Dawn Morrison, coordinator of the B.C. Food Systems Network – Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty and Comprehensive Community Planning Coordinator with the Neskonlith Indian Band in Secwepemc˙l’ecw (land of the Shuswap)
By Joanne Wadden
Briarpatch Magazine
September/October 2010
Food is political. It may be used as a lens to discuss issues of power and resistance, sustainability and social justice. Since the World Food Summit of 1996, global social movements have grown to use food justice as an organizing principle to challenge global capitalism and its negative effects on food systems. Both food security and food sovereignty are concepts that emerged from the 1996 Food Summit. The concept of indigenous food sovereignty represents a policy approach that extends the concept of food security through honouring the wisdom and values of indigenous knowledge in maintaining responsible relationships with the land.
While the meaning of these concepts continues to evolve, food security, as defined at the 1996 Food Summit, exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” While food security emphasizes access to, as well as availability and utilization of food, Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and scholar, emphasizes that food security does not address issues of food production and food distribution, such as who grows the food. Food sovereignty, on the other hand, addresses these omissions because it arose from a global peasants’ organization, La Vía Campesina, that seeks to foster local food security “from below,” through de-linking from a dependency on globalized food networks. Indigenous food sovereignty specifically addresses the protection, conservation and restoration of indigenous food systems. Read the rest of this entry »
