Food Sovereignty Focuses on Food For People

Focuses on Food for People

For the pamphlet in full-colour PDF to download and distribute, click here.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY:

• Puts people’s need for food at the centre of policies

• Insists that food is more than just a commodity.

Food Sovereignty emphasizes that food is central to community as well as personal health.

René, Toronto, Ontario

“My name is René. I’m a single mother of two children, a person with multiple disabilities, and an advocate for food security in Ontario. I speak out about poverty, and barriers that prevent so many people in my community from accessing the good food we need to be healthy. It has not always been this way. Before I became involved with The Stop Community Food Centre I was isolated and depressed. At The Stop I was not only able to access healthy food, but the centre also helped me find my voice. I now work to connect other community members to the services they need, help to organize events, and work to reduce poverty and increase access to healthy food in Ontario. My food security work is as vital to my social, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being as having access to nutritional foods.”

• In 2004, 1.1 million Canadian households experienced moderate or severe food insecurity.

• The second largest group of food bank clients (13.1%) in Canada are people with jobs. Due to low-wage incomes, they are unable to meet basic needs for themselves and their families, even with full-time jobs. 


• Low income families suffer from poor health, both in the short and long term, as a result of food insecurity.

Food Sovereignty gives the priority to food for people over industry.

Kalissa Regier, Laird, Saskatchewan

The large-scale industrial production of fuel from crops is an affront to food sovereignty. ‘Agrofuels’ have been called a crime against humanity. Nevertheless, many governments have set mandatory targets for biofuels content in gasoline and diesel, believing this to be an effective way to contribute to greenhouse gas reductions. in the Global South, the result has been deforestation and small farmers driven off their lands to make way for large scale monoculture plantations.

Kalissa Regier, farm leader with the National Farmers Union and member of the international movement La Via Campesina says: “Agrofuel crops are replacing a large percentage of food production. There are 1.5 billion hectares of arable land in the world, and now 10% of that – 120 million hectares—is already being used to grow agrofuels.”

• Canadian Bill C-33 (adopted 2008) amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, requiring 5% average renewable content in gasoline by 2010, and 2% biodiesel content in diesel and heating oil by 2012. The new law is accompanied by $2.2 billion in subsidies.

• Ethanol does not perform as well as ordinary gasoline, its emissions are not cleaner, and biofuels are contributing to massive deforestation and Greenhouse gas emissions.

• Agrofuels are partly responsible for the doubling or even tripling of staple foods worldwide, increasing hunger.

Food Sovereignty is good public policy.

Carlos Henrique, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Carlos Henrique is the manager of the Popular Restaurant in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. He is a civil servant, implementing the city’s food policy which includes operating restaurants where healthy low cost meals are offered. A typical lunch meal of rice, beans, meat, vegetables, salad, and fruit (or juice) costs R$1.00 (about US$0.45). The three restaurants currently running serve over 15,000 meals per day. Carlos says:

“Our secret is the ethics in our work, respect for the people we serve, a philosophy of work dedicated to the neediest population of the city, those who never had access or rights to anything… We wanted to show something new, something which would be ahead of its time from a social and democratic perspective. ... We wanted to show the country that it was possible to do something of this nature, a good public enterprise”.

Belo Horizonte has effectively eliminated hunger in the city. They have:

• 75% decline in severe malnutrition among children between 1993 and 1998

• 72.6% decline in under-5 child mortality rate between 1993 and 2005

• 59.2% decline in infant mortality rate between 1993 and 2005