Food Sovereignty and Causes of Hunger

Food sovereignty is often defined as the the right of peoples and
sovereign states to democratically determine their own agricultural
and food policies.

Its an idea that informs the recent international assessment of "Agriculture at a Crossroads," which I mentioned last fall.

Though the principles of food sovereignty come from the international Via Campesina movement, some of them will look very familiar to U.S. food advocates: "Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices." Other principles include agrarian reform, democratic control and ending the globalization of hunger. (see Wikipedia)

One piece that caught my attention in the report, "Food Sovereignty: Towards democracy in localized food systems," by Michael Windfuhr and Jennie Jonsén of FIAN-International was the list of "major causes of hunger and barriers to rural poverty reduction":

National

1. Marginalization
• remoteness (from cities/markets and infrastructure)
• fragile environmental conditions (soil quality, access to irrigation water, steep slopes, etc.)
• access to services (agricultural extension services, credit, storage facilities, market access, etc.)

2. Access to productive resources and land policy
• security of land tenure vs. concentration of land
• access to land for landless people, pastoralists and smallholder farmers
• access to water and fishing grounds
• access to agricultural biodiversity

3. Budget allocation

4. Rural employment
• labour regulations
• employment guarantee schemes

5. Other policy areas
• attracting foreign direct investment
• privatization of essential services
• extractive industries
• HIV/Aids

International

1. Prices / dumping
• export subsidies and similar forms of surplus disposal (e.g. food aid)
• ‘acquired’ comparative advantages
• other forms of market distortion

2. Markets
• concentration of companies
• imperfect competition (monopolies, etc.)

3. Policy space
• conditionalities concerning budget allocations, land policies, extractive industry regulations, macro-economic guidance
• possibilities of increasing regulation of corporations in the context of strong ‘negotiation power of companies’