the shortcomings of the large-scale investments examined, the second study employs a food sovereignty framework to explore alternative forms of investment envisioned and/or already being put into practice by small-scale food providers in the SAGCOT area and elsewhere in Tanzania. While two different frameworks formed the basis of two different studies, both the studies and their frameworks are interrelated. The final section of this article makes the case for why both the right to food and food sovereignty are essential lenses for understanding agricultural investment vis-à-vis small-scale food providers and the ways in which they can serve as complementary tools for effective analysis.

Alternative to What? Agroecology, Food Sovereignty, and Cuba's Agricultural Revolution

In Cuba, the transition from industrial agriculture towards agroecology since the Special Period of the early 1990s has provided both an incredible example for alternative, sustainable food systems elsewhere as well as its own suite of challenges and struggles. This paper reviews recent literature on the Cuban agroecological transition, especially as this work situates Cuban agroecology in practice alongside the increasingly popular political framework of food sovereignty. In particular, this paper highlights the unique synergies between agroecology and food sovereignty, as well as the unique tensions that arise in applying these frameworks to the Cuban context. By probing the question as to what the Cuban agroecological experience represents an “alternative,” a more inclusive definition of food sovereignty is developed to better accommodate not only Cuban agroecology, but alternative food systems more broadly. Rather than simply an alternative to capitalist food systems or the globalized corporate food regime, agroecology, food sovereignty and other alternatives instead represent a more fundamental critique of industrialization and modernity. Building off of the specific contours of agroecological practice within Cuban Socialism, it is argued that food sovereignty in Cuba is an expression of what James Ferguson has recently termed “distributive political economy.” By applying this distributive political economic framework to the Cuban agroecological experience, the author aims not only to address some of the underlying tensions with traditional definitions of food sovereignty, but also to provide an actionable agenda for future research in Cuba and beyond.

Farmers’ rights, local food systems, and sustainable household dietary diversification: A case of Uttarakhand Himalaya in north-western India

ABSTRACTThe farmers and rural communities, world over, have contributed greatly in management of agrobiodiversity including plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). It is well accepted now that the efforts of farming communities in creation, conservation, exchange, and enhancement of PGR should be recognized and strengthened. Farmers’ access and rights over seeds are considered an essential component of food sovereignty. In the present article, we discuss the aspects of farmers’ rights, the community level seed systems, food sovereignty and the potential of farmer household production and dietary diversification in combating malnutrition and community health promotion with regard to farming communities of Uttarakhand hills in north-western India. Salient findings of two case studies, on farmers’ varieties documentation and registration, and the potential of local food systems in addressing community health and nutrition were used to particularly showcase the nutritional contribution of native foods in the context of sustainable food-based approaches to community health and nutrition. Further, the need of a proactive alliance was suggested between local communities and their key allies collaboratively creating a research and advocacy agenda in support of agrobiodiversity and the revival of local food systems and landscapes within the broader framework of food sovereignty.

Agricultural biodiversity is sustained in the framework of food sovereignty

We have shaped biodiversity for food and agriculture and it shapes us; food sovereignty and a healthy environment depend on it. – Peasants give Life to Biodiversity, International Planning Committe...

Livelihoods Crises in Vidarbha, India: Food Sovereignty through Traditional Farming Systems as a Possible Solution

ABSTRACTThe Vidarbha region in Maharashtra, India, home to 3.4 million smallholder farmers, is a major cotton-producing region in one of the wealthiest Indian states. However, between 1995 and 2013, more than 60,000 farmers took their own lives. Many of these suicides have been linked to extreme debt created by the expensive mono-cropping of Bt cotton. Some farming households have responded to these pressures by abandoning Bt cotton growing and turning to sustainable agriculture using traditional mixed-cropping methods. Yet the question remains: have the changes produced better livelihoods in Vidarbha? Using a food sovereignty framework, we assess the impact of these changes through an analysis of a 200-household survey across six districts in Vidarbha. We also explore the meaning of food sovereignty for those who practise it, seeking to better understand some of the complexities and experiences associated with the term.

Food sovereignty and agro-ecology in Karnataka: interplay of discourses, identities, and practices

ABSTRACTKarnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmers’ movement, and a member of La Via Campesina, has been encouraging zero-budget natural farming in Karnataka, India, within the framework of food sovereignty and agro-ecology. Using the experiences of KRRS, this article addresses the question of the extent of pluralism within the discourse of food sovereignty. Focusing on the interplay of local and global practices, discourses and identities, the article throws light upon contradictions and negotiations between “necessary abstractions” and “particularisms”, spaces and places of resistance and implications it may have on struggles at both local and global levels.

Food Sovereignty: The Case and the Space for Community Led Agricultural Autonomy within the Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition

Much has been written about food security, nutrition security and the ability of people to access their food needs. Food sovereignty and the associated ability of people to participate in the production, distribution and consumption decisions of their food have been at the fringe of this discussion. Linked with this is the debate on the question of pursuing policies of food self-sufficiency or policies of self-reliance where food imports are considered a natural extension of food security. Examining the elements of food security through the food system participation framework of food sovereignty is an opportunity worthy of further exploration.This paper seeks to add a dimension to the understanding of food security by considering the value that a food sovereignty perspective has on the right to access food that is nutritious and safe for consumption. Current themes are cited and reviewed, and the implications of both food security and food sovereignty perspectives for the food system are argued. Agricultural trade liberalisation has benefited some societies and harmed others. To this end, the Global Strategic Framework (the Framework) on Food Security and Nutrition has recently incorporated the philosophy of the food sovereignty movement into its guidelines. The Framework provides an opportunity to view food security through a lens of food sovereignty providing guidance for all societies on how to safeguard their food security.

What role for trade in food sovereignty? Insights from a small island archipelago

The food sovereignty movement has been gathering momentum in advocating the rights of individuals and nations to control their own food systems. Alongside this is a mounting critical engagement regarding its privileging of local food production as the means through which to achieve this goal. Adopting a place-based approach, we explore the foodways of diverse communities across a small island archipelago – the Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies. Based on interviews and focus groups, we unpack narratives relating to islanders’ changing food practices and aspirations. These are understood as two competing but inter-related themes of disruption and reification of current practices shaped by wider food regimes in interaction with ecological challenges. Given that conditions of historic dependency implicate the islands in a myriad of dependent trade relationships, we argue that small island economies offer, and require, unique cases for understanding how sovereign conditions for trade might be developed in line with a food sovereignty framework. We underline the importance of an inter-disciplinary focus for bringing forth a nuanced understanding of what might be required to shape more sustainable, sovereign and secure food futures. Doing so is necessarily rooted in an appreciation of islanders’ accounts of social, economic, political and ecological change over time.

Diálogo de saberes en la vía campesina: soberanía alimentaria y agroecología

The transnational rural social movement. La Via Campesina has been critically sustained and shaped by the encounter and dialogo de saberes (dialog among different knowledges and ways of knowing) between different rural cultures that takes place within it, in the context of the increasingly politicized confrontation with neoliberal reality and agribusiness in the most recent phase of capital expansion. This dialog among the ‘absences’ left out by the dominant monoculture of ideas has produced important ‘emergences’ that range from mobilizing frames for collective action –like the food sovereignty framework– to social methodologies for the spread of agroecology among peasant families.

Sustaining local food webs: insights from Kenya and the UK

This paper is a contribution to the contested discourse about how healthy food supplies can be secured for future generations. It argues that the small-scale food providers who currently supply the local food webs that nourish more than 70 per cent of the world’s population can provide for the growing urban and world population, building on their skills and knowledge. The food webs they serve are productive, resilient, and healthy, connecting food providers and consumers locally. Local food webs are a cornerstone for the model of food provision, in the framework of food sovereignty, that should be prioritized in order to secure our future food. The paper sets out to demonstrate the value and challenges of local, resilient, biodiverse, and productive food systems that would benefit from greater support and compliant policies. It uses examples from Kenya and the UK to demonstrate how productive local food systems can improve small-scale family farming and reduce hunger, in contrast to industrial agricultural systems. Consumer surveys and mapping local food webs demonstrate the value that consumers place in local food production and markets, both in Kenya and the UK. The article concludes with recommendations for how to support local food webs.

FS - From protest to policy: The challenges of institutionalizing food sovereignty

In response to the failure of current approaches to alleviate the linked challenges of global food insecurity and environmental degradation—many of which involve voluntary measures to improve agricultural efficiency and increase yield—grassroots actors have called for the re-regulation and state-based institutionalization of principles derived from the food sovereignty framework (Iles & Montenegro de Wit, 2014; Wittman, 2011). As articulated by international agrarian movements in the mid 1990s, these principles include ecological sustainability; distributive justice, ensuring a socially just allocation of resources (Agyeman & Alkon, 2011); and procedural justice, which involves “fair and transparent decision-making processes that are adaptable to specific local conditions” (Loos et al., 2014, p. 357).