Food Sovereignty: Fixing the Broken Food System
An Interactive Education Workshop

Grassroots International (lead organization presenting this proposal) with National Family Farm Coalition*, Rural Coalition*, Federation of Southern Cooperatives*, Food & Water Watch, Food First, World Hunger Year, Friends of the Earth-USA, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Action Aid-USA are pleased to submit this proposal for an educational workshop on Food Sovereignty. This is one of a slate of 4 related proposals on food sovereignty.

* Includes member organizations.

The workshop will be led by Corrina Steward and Ginger Nickerson (Grassroots International) with participation by Jessica Roe (National Family Farm Coalition) and Patty Lovera (Food & Water Watch).

Food Sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labor, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies.

The global expansion of transnational agribusiness, promoted by governments and neoliberal free trade agreements, increasingly denies communities around the world their rights by undermining family farms that have traditionally satisfied communities’ food needs. U.S. agriculture and trade polices in large part shape and dictate these international policies. Thus, the U.S. Farm Bill and trade agreements like NAFTA have a dramatic impact on what and whether people eat, the health of the environment and rural communities, and the very existence of family farmers and peasants both in the U.S. and around the globe. As U.S. based organizations and members of the U.S. Food Sovereignty and Building Sustainable Futures for Farmers Globally campaigns, we are convinced that bringing a global perspective on food and small producer issues to U.S. communities is critical to discussions about U.S. farm and trade policies. “Farm Policy is Foreign Policy!”

Only recently, are small producers, farm workers, rural and urban poor, human rights defenders, international development and environmental organizations understanding how their issues are linked and how corporate-favored government programs and trade policies perpetuate unjust land, water and food access, use and control. The Via Campesina, World March of Women, World Forum of Fisher Peoples, World Forum of Fish harvesters and Fish workers, Friends of the Earth International, Food & Water Watch recently organized and hosted the World Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali, West Africa.

The workshop will engage key U.S. audiences in grappling with the concept of food sovereignty. We seek to motivate their participation in a strong coalition to reform U.S. food and agricultural policies to embody citizens’ rights to decide how and where their food is produced, with first rights to local and regional markets for family farmers, fair prices, and responsible stewardship of commons resources.

The goal of the workshop is to:

Educate people about the concept of food sovereignty as an alternative vision rooted in social justice and sustainability
Reflect on how U.S. agricultural and trade policies undermine food sovereignty for people all over the world
Envision collectively how we can act together to change those policies and support food sovereignty
Obtain input from participants on the effectiveness of the exercises

The workshop directly addresses many of the cross-cutting themes of the USSF including neoliberalism and corporate globalization by focusing on U.S. agricultural and trade policies that are neoliberal and support corporate globalization. It provides an internationalist and solidarity perspective by focusing on the challenges faced by U.S. and global South producers including family farmers and farmworkers. It supports movement building by seeking to educate U.S. audiences and enlisting their support for the global movement for food sovereignty which is rooted in social justice and sustainability.

The workshop seeks to reach out to an audience that comprises various sectors including family farmers and farm workers, consumers’ organization members and food activists, hunger activists including members of faith-based and international development organizations, and members of environmental and sustainable agriculture organizations, students and others who are interested in learning more about these issues.

The workshop will include a food sovereignty factsheet and two exercises, one that is reflective (e.g., how are you affected by industrialized food) and one that is action-oriented (e.g., what you can do) that participants will be asked to engage in through group work.

Grassroots International has been working on developing education-for-action curricula on a range of issues. It has worked with the National Family Farm Coalition and Food & Water Watch to develop this curriculum and workshop.