Food Sovereignity

2193 Words5 Pages

We live in a world that is increasingly becoming globalised but also in a world where only a few have a lot. This correlation is no coincidence and feeds back into the idea of capitalism and comparative advantages. This skewered power balance puts into perspective the need to control the masses, and what better way to do this then through the control of their most basic need: food. This perspective on why food insecurity is increasing will question the power over production and the political control over hunger. It will also consider how the breakdown and decentralistion of food systems can restore resilience back into marginalised communities through the movement of Food Sovereignty.

In order to understand how Food Sovereignty can add to the conventional definition of Food Security, we need to first analyse the common use of the term (FAO, 1996):
“People are considered food secure when they have at all times access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.”

This description is further split into the three pillars of Food Security:
Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a constant basis.
Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.
Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.

This definition of Food Security came about at The World Food Summit of 1996, which was held in response to the growing problem of under nutrition and doubts as to whether agricultural methods, used at the time, had the capacity to feed the growing global population. Most recently, the World Summit on Food Security 2009 recognised that the problem of world hunger has worsened, wi...

... middle of paper ...

...e Resistance to Corporate Globalisation, Zed Books Ltd, Autralia. Pp. 178-188

Stuart, T. 2009, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, Penguin, London

Vandana, S. 2003, ‘Globalisation and Poverty’, in V Bennholdt-Thomsen (ed.), There is an Alternative: Subsistence and Worldwide Resistance to Corporate Globalisation, Zed Books Ltd, Autralia. pp. 57-65

Wilkins, J.L. 1996, Seasonality, Food Origin, and Food Preference: A Comparison between Food Cooperative Members and Nonmembers. Journal of Nutrition Education, pp.329-337

The World Development Movement (WDM). 2012, Food Sovereignty, Tricky Question Breifing, December 2012, p.1

Woods, K. 2013, The Politics of the Emerging Agro-Industrial Complex in Asia’s ‘Final Frontier’: The War on Food Sovereignty in Burma, Food Sovereignty A critical Dialogue, International Conference Yale University, September 14-15, 2013

Show More
Related

  • Issues Of Sweatshops

    1297 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mandle, J. R. (2003). Globalization and the poor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Table 7.2, p. 108

    Read More

  • Cedar's Mediterranean Foods Business Strategy

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Learning Democracy through Food Justice Movements." Academia. N.p., 21 Apr. 2005. Web. 9 Apr. 2014. .

    Read More

  • The Choice Of Food: The Power Of Choice

    1086 Words  | 3 Pages

    In our fast pace society, we base everything on time and money. This need to save money and time has transformed the way we see food and purchase food. Food is an essential part of all cultures. It plays a role in every person’s life. The population has the power to choose what we eat and how the food industry is shaped. There are many important questions that we need to ask ourselves in order to keep the food industry in check. These questions are: How do we know our food is safe? What should we eat? How should food be distributed? What is good food? These are simple yet difficult questions.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The No Nonsense Guide To World Food

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food, by Wayne Roberts introduces us to the concept of “food system”, which has been neglected by many people in today’s fast-changing and fast-developing global food scene. Roberts points out that rather than food system, more people tend to recognize food as a problem or an opportunity. And he believes that instead of considering food as a “problem”, we should think first and foremost about food as an “opportunity”.

    Read More

  • Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved

    1325 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Raj Patel’s novel Stuffed and Starved, Patel goes through every aspect of the food production process by taking the experiences of all the people involved in food production from around the world. Patel concludes by eventually blaming both big corporations and governments for their critical role in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and in so doing causing the key food-related problems of today such as starvation and obesity. In this book of facts and serious crime, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a general but available analysis of global food struggles that has a goal of enlightening and motivating the general Western public that there is something critically wrong with our food system.

    Read More

  • The Challenge of Global Food Production

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    Food production has many challenges to address: CO2 emissions, which are projected to increase by two-thirds in the next 20 years, as the global food production increases so does the number of people going hungry, with the number of urban hungry soaring. The environmental issues are not the only ones to face; politics and economic globalization take also the big part in the food world. These days agriculture and food politics has been going through many changes but mostly under the influence of its consumers; back in the days people wanted as little as safety, variety and low costs of food. Now consumers demanding way more – greater freshness, nutritional value, less synthetic chemicals, smaller carbon footprint and less harm to animals. And that’s the time when urban agriculture emerged quite rapidly delivering locally grown and healthy food. Within the political arena, there are a few still in charge of defending the conventional food industries and commercial farms to retain the upper level. Against the hopes of nutrition activists, farm animal welfare defenders, and organic food promoters, the food and agriculture sector is moving towards greater consolidation and better sustainability. Although in social and local terms, food-growing activists know their role is under attack. Caught two words in the middle, is it possible to satisfy both?

    Read More

  • Food Security Through the Irish Potato Famine

    2008 Words  | 5 Pages

    Out of these two million people, around one million died of starvation and diseases associated with the famine. The other million migrated to other parts of the world, in hopes of giving their families a better life. Though extreme, this famine is one of the most famous examples of food insecurity in the world. After events like this, it is apparent that all countries, including the United States, should take food security very seriously. As defined by the World Health Organization, food security is defined as “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.”

    Read More

  • Sustainability of The Global Food System

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...

    Read More

  • Effect of Food Security in Climate Change

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences

    Read More

  • What Is Sustainable Livelihood?

    1227 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Panel elaborated this as “sustainable livelihood security” in the opening pages of its report Food 2000 (WCED 1987a). The Commission itself, in its report, Our Common Future (WCED 1987b), began with older thinking and language with “jobs” (e.g. pages 43, 49), but shifted substantially to the use of “livelihood”. It speaks of “securing the livelihoods of the rural poor” (p.130), maintaining and even enhancing agricultural productivity and “the livelihoods of all rural dwellers” (p.133), and “securing the livelihoods of the rural poor” (p.130). It uses the expressions “adequate livelihood”, “livelihood opportunities”, and “livelihood security” (ibid p.40 and p.129; p.54 and p.142; and p.118 and p.129 respectively). Agriculture “lacks policies to ensure that food is produced where it is needed and in a manner that sustains the livelihoods of the rural poor” (p.118). Sustainable livelihoods are mentioned twice: “Shifting production to food-deficit countries and to the resource-poor farmers within those countries is a way of securing sustainable livelihoods" (p.129) and “Providing sustainable livelihoods for resource-poor farmers presents a special challenge for agricultural research” (p.138

    Read More

  • Essay On Food Insecurity

    1859 Words  | 4 Pages

    Food insecurity defined, is ‘the state of being without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food’ (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2014). This in turn leads to hunger, which can have three possible meanings; 1) ‘the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite, also the exhausted condition caused by want of food’, 2) ‘the want or scarcity of food in a country’, and 3) ‘a strong desire or craving’ (Worldhunger.org, 2014). Food insecurity also leads to malnutrition, with 870 million people in the world or one in eight, suffering from chronic undernourishment (Fao.org, 2014). From this alarmingly high figure, 852 million of these people live in developing countries, making it evident that majority of strategies used to solve this problem should be directed at them (Fao.org, 2014). The world produces enough food to feed everyone, with an estimated amount of 2,720 Kcal per person a day (Worldhunger.org, 2014). The only problem is distri...

    Read More

  • Examination of the Causes of the Food Crisis in The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis by Paul Collier

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    Collier, Paul. "Annual Editions: Developing World 11/12." Article 14. The Politics of Hunger: How Illusion and Greed Fan the Food Crisis, Edited by Robert Griffiths, 61-62. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2008.

    Read More

  • Food Security Essay

    687 Words  | 2 Pages

    Food security is having a stable nutritional food source and having enough food accessible to fulfil the needs of people, it is essential for human life. To maintain reliable foods sources, we change the world’s biomes by things such as: clearing vegetation diverting and storing water and changing landforms. To ensure that we have enough food for future years we will need to carefully manage our food supplies and land and water resources and use more sustainable farming practices. The five main issues of food security are accessibility: is the food accessible to people when they need it, stability: are there enough stable food sources to ensure food for future years, acceptability: is the food acceptable for every diet, culture and country, availability: is the food readily available when needed, and adequacy: is the food safe and nutritious and produced in environmentally sustainable ways. The GFC (Global Food Crisis) refers to the decreasing amount of food and the large amount of people going hungry. It is caused by poverty, population, conflict (war), natural disasters, decrease in land and the way food is used and stored. Food insecurity usually occurs in rural areas of Africa and Asia. One of the most food insecure countries in the world is Zimbabwe. The situation in Zimbabwe was spun into a crisis as a result of underlying factors. Firstly the politics and government in Zimbabwe were unstable and the government had been accused for poor governance. Secondly the economic situation was quickly spiralling downwards with high unemployment of 50 to 60 percent and the closures of factories and businesses due to the small amount of pay. This along with the large reduction in foreign exchange from sales of tobacco, gold and c...

    Read More

  • Food Shortages

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    Danielle Knight stated that “The true source of world hunger is not scarcity but policy; not inevitability but politics, the real culprits are economies that fail to offer everyone opportunities, and societies that place economic efficiency over compassion.” The author is trying to say that, basically, world hunger is mainly caused by us humans. The world is providing more than enough food for each and every one of us on earth according to the report - 'World Hunger: Twelve Myths'. The problem is that there are so many people living in the third world countries who do not have the money to pay for readily available food. Even if their country has excess food, they still go hungry because of poverty. Since people are mistaken by “scarcity is the real cause of this problem”, governments and institutions are starting to solve food shortage problems by increasing food production, while there really is an excess of food in some countries. Although the green revolution was a big success globally, hunger still exists in some countries. The author stated, “Large farms, free-markets, free trade, and more aid from industrialized countries, have all been falsely touted as the ‘cure’ to end hunger”. All of those are used to promote exports and food production, it doesn’t increase the poor’s ability to buy food he says. What the government really should do is to balance out the economy, and let more people earn more money to buy more foods.

    Read More

  • Sustainable Development Goals Essay

    1082 Words  | 3 Pages

    This can not be done with the same ineffective tactics that were used in the past, so that’s why people are developing new ways to eradicate hunger. When the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) was held, they discussed the nutrition component and how important it is that it is not overlooked. By paying attention to nutrient-dense foods and recognizing the different entry points for improving nutrition, the ICN2 argues the world will be one step closer in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal. Some of the entry points they discussed include “the promotion of crop diversification…, strengthening local food production and processing, and exploring regulatory or voluntary instruments for promoting healthy diets” (goals 2). Promoting the nutrition aspect of the goal can help achieve it because nutrients are what keep people alive and

    Read More

More about Food Sovereignity

Open Document