What we need: Food systems and food sovereignty for the people
Food sovereignty: the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems
Equitable and sustainable solutions already exist—and they need more support. There is much to learn from the networks of solidarity and care that people – often the most vulnerable and historically oppressed – have put in place during the pandemic. Currently, 70% of the world gets food from the peasant food web, which works with only 25% of the resources.
We don’t need “sustainable intensification”, “climate-smart agriculture” or ‘nature-positive solutions,” which often greenwash corporate agendas. Millions of smallholder farmers, fishermen, pastoralists, agricultural and rural workers, and entire indigenous communities practice agroecology, a way of life and a form of resistance to an unfair economic system that puts profit before life. Agroecological farming constantly adapts to local needs, customs, soils and climates. As countless experts have attested, agroecology improves nutrition, reduces poverty, contributes to gender justice, combats climate change, and enriches farmland.
Agroecology, unlike industrial agriculture, embraces and encourages diversity—of crops, people, farming methods, and knowledges—to allow for locally-adapted food systems that are responsive to environmental conditions and community needs.
The movement for food sovereignty is united in our diversity and in our shared opposition to centralized, top-down models of decision-making and agricultural production.
Original Source: unfss2021.org
