International Conference examines New Questions Concerning Food Sovereignty in Global North and South

A fundamentally contested concept, food sovereignty has — as a political project and campaign, an alternative, a social movement and an analytical framework — made a significant impact in global agrarian discourse over the last two decades.

Since then, it has inspired and mobilized diverse publics: workers, scholars and public intellectuals, farmers and peasant movements, NGOs and human rights activists in the North and global South. The term has become a challenging subject for social science research, and has been interpreted and reinterpreted in a variety of ways by various groups and individuals. Broadly defined, it refers to the right of peoples to democratically control or determine the shape of their food system, and to produce sufficient and healthy food in culturally appropriate and ecologically sustainable ways in and near their territory.

From 14 to 15 September, leading scholars and political activists convened at Yale University and engaged in a critical and productive dialogue on the issue. The event – a conference titled  “Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue” – was sponsored by the Program in Agrarian Studies and the Journal of Peasant Studies, with the South Asia Studies Council serving as a local sponsor. Papers and panels examined food sovereignty in conjunction with a wide array of issues such as race, class and ethnicity in North America, gender relations and human rights, traditions of food production and consumption, technology, climate change, globalization, trade, and the role of the state.  

The conference had a particular interest for South Asia scholars since these issues are of paramount interest for understanding socioeconomic change in India and other South Asian countries. Bina Agarwal from Manchester University drew on examples from South Asia to address potential contradictions between efforts to achieve food security and the exercise of democratic choice by farmers. Karine Peschard from The Graduate Institute in Geneva addressed the issue of farmers’ rights & food sovereignty in India. Sejuti Dasgupta from the School of Oriental and African Studies presented a paper comparing the politics of agricultural policy in two Indian states of Gujarat and Chhattisgarh. Dwijen Rangnekar of the University of Warwick spoke about the relationship between farmers’ rights and corporate agriculture in India. Kasia Paprocki (Cornell University) and Jason Cons (Bucknell University) discoursed on food sovereignty with reference to Bangladesh’s Coastal Landscape.

Amita Baviskar from the Institute of Economic Growth in New Delhi and a conference participant makes the following reflections on why the topic is of special importantance for South Asia:

“Despite exponential increases in agricultural production around the world in the last 50 years, billions of people still remain without secure access to food.  Our continuing inability to meet this basic biological need and human right shows that there are political and economic processes at work that keep this conundrum alive.  Food sovereignty is a powerful idea that resolves this impasse by placing control over food into the hands of those who need it the most, especially those who grow it for subsistence.  Changing how food is produced and how agricultural resources like land and water are managed is crucial if we want to ensure greater welfare and equity in the world.

India, a country where half a billion people live with chronic hunger and malnutrition, needs food sovereignty urgently.  Several social movements are engaged in rethinking agrarian practices, from resisting GMO seeds to reviving traditional crop varieties, so that farmers are less dependent on chemical- and credit-intensive inputs that have led to the spate of farmer suicides across the country.  While these campaigns focus on how food is produced, others concentrate on changing how it is distributed.  With rising urbanization, more and more people depend on buying food; ensuring that they can afford to do so is an important part of food sovereignty.  The Indian state and metropolitan elites have ambitions of making the state a global superpower.  Without food sovereignty and security, superpower status will be a tawdry illusion.”    

The conference began with opening remarks by James C. Scott, Co-Director of the Yale University Agrarian Studies Program. The keynote addresses were delivered by Paul Nicholson (La Via Campesina), Teodor Shanin (The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences), Bina Agarwal (Manchester University, UK) and Olivier de Schutter (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food).

This year is also the 20th anniversary of La Via Campesina and the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies, which made the critical dialogues in the conference all the more timely.