There is a distinction between ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty’. LASC understands the latter to describe in more depth the ideal situation for all countries to obtain in the long term, as it goes further in pinpointing how food should be produced and by whom.

Food security according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): implies that all people have at all times physical and economic access to the basic foodstuffs that they require, and that there should be stability in the supply, an adequate amount of food and that it should reach those who need it. There are however many difficulties with the idea of access as the ability to purchase imported food can fluctuate dramatically when prices rise or currencies are devalued. Relying on imported food does not give the consumer or a community real control and ownership over what they can consume. Additionally a huge amount of both energy and food is wasted in this exportation process. While the precedence for this situation is as old as the coffee and sugar plantations of early colonial Latin America, the fact that Irish (and other developed world) consumers enjoy a convenient, cheap, varied, year round supply of food from around the world is a huge contributory factor in the perpetuation of food a commodity. The term ‘food sovereignty’ goes beyond simple matters of access.  A basic understanding of this term is the ‘right that every national collective has to decide the what, how and when to sow or raise with a view to guarantee an adequate diet to its members according to their own cultural characteristics’. In March 2007 however this definition was extended when 800 peasant organisations met at the World Forum of Food Sovereignty in Nyeleni, Mali.

Nyeleni declared

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisan fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations.[1]

In essence Nyeleni declared food sovereignty to be a holistic approach not just to agriculture but to the world and the socio economic relations that exist in it as the following five point summary of Nyeleni published by the Guatemalan organizations, Instituto de Estudios Agrarios y Rurales and Congcoop –Coordinacion de ONG y Cooperativas, / NGO and Cooperatives Coordination, Guatemala-  explains.

1. Local and national economies and markets are given priority as well direct forms of exchange between producers and consumers.
2. The food systems, agriculture, pasture and fishing are controlled by the local producers.  This is order that the food systems and policies are developed around those who produce, distribute and consume food over and above the demands of the markets and the corporations.
3. Indigenous and peasant knowledge and practice is valued protecting the original biodiversity, using appropriate technology to develop a productive sustainable and autonomous model.
4. An integral agrarian reform is implemented that guarantees the rights of peasants and indigenous people’s access to and control over the land and territory in autonomous fashion with a social community focus.
5. People live socio–productive relations free from oppression and inequality so that all peoples can live with dignity in their work and can have the opportunity to live in their places of origin.[2]

A key organisation in the movement for Food Sovereignty is Via Campesina. This global alliance of peasant and family farm organizations has spent the past decade perfecting an alternative proposal for how to structure a country’s food system, called Food Sovereignty.

This holistic approach to food sovereignty, which questions the sustainability of our agricultural practices will be reflected in the content of LASC’s programme as LASC will look at the alternatives to imported and processed food in Ireland as well as Latin America.