Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91

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Global Food Security

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gfs

40 Years of dialogue on food sovereignty: A review and a look ahead

Ashley Chaifetz a, Pamela Jagger b,n
a
Department of Public Policy, University of North Carolina, CB#3435 Abernethy Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3435, USA
b
Department of Public Policy and Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, CB#3435 Abernethy Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3435, USA

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We review the evolution of the food sovereignty movement from its Green Revolution origins centered
Received 2 December 2013 on food self-sufficiency to current dialogue focused on reduced use of transgenic crops, supporting
Received in revised form small-scale agriculture, eschewing trade liberalization, and promoting agroecology principles. We
5 April 2014
discuss food sovereignty in the context of a “right to food” as has been put forward by the United
Accepted 11 April 2014
Nations. We review food sovereignty discourse to assess what it contributes to key aspects of global food
security. We conclude that, while food sovereignty has promise as a normative concept, it is unlikely to
Keywords: be implemented in any substantive way in the near future. Forces affecting the future of food including
Food movements rapid population growth, upward food price trends, globalization, and institutional path dependence in
Food security
global food and agricultural input markets are formidable adversaries.
Food sovereignty
& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Local food
Right to food

1. Introduction
Food sovereignty is “the right of each nation or region to
maintain and develop their capacity to produce basic food crops
with corresponding productive and cultural diversity” (Altieri,
2009). Over the last 40 years, the concept of food sovereignty
has evolved from focusing on single-crop food self-sufficiency to
community-driven food policies aiming to influence and change
the structure of food and agricultural input markets in local,
national, and global contexts. The overarching theme of the
contemporary food sovereignty literature is a grand shift away
from large-scale farming and agricultural processing to smaller
and more localized systems. Food sovereignty focuses on a sort of
industrial detox—creating a local food economy that replaces
export-and-import driven global food markets and the policies
that enable them. In particular, priority is placed on shifting power
away from corporations, especially those that produce transgenic
crops, focus on monoculture production systems, and benefit from
agricultural subsidies. Food sovereignty has been hailed by its
proponents as the only way to address the long-term food crisis
(Miller, 2008; Rosset, 2008, 2009), as well as having “transforma-
tive potential” (Fairbairn, 2012).
This paper reviews the development and growth of food sover-
eignty since the 1960s and discusses what the food sovereignty
movement can contribute to the goal of global food security.
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 1 919 962 6848; fax: þ 1 919 962 5824.
E-mail addresses: chaifetz@live.unc.edu (A. Chaifetz),
pjagger@unc.edu (P. Jagger).
We review the inception of the concept under the early terminology
of “food self-sufficiency” and its evolution into food sovereignty.
We then turn to recent developments within the food sovereignty
movement, with examples from numerous regions, communities,
and stakeholders. In Section 3, we place the contributions of food
sovereignty in the policy dialogue on food security and consider
what role food sovereignty plays with respect to attaining global
food security objectives, including improved food availability, access,
safety, and sustainability. We then consider the question of how food
sovereignty is operationalized and measured. In the final section,
we discuss the future of food sovereignty as a concept, movement,
and analytical tool.
2. Chronology
In Madeleine Fairbairn's comprehensive chapter titled Food
Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community, she traces
the roots of the current food sovereignty movement to the 1947
“right to food” post-war food regime that stemmed from the UN
Commission on Human Rights (Fairbairn, 2010). This early con-
ceptualization of the right to food eventually evolved to a Cold
War “right to freedom from hunger” (Eide, 1996). The early
foundations of food sovereignty developed in the context of the
Green Revolution of the 1960s, which allowed new regions to
prosper through agricultural intensification as well as feed their
citizens by employing modern plant breeding, pesticides, and
irrigation to dramatically increase yields. With its limited scope,
the Green Revolution barely touched the farming communities of
Africa, while high-yielding modern varieties of rice and wheat

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2014.04.002
2211-9124/& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
86 A. Chaifetz, P. Jagger / Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91

brought expansive growth in the agricultural sector throughout across the world. Now headquartered in Jakarta, the organization
Asia and Latin America (Evenson and Gollin, 2003). has spent much of the last two decades defending the right for
While less-discussed in modern interpretations of food sover- individuals to save seeds, but also promoting local control of land,
eignty, the expression of choice from the Green Revolution era of pesticide-free farming, the equality and value of women in
the 1960s through the 1980s was “food self-sufficiency,” a see- agriculture, and agroecology. Overall, LVC recognizes food as a
mingly impossible, zero-import objective—even for countries basic human right and fights for agrarian reform, natural resource
focused on a single staple crop (Barker and Hayami, 1976; protection, a reorganization of food trade, an end to hunger, and
Burmeister and Choi, 2011). Researchers promulgated food self- general democratic control of food. After announcing the call for
sufficiency as best attained through “improvement in physical and “food sovereignty” at the World Food Summit in 1996, its group of
institutional infrastructure such as irrigation and research- supporters remains prominent (La Via Campesina, 2011). At its
extension systems” (Barker and Hayami, 1976) even though self- 20th anniversary conference in June 2013, it claimed representa-
sufficiency has been shown to be economically desirable only for tion of “more than 200 million peasants, small-scale producers,
particular foods (Cheng, 1987). Some countries, like the United landless, women, youth, indigenous, migrants, and farm and food
Kingdom, have long relied on imported goods and would require workers, from 183 organizations and 88 countries” (Call of the VI
major shifts in the price of food imports for increased self- Conference of La Via Campesina, 2013). LVC, in addition to Brazil's
sufficiency (Fallows and Wheelock, 1982). Landless Peasant Movement and the European Union's Good Food
Iran enacted one of the most striking nationally-driven policy March, provide an important forum for people who are not
experiments with food self-sufficiency. After the 1979 Iranian content with the current food system (Akram-Lodhi, 2013).
Revolution, wheat self-sufficiency became a major goal for the The Nyéléni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty is considered a
country, but its bread subsidy reform was a failure due to wheat “turning point for the global food sovereignty movement;” its
“lost” in transit, storage, and processing (Amid, 2007). By the early standards and ideals were formally established at that point
2000s, 20 years after its move to reduce wheat imports, Iran had (Wittman et al., 2010). Roughly 500 people from more than 80
not achieved wheat self-sufficiency, even with consistent growth. countries gathered in Mali, including peasants, fisher-folk, indi-
Policy failure was not due to poor agricultural performance; major genous peoples, migrant workers, environmentalists, youth, and
factors included control over wheat production and failed dis- family farmers. This forum defined, with the intention to promote,
tributive policies. Overall, even though self-sufficiency was of the 7 themes of food sovereignty: local markets and international
interest to Arab countries in the late 1970s, the relative import- trade; local knowledge and technology; access and control of
ance of agriculture declined but still remained vital, even with natural resources; sharing territories; conflicts, occupation, and
the possibility that food self-sufficiency would be unattainable disasters; social conditions and forced migration; and production
(El-Sherbini and Sinha, 1978). models (Nyeleni Synthesis Report, 2007). The themes are elabo-
Other countries also experimented with food self-sufficiency, rated in Table 1.
even as optimism regarding high-yielding seed varieties and other
conventional Green Revolution technologies declined (Evenson,
1974). Sudan attempted wheat self-sufficiency in Gezira at the
expense of its cotton crops, but found reduced employment Table 1
opportunities (Hassan et al., 2000). Zimbabwe made maize self- Themes of food sovereignty.
Source: Nyeleni Synthesis Report, 2007.
sufficiency an explicit policy goal, but in a landlocked county with
high marketing costs, prices needed for food self-sufficiency are Theme Explanation
typically above import parity prices. Pricing policies with the goal
of self-sufficiency come at the expense of overall higher prices or Local markets and international trade Construct new mechanisms for fair
compulsory subsidies, which benefit only a small set of wealthy trade (as opposed to free trade),
including local, transparent
farmers (Jayne and Rukuni, 1993). China experienced fewer pro- production processes and fair prices
duction controls and price increases alongside a decline in grain Local knowledge and technology Make knowledge and experience
imports in the mid-1980s. While food self-sufficiency was con- from small, indigenous producers a
sidered an attainable goal for the nation, it failed to come to “central element in strengthening
local food systems”
fruition (Yang and Tyers, 1989). Mexico, once self-sufficient in
Access and control of natural resources Implement agrarian reform that
food, was no longer categorized as such as of 1987; it could not keeps land in the hands of local
“supply its population from domestic production with basic food- communities long committed to
stuffs in sufficient quantities to achieve minimum nutritional sustainable practices
standards” (Barkin, 1987). Sharing territories Define territories to include
indigenous and nomadic peoples;
Paradoxically, changes in soil and water systems in countries strengthen organizations and
participating in and affected by the Green Revolution, combined alliances to ensure the “peaceful
with policies aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in staple food coexistence of diverse communities”
crops, essentially led to the modern food sovereignty movement Conflicts, occupation, and disasters Rebuild communities suffering from
disaster and conflict with the
(Matson et al., 1997). Contemporary food sovereignty is character-
assistance and leadership of those
ized by a shift in focus away from monocropping, down-scaling of affected
agricultural production, and a strong focus on agroecology. Food Social conditions and forced migration Strengthen organizations dedicated
sovereignty supporters are often concerned with negative out- to migrants and their respective
comes related to industrial agriculture and single-crop specializa- movements at the local level;
increase knowledge of forced
tion (Issaoui-Mansouri, 2012). migration
In 1993, La Via Campesina (LVC) formed during the Uruguay Production models Move towards a “solidarity economy”
Round of the GATT negotiations that concluded in a multilateral where local production and
trade agreement lacking in substantive input from developing consumption are key elements;
decrease industrial production and
countries. LVC is the most well-known food sovereignty organiza-
increase small-scale low-energy
tion, with branches made up of small- and medium-scale farmers production methods
and producers, of men and women, of various races and ethnicities
 A. Chaifetz, P. Jagger / Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91
Additionally, the Mali forum designed a framework by which to
judge current and future food systems. The framework consists of
6 principles:
 food for people (the right to sufficient, healthy, and culturally
appropriate food for all people, including those who are
hungry, under occupation, and marginalized);
 value for food providers (supports contributions and respects
rights of all kinds of people who cultivate, grow, harvest, and
process food, rejecting those policies that undervalue and
threaten their livelihoods);
 local food systems (brings together providers and consumers in
the protection from poor quality and unhealthy foods, including
development aid and genetically-modified foods);
 local decision-making (local control and access to land, water,
seeds, livestock, and aquaculture populations);
 knowledge and skill-building (access to new research); and
 work with nature (low external input agroecological produc-
tion and harvesting methods that maximize the contribution of
ecosystems and improve resilience and adaptation).
These principles are reiterated throughout the recent food sover-
eignty literature (Altieri and Nicholls, 2008; Holt-Giménez and
Patel, 2009).
Any discussion of food sovereignty assumes a “right to food.”
Remarks by Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right
to Food, have emerged in recent writings on food sovereignty
(Altieri et al., 2012; Anderson and Bellows, 2012; Beuchelt and
Virchow, 2012; Ellinger-Locke, 2011). In 2010, De Schutter
explained his objectives regarding food systems: “Ensuring the
right to food requires the possibility either to feed oneself directly
from productive land or other natural resources, or to purchase
food. This implies ensuring that food is available, accessible and
adequate. Availability relates to there being sufficient food on the
market to meet the needs.” He addressed and included food
accessibility (physical and economic access by all people), ade-
quacy (that food satisfies dietary needs, even considering age,
living conditions, and health), safety, freedom from adverse sub-
stances, and cultural acceptability. De Schutter (2010) concluded,
“Participation of food-insecure groups in the design and imple-
mentation of the policies that most affect them is also a key
dimension of the right to food.” The United Nations seems to have
validated the food sovereignty movement, though it has limited
ability to move it forward.
In 2013, the UN launched the Global Network for the Right to
Food and Nutrition, but its approach and subsequent successes
Table 2
Chronology of major food sovereignty developments.
Year(s) Development
1966 UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
“right to adequate food”
1974 UN World Food Conference (Rome, Italy)
1970– Countries focus on food self-sufficiency
1980s
1993 Formation of La Via Campesina (LVC)
1996 World Food Summit: reaffirmation to right to food by participating
governments, LVC coins the term “food sovereignty”
2000 UN Millennium Summit: establishment of the Millennium
Development Goals,
2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty, Declaration of Nyéléni (Sélingué, Mali)
2008 Ecuador includes food sovereignty in its constitution (Article 281)
2011 Meeting for the development of an European food sovereignty
movement (Krems, Austria)
2013 UN Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition identifies
detrimental hunger-generating policies with the intention of
eliminating them
87
regarding food security and sovereignty have yet to be seen
(United Nations, 2013). The largely normative “right to food”
acknowledges different characteristics of hunger than other
related terminology. Its specific objectives are focused on dignity
and the acknowledgment of rights; it comprises more than the
achievement of food security or food sovereignty (Mechlem,
2004). Given that food is considered to be a “right” by the United
Nations, governments can be held accountable for failing to
provide it (Gonzalez, 2013). The chronology of the food sover-
eignty movement is summarized in Table 2.
3. Connecting food sovereignty to food security
Food security is an institutionalized global policy objective
encompassing concerns of availability, access, utilization, and
stability (FAO, 2009). Where availability focuses on sufficient
quantity and quality of goods, access means the affordability and
price of goods, but the concept also includes actual availability in
the marketplace and policies that surround it. Utilization does not
only mean food safety and sanitation, but it also encompasses
nutrition. Stability is more vaguely defined, but many consider
environmental sustainability to be a key component. Environmen-
tal sustainability focuses on aspects of sustainable food produc-
tion, including addressing the supply of critical inputs to food
production (such as, land, water, and fertile soils). The first three of
these concepts (availability, access, and utilization) are embodied
in the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) dimensions of food security which include food of “appro-
priate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports,”
access to adequate food resources, and utilization of food “through
adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and health care” at all times
(FAO, 2006).
3.1. Availability
Availability of food or inputs to food production is a critical part
of the food sovereignty dialogue, from seeds to the potential for
individuals and families to obtain desired foods. The quality,
quantity, and price point of desired foods are in question, given
global food inequity. In the United States organizations have
centered food sovereignty movements from the bottom-up, rather
than the top-down in areas where food availability is a problem.
For example, Philadelphia's The Food Trust, Boston's Food Project,
and Milwaukee's Growing Power have all delivered healthy corner
stores, urban gardens, nutrition education, and agriculture/farm
training, creating an alternative and mostly sovereign food system
without dependence on the government at any level leave as is.
However, whether the successes of urban innovation in the United
States can be translated to other settings, or scaled in any
substantive way remains to be seen.
The availability of inputs (e.g., seed, water, fertilizer, land) for
food production is increasingly important given continued eco-
nomic and population growth, and urbanization throughout the
developing world. To increase food production and support food
security, lower-income producers need inexpensive improved
technologies (Pretty et al., 2003; Harrigan, 2008). Present modes
of input supply, such as privatizing seed sales alongside govern-
ment subsidies in Malawi, has lessened the diversity in available
seeds (Kerr, 2013). However, demand for food and high-yielding
inputs to production are likely to trump all moves towards a more
food sovereign system favoring small-scale producers interested in
local varieties and conservation agriculture.
On the global level, even while food security was conceptua-
lized in 1974 at the World Food Summit, nations' first iterations
of the concept mostly drew attention to it, but failed to translate
88 A. Chaifetz, P. Jagger / Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91
into access at the household-level (Block et al., 2012; Patel, 2005).
Yet, as La Via Campesina declared that food sovereignty is a
“precondition to genuine food security,” researchers must then
consider its application to food and resource availability, especially
to smallholders (La Via Campesina, 1996). While availability can
refer to feeding oneself from production or have the means for the
procurement, it is commonly poverty and lack of access, rather
than availability, that are the roots of food insecurity (Mechlem,
2004).
3.2. Access
Access refers to the affordability of food in the marketplace.
Overall, food sovereignty ideals have not yet infiltrated the
corporate food structure and market, though some communities
have been successful, allowing for a localized analysis of food
sovereignty within the goals of food security. Communities that
have exemplified the switch to food sovereign institutions include
parts of Cuba, Brazil, the Philippines, Venezuela, South Korea, and
Africa (Altieri, 2009; Altieri et al., 2012; Burmeister and Choi, 2011;
Edwards, 2010; Rosset et al., 2011). Much of the literature focuses
on Cuba, which has operated outside of mainstream international
trade policy for decades, but its version of food sovereignty
includes a germplasm bank and seed saving, sugarcane diversifi-
cation, government-set prices, crop rotation for pest management,
and crop-livestock rotation (Funes, 2002). Rather than overarching
transformations from the top down, incremental change is more
likely, especially given the number of people in the world who
remain food-insecure. For example, in Chavez's tenure as President
of Venezuela, supermarkets promoted and achieved restoration of
control to local companies and away from international corpora-
tions for production and distribution (Edwards, 2010).
Globalization and increased trade liberalization are major
challenges for the food sovereignty movement and its role in
improving access to food. Burnett and Murphy (2014) suggest that
the food sovereignty community fails to present a clear position on
the issue of trade. Whereas early dialogue on food sovereignty was
decidedly against trade, more recent discussions have highlighted
the potential for socially responsible global value chains, such as
fair trade labeling, to create an avenue for small-scale producers to
engage in trade that is not at odds with the broader objectives of
food sovereignty. Willingness to accept trade under certain con-
ditions indicates a transition in the food sovereignty position on
trade, but this has not been well articulated by food sovereignty
advocates and scholars.
Lack of a forum for small-scale producers to participate effec-
tively in global discussions on trade of agricultural inputs and
commodities is highlighted as a particular problem. For example,
small-scale producers continue to have a limited role in World
Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations (FOEI, 2003). The rise of the
BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries in WTO negotiations
is marked by increasing references to food sovereignty as a concept
promoted by low and middle income countries, but institutional
path dependency and incremental changes in trade policy leave
limited scope for systemic change. Finally, Murphy (2013) points
out that recent trends in global food prices foster a global food
system favoring large-scale (and non-sovereign) producers. For
example, land grabbing by middle income countries for food
production in lower income countries is the antithesis of food
sovereignty.
In addition to local control over markets and distribution, food
sovereignty principles explicitly defend access to food and inputs
for billions of female smallholders (Ellinger-Locke, 2011; Patel,
2005; Patria, 2013). Overall, the food security and food policy
dialogues do not put feminist principles as front and center as
does food sovereignty, which acknowledges women's influence in
consumption and in the market (Patria, 2013). However, it is easy
to question society's ability to meet food security objectives if
there was a large-scale shift away from energy-intensive industrial
farming systems towards smaller, ecologically-sustainable produc-
tion, and more gender-equal processing practices alongside access
to education and new technologies (Ellinger-Locke, 2011).
3.3. Utilization (safety, sanitation, and nutrition)
The food sovereignty dialogue has little to say about food safety,
sanitation and nutrition other than indicating that communities
should have access to safe and nutritious foods (Anderson and
Bellows, 2012; Beuchelt and Virchow, 2012; Fairbairn, 2012; Kerr,
2013). Pinstrup-Andersen (2000) established food safety as an
emerging issue for the food policy agenda, with concerns spanning
the process from production to international trade, but focusing on
country differences in regulations and attitudes. However, the food
sovereignty movement does not provide specific guidance on food
safety beyond eschewing genetic modification and the rampant
availability of lower-quality foods (Desmarais, 2008). The move-
ment does emphasize that a food sovereign country or community
would, by definition, allow its people to make decisions in a
democratic manner (Holt-Gimen ́ ez, 2009). Paradoxically, their
democratic decisions could come in the form of transgenic crops,
land reform, subsidies, or monocultures, the very issues that food
sovereignty is attempting to tackle. Interestingly, Altieri and Rosset
(1999), prominent food sovereignty advocates, do not mention the
issue of democratic choice in their discussion of why biotechnology
will not solve food security problems in developing countries.
Proponents of food sovereignty have described food security
policies as neither nutritious nor culturally-appropriate (Wittman
et al., 2010). Nutrition is a priority in the food sovereignty move-
ment, but primarily as a counter to the current globalized
capitalist food system: food should be used for nutritious reasons
first and trade should only be considered after nutritional needs
have been fulfilled (Allen and Wilson, 2008). Given the focus on
smallholder farms, growing crops without genetic modification,
and local decisions regarding food, nutritious foods are an
expected outcome of food sovereignty, even though they are not
highlighted as the focus. Implicitly, better nutrition comes as a
part of improved human capital (Pretty et al., 2003). Finally, food
aid is called into question in relation to its effects on safety,
nutrition and cultural appropriateness, with donating countries or
organizations holding the decision making authority on what
foods are donated to fulfill food security needs.
3.4. Stability and environmental sustainability
Environmentally sustainable food systems are a broad objective
of food security, whereas the food sovereignty dialogue takes a
more focused perspective. A core component of food sovereignty is
“efficient farming systems and a fundamental shift towards agroe-
cology to boost production and improve the situation of the
poorest”, where agroecology is a core element and a mechanism
for ensuring sustainability and resilience to climate change (Altieri,
2009; Altieri et al., 2012; Patel, 2005). Agroecology approaches
including biological nitrogen fixation, seed saving and sustaining
landraces, reduced or zero-tillage, intercropping, and water harvest-
ing have been shown to bring substantive benefits to the rural poor,
and have even led to increased production in some developing
countries (Pretty et al., 2003). Several of the core elements or
principles of food sovereignty address major contributors to climate
change including deforestation for large-scale agricultural produc-
tion, and methane emissions from livestock production. The Alli-
ance for Food Sovereignty in Africa launched at the United Nations
Framework Convention for Climate Change meeting in Durban,
 A. Chaifetz, P. Jagger / Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91
South Africa in 2011 drew attention to the role of typical Green
Revolution approaches (e.g., high-yielding crop varieties, synthetic
fertilizers, and scaling-up of farming systems) as major contributors
to climate change (Gaia Foundation, 2011).
Despite the potential for agroecology-centered approaches to
facilitate climate change mitigation and adaptation, much of the
dialogue on food sovereignty completely sidesteps the challenge of
declining land, water, and agroecological potential in the face of
rapid population growth, economic gains, and urbanization. These
trends have serious implications for meeting future food demand,
particularly in the developing world where more than 90% of
population growth will occur in coming decades. Agroecology
proponents admit that it is uncertain if growing demand can be
met given persistent population growth and trends toward meat-
rich diets (Pretty et al., 2003).
4. Operationalizing and measuring food sovereignty
The achievement of food sovereignty is hampered by several
challenges related to articulation, operationalization, and mea-
surement of the concept. There is no “full-fledged food sovereignty
model;” the terminology of the movement lacks precision as well
as a strict definition (Windfuhr and Jonsén, 2005). Limited atten-
tion to definition, operationalization and measurement may be in
part due to the fact that the literature has rarely been crafted by
academics (Beuchelt and Virchow, 2012). The individuals (and
organizations) who write about food sovereignty are predomi-
nately activists and advocates, and sometimes journalists. Some
prominent academics have implicitly taken a strong position
against core food sovereignty principles. For example, Collier
(2008) refers to the “giants of romantic populism,” which include
the middle and upper class love affair with peasant/small-scale
agriculture and the fear of scientific uncertainty surrounding
genetically-modified foods. He is highly critical of the allure of
rural simplicity and, by extension, the food sovereignty movement.
Numerous papers and books written about food sovereignty
address its goals and principles (for example, community-building,
access to seeds and seed-saving, no transgenic crops) and how it is
expected that food systems will improve (Altieri et al., 2012; Pretty
et al., 2003; Rosset et al., 2011), but all-encompassing studies that
measure change towards concrete objectives are few. The deter-
mination of how food sovereignty would, or should, be measured
is critical to understanding its accomplishments. It is uncertain if
the principles of the movement are actually empirically tractable,
or if they would allow for different levels of success depending on
the country or region of study (Ellinger-Locke, 2011). Even small-
scale case studies struggle with how to define the “most efficient
farming system” (Altieri et al., 2012).
Several recent studies have explicitly examined food sover-
eignty movements including: the determinants of success of the
South Korean food sovereignty movement (Burmeister and Choi,
2011); the success of local communities rising up against indus-
trialized agriculture and the corresponding monocultures in Uru-
guay (Miller, 2008); a study of how the 14 Island members of the
Pacific Islands Forum lost much of their power to regulate
international trade under the WTO Trade-Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement and, in the process,
their food sovereignty (Plahe et al., 2013); and an examination of
how the ideas associated with food sovereignty (e.g., issues of
access, respect, food activism) have provided solutions to urban
food deserts in the United States (Block et al., 2012). These studies
suggest that there is scope for empirically studying food sover-
eignty, but the focus on food sovereignty as a movement suggests
that the concept is most salient as an agent of institutional change,
rather than a set of specific objectives to be met.
89
The question of whether food sovereignty is most effectively
employed as a normative concept is particularly salient given
current discussions in the global community on the right to food.
A human rights approach might be better at addressing future
challenges, given limited progress in World Trade Organization
agreements, environmental fallout from the Green Revolution, and
the obligation to provide food to all people (Schanbacher, 2010).
In its desire to combat social injustice, food sovereignty presents
an important challenge to the modern economic system (Fairbairn,
2012). The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge,
Science and Technology for Development solidified the impor-
tance of food sovereignty in the reports of its 3-year effort (2009).
Its rights-based normative framework depicted strengthening
farmers' associations and ending smallholder marginalization to
be of utmost importance for the future (Ishii-Eiteman, 2009).
5. Conclusion
We have reviewed the evolution of food sovereignty as a
concept and movement, and have asked how or if food sovereignty
can contribute to food security objectives. We conclude that food
sovereignty is an important normative concept, and may grow in
importance if policy makers accept the “right to food” discourse.
However, given international food policy objectives, including the
Millennium Development Goal to reduce worldwide hunger by
half by 2015, an attempt to massively restructure food and
agricultural input systems using the principles of food sovereignty
is a formidable challenge. To even consider food sovereignty when
so many people are hungry is a questionable maneuver (see
Collier's (2008) admonition of our love with peasant agriculture),
even if in select cases it leads to more equitable outcomes (e.g.,
community supported agriculture in the United States). Solutions
to global hunger must concentrate on feeding the world in the
most efficient and least expensive means possible, while giving
appropriate attention to equity, sustainability and safety issues. An
ardent promoter of food sovereignty, Rosset (2008) admits that in
an era of relatively high food prices, food sovereignty might not be
the answer. In the promotion of local goods rather than imported
ones, prices are likely to increase due to neglect of the gains from
trade (i.e. ignoring comparative advantage) and also due to
potential diseconomies of scale for small-scale agriculture.
The current state of global food policy is primarily structured
around the ability to provide for the world's increasing population
through the fostering of a new Green Revolution. The incorporation
of agroecology with large-scale food provision is possible, and even
promoted as part of a suite of new Green Revolution approaches
(Ejeta, 2010), though the food sovereignty movement would need
strengthening at many levels to overcome the large number of
powerful stakeholders working towards more traditional Green
Revolution technologies and approaches (Holt-Gimen ́ ez and Altieri,
2013). Nevertheless, applying the ideals of food sovereignty to the
goals of global food security allows for a more community-driven
system of distribution, access, and consumption of food—or at least
more concern for it. With most of the world focused on food
security, the food sovereignty literature and movement recognize
that food security policies fail to touch on what people actually
deserve or have a right to, but also that the goals rely on and were
created with the incorporation of agricultural subsidies, transgenic
crops, and industrial farming.
We also explored how food sovereignty has been approached
from an analytical perspective. The origins and tenor of both
writing and events surrounding food sovereignty suggest that it
is an advocacy oriented movement rather than a policy objective
that could be implemented and evaluated in any meaningful way.
Studies focusing on the specific outcomes of food sovereignty are
90 A. Chaifetz, P. Jagger / Global Food Security 3 (2014) 85–91
limited, in part because it is a concept lacking specific definition or
analytical framework. Further, we conclude that the movement
would benefit from separating the wants and needs of urban and
rural populations, as well as the particulars of developing versus
developed nations. Mapping the constraints and market failures
that apply in rural versus urban and developed versus developing
country settings using a food sovereignty lens is necessary if food
sovereignty is to extend its reach beyond normative dimensions.
Without a set of criteria or a method to measure its successes and
failures in these disparate contexts, food sovereignty cannot
garner the attention it needs from policy makers, academics, and
practitioners around the world.
In sum, the food sovereignty movement fights against the
globalization of food and resources due to negative effects on
health and the environment, condemning any systems that pro-
mote transgenic crops, endorse industrial agriculture, displace
individuals due to political conflict, and marginalize women and
ethnically and racially-diverse communities. The implementation
of all of the food sovereignty principles in any particular region or
country has yet to be realized, despite the efforts of individuals
and organizations working towards the goal. Given the limited
traction of food sovereignty in global food policy discourse over
the past several decades, its proponents should consider reposi-
tioning and perhaps re-branding food sovereignty so that it is
complementary rather than contrary to the actions, actors, and
institutions that govern contemporary global food systems.
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