Food Sovereignty began as an international farmers’ movement in the 1990s.  Farmers claimed that the people who produce the food should control its production and distribution. This was in opposition to the control of food production and distribution by global multinational capitalist corporations. 

“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable cultivation, and their right to define their own food and systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems. It is a strategy for resisting the current corporate control of food production by empowering local farmers and prioritizing local economies and markets.” 

The idea is now being promoted by some Western governments because of the declining capacity of industrial agriculture to produce cheap food. 

 

Cheap food is necessary for capitalist to make profits - if food is cheap then wages can be low and capitalist can make higher profits.   The industrialisation of agriculture was promoted by Western countries as a way of producing cheap food, but today the ability of industrial agriculture to produce cheap food is declining because of the environmental damage it is causing to the land and climate. 

 

Some Western governments are now supporting the idea of Food Sovereignty because they see it as a way of producing cheap food so capitalism can continue to make profits. 

 

Hopefully, farmers can take advantage of this dependence of capitalism upon them and work towards taking control of their local food production system. 

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