In a FIAN Publication, Winfur and Jonsén argue on the political weight of the concept of food sovereignty. The focus on social movement and autonomy provides a distinctive feature of food sovereignty in comparison to food security, which they observe as to provide technical guidelines.
Similar to food security, food sovereignty consists of an overarching claim. At the World Food Summit in 1996 the concept of food
sovereignty was launched by the international movement
La Via Campesina as:
The right of each nation to maintain and develop their own capacity to produce foods that are crucial to national and community food security, respecting cultural diversity and diversity of production methods.
According to the 2007 Declaration of Nyéléni, food sovereignty encompasses:
The right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies. Food sovereignty means the primacy of people’s and community’s rights to food and food production, over trade concerns.
Recently, a special issue on Food Sovereignty is published in the journal of Globalization. The issue includes some interesting topics, such as:
- Translating the Politics of Food Sovereignty: Digging into Contradictions, Uncovering New Dimensions
- The Land Question in the Food Sovereignty Project
- Competing Sovereignties, Contested Processes: Insights from the Venezuelan Food Sovereignty Experiment
- Sovereignty at What Scale? An Inquiry into Multiple Dimensions of Food Sovereignty
- Food Sovereignty in Everyday Life: Toward a People-centered Approach to Food Systems