Mind! > Books and films

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18 April 2017

Human Rights and the Food Sovereignty Movement: Reclaiming Control

Priscilla Claeys. 2015. Routledge. 210 pages. ISBN: 978-1138793019
While the negative impacts from land grabbing, speculation with agricultural commodities, agrofuels and climate change become increasingly evident, the policies that have created these problems have not faltered in their march. At the same time, social movements that challenge policies and practice that undermine food sovereignty are on the rise. This book enriches our understanding of the relevance of the transnational agrarian movement, La Via Campesina. She takes stock of the achievements, such as mobilising a human rights discourse in the struggle against neoliberalism. This is a useful read for anyone engaged in the debate around the ‘right to food’.


Fertile Ground: Scaling Agroecology from the Ground Up

Brescia, Steve (Ed). 2017. Food First.

Agroecology is our best option for transitioning to food and farming systems capable of nurturing people, societies, and the planet. Yet how do we amplify and spread agroecology to achieve that goal? Fertile Ground: Scaling Agroecology from the Ground Up, a new book edited by Groundswell International Executive Director Steve Brescia and published by Food First, addresses that question. It offers nine case studies, authored by practitioners from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Europe, that demonstrate how agroecological innovation can be deepened, spread to ever growing numbers of farmers, and integrated into social movements and policy.

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“Getting into a bind” how the trade and investment regime blocks the development of agroecology and access to land

Natalia Carrau and Martin Drago, Friends of the Earth International. 2016. 20 pages

The notion that trade and investment agreements are designed to generate profits for the agroindustry has long been denied by its proponents. This report reveals how current strategies to raise investment in agriculture are likely to hinder the amplification of agroecology as a means of achieving food sovereignty. By contrasting a food system based on agribusiness with one based on agroecology, this publication highlights the different impacts of these two models. This report also offers several practical recommendations about how to get around detrimental trade and investment and to support the consolidation of agroecology as a viable alternative to agribusiness.

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Connecting smallholders to markets: An analytical guide

Civil Society Mechanism. 2016. 46 pages.

Territorial markets benefit society at large. Not only are they more profitable for small scale producers and for local economies than global agrivalue chains, but they also foster sustainability and strengthen social cohesion and culture rooted in tradition. This publication is the fruit of two years of collective efforts by the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) working group. This analytical guide examines how small scale farmers and civil society organisations can advocate for the implementation of national and regional policies and programmes that support territorial markets. This e-book is also available in Spanish and French.

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Food, Agriculture and Social Change: The Everyday Vitality of Latin America.

Stephen Sherwood, Alberto Arce, Myriam Paredes (Eds). 2017. Routledge,
256 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1138214989

In recent years, food studies has tended to focus on a number of increasingly abstract, largely unquestioned concepts with regard to how capital, markets and states organise and operate. This has led to a gap between public policy and people’s realities with food as experienced in homes and on the streets. Through grounded case studies in seven Latin American countries, this book explores how development and social change in food and agriculture are fundamentally experiential, contingent and unpredictable. In viewing development in food as a socio-political material experience, the authors reveal a multiplicity of processes and creativity found in households, neighbourhoods and social networks. People diversely meet their food needs and passions while confronting the region’s most pressing social, health and environmental concerns. Read also the article ‘The vitality of everyday food‘ (Farming Matters, April 2017).


More on food sovereignty

Towards Food sovereignty: reclaiming autonomous food systems by Michel Pimbert (2009), filled with photos, video and audio clips, makes the case for locally-controlled and diverse food systems, and highlights different examples of how people are promoting food sovereignty. Another comprehensive overview that balances problems and solutions is the edited book, Food and democracy: Introduction to food sovereignty (2011). Land grabbing and land concentration by Sylvia Kay (2016) discusses how young and aspiring farmers in Europe face barriers to entry into the farming sector. She also outlines the implications for food sovereignty of the steep decline in the number of small farms in Europe. Cultivating Gender Justice by Food First (2017) explores why dismantling sexism and patriarchy in the food system, in the food movement, in our organizations, and among ourselves is fundamental to transforming the food system.

Besides books, there are also a number of web-based and multimedia resources on food sovereignty. The Nyéléni Newsletter is the voice of the international food sovereignty movement and provides space for individuals and organisations to exchange and share information. Food for thought serves a similar purpose for the European movement. Food for thought and action: A food sovereignty curriculum (PDF) (2009) is an educational tool for activists seeking to strengthen the food sovereignty movement.

In film, The Land for our food (2016) is a documentary that shows how accessing land has proved to be a barrier to improving our food system in Europe and provides a range of practical experiences in the quest for land for agroecological farming. The short clip, Towards a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (2016) describes the main issues and the process behind working towards the declaration on the rights of peasants in the UN. This film can be viewed in seven different languages. ‘Anachasho’ Food of the wilds (2014) provides a peak into collective harvesting of uncultivated forest foods in India and what this means for food sovereignty. Food sovereignty football (2013) makes for a good laugh while exposing the uneven playing field between family farmers and transnational corporations in Britain. Also in Europe, the animated film The Missing Option: Food Sovereignty (2011) portrays the fight of countless individuals and organisations for a Common Agricultural Policy reform based on the principles of food sovereignty. And, Seeds of Sovereignty (2013) tells an inspiring story of African farming communities and organisations reviving traditional seed diversity across the continent and taking back control over their food systems. This short film is the second instalment in the Seeds of Freedom trilogy.

There are more resources than we are able to mention here. A longer list of books, reports and websites can be found on the Agroecology Land Trust website