Abstract
This paper explores the tensions between two disparate approaches to addressing hunger worldwide: Food security and food sovereignty. Food security generally focuses on ensuring that people have economic and physical access to safe and nutritious food, while food sovereignty (or food justice) movements prioritize the right of people and communities to determine their agricultural policies and food cultures. As food sovereignty movements grew out of critiques of food security initiatives, they are often framed as conflicting approaches within the wider literature. This paper explores this tension, arguing that food security is based on a particular model of justice, distributive justice, which limits the sovereignty and autonomy of communities as food producers and consumers. In contrast, food sovereignty movements view food security as a necessary part of food sovereignty, but ultimately insufficient for creating food sustainable communities and limiting wider harms. Rather than viewing food security and food sovereignty as in conflict, we argue that food sovereignty’s justice framework both encompasses and entails justice claims that guide food security projects.
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Notes
Note: this chapter draws on and expands some of the ideas in our short chapter (Murdock and Noll (2015)).
Although it should be noted here that, as food sovereignty definitions arise out of local food movements, this definition could shift depending on the context and which specific movement we focus on. However, with this being said, La Via Campesina’s definition is often identified as one of the most widely accepted definitions of this term. With this being said, a common thread running through definitions of food sovereignty is that they place a wide-range of other issues above trade policies.
The following analysis provides a general discussion of Indigenous methodologies and not is not meant to provide a detailed analysis of specific traditions, as this is beyond the scope of this paper. Specifically, the intention of this section is to begin a discussion, as this paper focuses on theoretical justice frameworks.
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Noll, S., Murdock, E.G. Whose Justice is it Anyway? Mitigating the Tensions Between Food Security and Food Sovereignty. J Agric Environ Ethics 33, 1–14 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-019-09809-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-019-09809-9