Here is an update from ILEIA. Earlier this year we informed you about the closing down of ILEIA on July 1st 2017, which became inevitable due to an unexpected shortfall of funds. During the past seven months we have been working hard to hand over the ILEIA legacy to our colleagues in the AgriCultures Network (AN) and to many others. This process is still ongoing but our office in Wageningen is closed now. We thought you might be interested in receiving an update. Please share this message with people in your networks whom we may not have reached yet.

A vibrant Network and a new Secretariat
The AgriCultures Network has seized this moment as an opportunity to create a new Secretariat in Dakar and move ILEIA’s legacy into new spaces. The new Secretariat, hosted by IED Afrique, supports the AN Management Team in streamlining the Network transition in cooperation with the former board chair and director of ILEIA. The Network is preparing a perspective plan for the coming three years and is seeking funding for it. It welcomes new members and associates to join the Network.

Magazines of the future
The AN will launch a new digital magazine platform in 2018. This platform will build on ILEIA’s global magazine Farming Matters and on the strong local roots of the regional magazines. It will help the AN to reach more diverse audiences more frequently and at a lower cost. The AN’s team of editors, working across languages, cultures and continents, is getting set for the next step in the collective journey of knowledge building and sharing. The magazine will thus become an integral part of a broader strategy that links the systematisation of concrete agroecological experience with advocacy, education and science. We are all looking forward to this new adventure.

ILEIA’s library is moving to Northern Ghana
The ILEIA library collection, consisting of more than 12000 publications on sustainable and organic agriculture, food and agroecology, is all set for its journey from Wageningen to Northern Ghana. We agreed with Professor Millar, founder of Millar’s Open University (MOU) in Bolgatanga and an alumnus of Wageningen University, that MOU would be a great new home for ILEIA’s unique collection. Professor Millar expects a warm interest among students. The arrival of the library in Bolgatanga will be a good occasion to organise a seminar on the experiences in dryland farming in Ghana and other countries in the region, and to draw lessons for practice and policy. We have requested the Netherlands Embassy in Accra to support this initiative.

And for all people living outside Bolgatanga: we are presently updating ILEIA’s digital library. In the process we found a number of rare and interesting publications which are not yet digitally available. The Wageningen University library has kindly agreed to include some 25 of these publications in their digital collection. Thank you WUR for making these publications available to a wide audience!

Cultivate!
A new organisation Cultivate! has been started by some of ILEIA’s former staff. The aim is to build on ILEIA’s legacy, but with a stronger focus on Europe in a global context. Cultivate! sees a potential for a Europe-wide collaborative communication, learning and advocacy strategy for the amplification of agroecology and food sovereignty. The Cultivate! team plans to systematise successful initiatives in food and farming in order to draw lessons for practice and policy, connect different actors, support dynamic learning and use creative communication tools to share the resulting insights.

And finally…
Your encouraging reactions during the past half year made it clear to us that ILEIA has meant many positive things to many people. Over the years it has had a real impact on the lives of thousands of farm families, fieldworkers, scientists, students, consumers, policymakers and other citizens in different parts of the world. Thank you for sharing your diverse and interesting experiences!

We feel sad to say farewell to ILEIA as an organisation but we are glad that its legacy is alive and kicking. “Sometimes it is good to move on and start a new chapter and find new spaces”, said one of our friends. With gratitude we hand over the ILEIA legacy to our colleagues in the AgriCultures Network and to other friends and allies in different parts of the world. Our special thanks go to the many farmers and fieldworkers who shared so many insights with us over the years. We also thank Sida (Swedish International Development Agency) which supported us financially for over a decade but had to end the funding relationship with ILEIA due to the refugee crisis in 2015-2016. Lastly, we thank the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for giving ILEIA the space to identify, share and amplify practical experiences in agroecology and family farming over a period of more than twenty-five years. There are many more inspirators, allies, authors, champions, farmer philosophers, former ILEIA staff, interns, volunteers, board members and funders whom we would like to thank; they are too many to name them all.

We look forward to seeing you again, in a new constellation!

With warm regards,

for ILEIA…
Edith van Walsum (former director) em.van.walsum@gmail.com
Bram Huijsman (former chair of the Supervisory Board) bramwerk65@gmail.com
www.ileia.org

for the Agricultures Network…
the AN Management Team:
Bara Gueye baragueye@iedafrique.org
Paulo Petersen paulo@aspta.org.br
KVS Prasad leisaindia@yahoo.co.in
www.agriculturesnetwork.org

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Turkey

Food versus the big city of Istanbul by Sevgi Ortaç

South Korea

Food sovereignty: taking root in women’s knowledge by Hyo Jeong Kim

Italy

Human-centered agriculture fighting exploitation and racism by Ibrahim Diabate, Nino Quaranta

Argentina

Educating peasant youth to defend their freedom by Belén Arenas

Global

Interview with Ramona Duminicioiu: “Food sovereignty is about peasants’ rights” by Tomas Uhnák

Northern Europe

Farmers in focus: Building food sovereignty around fresh fish by Elisabeth S. Olsen

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Various authors, 2016. Transnational Institute, 16 pages.

Small scale food producers and consumers, including peasants, indigenous peoples, hunters and gatherers, family farmers, rural workers, herders and pastoralists, fisherfolk and urban people – the frontline communities – are increasingly confronted by the grabbing of natural resources and systematic violations of human rights. Already pushed to the fringe, these communities additionally face the increasingly frequent natural disasters and impacts of climate destruction that are caused by climate change. The purpose of this report is to amplify the voices of frontline communities and to share the political messages of the 16 social movement leaders with the masses who form the base of social movements all over the world. More than twenty groups from across the globe have contributed to the writing of the report.

Agroecology: the bold future of farming in Africa

Michael Farrelly, G. Clare Westwood & Stephen Boustred (Eds.), 2016. AFSA & TOAM, 88 pages.

There is an avalanche of evidence coming from almost everywhere in the world that agroecology works; this is Africa’s contribution. This compilation of successful stories of agroecology makes a strong statement demonstrating that Africa can feed itself through caring for its environment, using its rich cultural knowledge, and supported by relevant science and technology. The case studies address themes including: food for nutrition and health; increasing incomes, improving livelihoods; regeneration, restoration and biodiversity; valuing local knowledge and innovation; and tackling climate change and building resilience. Next to the case studies, the synthesis-style contributions from Million Belay, Elizabeth Mpofu and Lim Li Ching, to name a few, make a strong connection between local case studies and global impacts.

Comic book: Together we can cool the planet

La Via Campesina, Grain, 2016. 22 pages.

Based on the video, Together we can cool the planet!, co-produced by La Vía Campesina and GRAIN in 2015, they created a comic book to support training activities of social movements and civil society organisations around climate change. This comic book looks at how the industrial food system impacts our climate and also explains what we can do to change course and start cooling the planet. The refreshing combination of fun graphics with minimal text delivers a clear message: it is peasants and small farmers, along with consumers who choose agroecological products from local markets, who hold the solution to the climate crisis.

Climate change and food systems: Assessing impacts and opportunities

Meredith Niles, Jimena Esquivel, Richie Ahuja, Nelson Mango, et al., 2017. Meridian Institute, 83 pages.

This report was prepared to coincide with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food’s second international dialogue. It reviews key literature about how food and agriculture affect climate change and how climate change is affecting food systems. It illustrates how a food systems approach to climate change adaptation and mitigation can drive positive changes and inform decision making to avoid unintended effects from narrowly targeted interventions. This report aims to offer practical steps for immediate action while new research, decision-support tools, governance mechanisms, and their efforts are pursued to support the broader transformation that is urgently needed for sustainable food systems and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Planning and implementing climate change responses in the context of uncertainty

Susannah Fisher, Ben Garside, Marissa Van Epp et al., 2016. IIED, 44 pages.

Significant uncertainties around future climate change challenge the implementation of policies and programmes. Mobilising action that can respond to climate change and be flexible enough to learn from new experiences as well as adapt to unknowns is difficult, given traditional short-term timeframes, sector silos and the predominantly top-down nature of planning cycles. Process-driven approaches, such as social learning, offer a more flexible approach to tackling climate uncertainties. These approaches place the emphasis on building the capacity, knowledge, evidence and stakeholder relationships necessary to support first shortterm and then longer-term decision making and action.

The Great Climate Robbery: How the food system drives climate change and what we can do about it

Henk Hobbelink (Ed.), 2015. Grain.

This book stems from the mounting data that shows how the industrial food system is a major driver of climate change and how food sovereignty is critical to any lasting and just solutions. With governments, particularly those from the main polluting countries, abdicating their responsibility to deal with the problem, it has become ever more critical for people to take action into their own hands. Changing the food system is perhaps the most important and effective place to start. The various articles on climate change selected for this book provide readers with solid information about how the industrial food system causes climate change, how food and agribusiness corporations are getting away with it and what can be done to turn things around. This book aims to help readers to better understand the ways in which corporations seek to increase their control over the food system so that this control can be more effectively challenged.

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ILEIA is in the process of handing over the Secretariat of the AgriCultures Network to our partner organisation, IED Afrique,in Senegal. Together with network partners in Peru, Brazil, Ethiopia and India, they will continue to build and share knowledge on agroecology and family farming.

Thank you to all our readers and authors for your ongoing support and contributions to ILEIA and Farming Matters.

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India

Pastoral parliament: a platform to be heard and seen by Monikka Argawal, Jessica Duncan

Global

Women pastoralists: neglected in the 21st century by Elizabeth Mpofu

Europe

Migrant shepherds sustain pastoralism in the Mediterranean by Michele Nori

Kenya

Youth and agriculture: Pastoralist youth as agents of peace by Willis Okumu

Tanzania

Interview: “Pastoralist women have the capacity to lead” by Madeleine Florin

Turkey

Pastoralists will see better days by ILEIA

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In the last 30 years, more and more people aredefending and promoting the right to control their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, and the policies that affect those systems. ‘Food sovereignty’ is a term that encapsulates this these efforts, and that has catalysed these social movements. It entails people’s control of natural resources and markets, including access to land, seeds and water, as well as fair prices for small scale producers. Food sovereignty holds the wellbeing and local knowledge of producers and consumers at the centre of food practices and policy. Importantly, it stipulates the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food, and values environmentally respectful production practices.

Food sovereignty is fundamentally different from food security. Food security vouches for the provision of sufficient food to feed a population, and access to that food through market mechanisms. However, food security does not necessarily include a consideration for where food comes from, the quality or type of food, or the conditions under which it is produced and distributed, including aspects of human rights. Food sovereignty does.

A brief history of food sovereignty

The principle of food sovereignty was first launched by La Via Campesina – an international peasants movement – in 1996 during the FAO World Food Summit which took place in Rome. This occurred at the same time as the first global coordination of food producers and civil society organisations was created (called International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty – IPC). In 2007, an alliance of social movements representing peasants and family farmers, artisanal fisher folk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, consumers, environmental and urban movements gathered in Mali to build a common understanding of food sovereignty, and to strengthen the global movement.

A matter of power

The importance of the global food sovereignty movement is growing as agribusiness gains economic and political power, and as industrial agriculture dominates world food produc-tion and consumption. This system has been support-ed and shaped by trade deals and international policy. Liberalised agricultural markets have benefited a small number of very large transnational companies who now dominate the supply of seeds, agrochemicals, processing, logistics and even food production. The mergers of Dow Chemical with DuPont, Syngenta with ChemChina, and if allowed, Monsanto with Bayer AG, will result in three companies controlling around 70% of the world’s agrochemicals and more than 60% of commercial seeds.

Everyday change

This concentration of power undermines the livelihoods of small scale farmers and producers across the supply chain, and moves those who do not farm ever further away from the sources of the food they eat. Industrialised food creates both a physical and a social distance between the consumer and the farmer. Nevertheless, as this issue of Farming Matters clearly demonstrates, change is occurring through the everyday practices and the powerful and diverse actions led by small scale food producers and (urban) citizens around the world.

Peasant farming versus industrial farming
 
Peasant and small scale agriculture is an integral part of food sovereignty and nutrition. According to the FAO, peasant agriculture provides around 70% of the food consumed globally, including the food consumed by the majority of those suffering from extreme hunger and malnutrition. Furthermore, it produces this food with just 30% of the resources and inputs used in agriculture. It uses around 20% of fossil fuels and 30% of water and is based on an enormous genetic diversity, using around 8000 livestock breeds and millions of plant varieties. Globally there are an estimated 1.5 billion peasant farmers, 800 million urban gardeners, 410 million people relying on forests or savannas as a primary source of food, 190 million pastoralists and over 100 million peasant fishers.
 
This is in stark contrast to industrial agriculture, which accounts for only 15% of the food that is traded internationally, but accounts for more than 80% of the fossil fuels and 70% of the water used in agriculture. It also uses a narrow genetic base of less than 100 livestock breeds and 150 plant specials. Nevertheless, the industrial agriculture sector benefits from the vast majority of funded research. 96% of all recorded food and agricultural research takes place in industrialised countries and 80% of that research is focused on industrial food processing and retailing.
 
Source: http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/web_who_will_feed_us_with_notes_0.pdf

More people around the world are starting to appreciate the role of food producers in society, and seek more direct relationships with them. Initiatives that support farmers’ markets, create community supported agriculture, seek the involvement of chefs and establish public purchasing arrangements are popping up everywhere. This issue describes several such experiences: for example how a fisherperson in the Faroes Islands organises to sell his fish directly to consumers , and how agricultural workers in Italy fight for dignified living and working conditions.

Food sovereignty in policy

Around the world, food sovereignty has been adopted as a political framework at the national level.  In 2008, Ecuador was the first country to instate food sovereignty in its constitution, although its implementation is flawed. Since then, other countries have followed including Senegal, Mali, Bolivia, Nepal, Venezuela, and most recently Egypt (2014). As the first country on the European continent, Switzerland is on its way to bring food sovereignty into national legislation.

Important change is also happening in international policy making around food and farming. The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the context of national food security is one such example. The food sovereignty movement, through the IPC, had a leading role in reforming the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). They did this by establishing the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) in 2009 a unique, autonomous and self-organised space for inclusive civil society participation in global governance of food security and nutrition. The Declaration on the Rights of Peasant Men and Women and Other People Living in Rural Areas is another breakthrough as an international human rights instrument to protect peasant food production. After 15 years of work, the declaration is close to being adopted by the UN. While these are very important steps, the meaningful implementation and use of these policies and frame-works by (sub)national governments remains a challenge and will continue to need monitoring and pressure.

Grassroots responses

The great significance of food sovereignty as a concept is that it has been developed and driven by the organisations of peasants and small scale food producers. Because of this, it is a self-organised, grassroots response to the dynamics of the global food system. In this issue of Farming Matters we show how in Korea women’s groups are fighting to keep their own seed, in Zimbabwe schools are turning their yards into edible forests, and in Brazil farmers are working with nature aiming to live in an autonomous, sustainable way. The latter story is a good illustration of how agroecology is a means of reaching food sovereignty. In our special section on Europe we show how urban dwellers in Turkey are organising around local food in a violent context through a struggle to keep urban gardens alive, and how the food sovereignty movement in Eastern Europe is overturning supermarkets with food hubs and coops.

All these initiatives shorten food chains and create new alliances between producers and consumers. Moreover, these initiatives are founded on principles of environmental and social responsibility. Clearly people around the world are starting to understand the multiple benefits of adopting responsible food practices, forming a major force for change.

Adam Payne (adam@organiclea.org.uk) is a farmer and member of the Land Workers Alliance and Stanka Becheva (stanka.becheva@foeeurope.org) is food and agriculture campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe.

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Introduction

Agriculture in Europe has long been characterised by a predominance of small scale family farms practicing different forms of peasant agriculture. This model is based on principles of community, diversity, and direct connections with consumers. The current context of land and market concentration has put European agriculture under severe financial and political pressure, but also gives rise to powerful initiatives for food sovereignty.

Squeezing out small scale producers

Europe’s small scale farms have shaped many of its characteristic landscapes, provided employment in rural areas, and developed the foods that inspired Europe’s culinary diversity. But Europe’s farmers are disappearing. Between 2003 and 2013 the European Union lost four million small farms, one third of its total, whilst in most member states, the number of farms of over 100 hectares doubled or even tripled. Although they represent only 3% of European farms, these large farms control 52% of agricultural land. The power of supermarkets is also growing. For example, in 2011 four retailers controlled 85% of the national food market in Germany and three retailers controlled 90% of the food market in Portugal (Nicholson and Young, 2012). National and European policy continue to favour these trends.

These recent trends have major impacts on food producers (including farmers, processors and vendors), consumers and the environment as small scale farmers and fishers are driven from the land and seas. Moreover, Europe is experiencing a massive reduction in agricultural diversity, an increase in labour exploitation in industrial food production and processing, and alarming losses to nature. These shifts are also coupled with unhealthy diets and the associated weight / obesity problems.

Emerging alternatives

The growing interest in food sovereignty around Europe can be understood in light of these social and structural changes. New awareness amongst European citizens of the power they have to drive change is expressed in emerging, innovative initiatives of producers and consumers. This awareness also takes the form of policy proposals, such as the recent European declaration on Community Supported Agriculture, promoted by Urgenci and the referendum in Switzerland to establish food sovereignty policy at a national level. Furthermore, the European movement for food sovereignty is growing.

A European movement

Inspired by the international Nyéléni movement for food sovereignty, a number of European social movements organised a similar process in Europe, seeking space to define actions and strategies to challenge the dominant forces of production and consumption. A major Nyéléni Europe forum took place in October 2016 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania with the presence of 500 delegates from more than 40 countries and 290 organisations. Participants included farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous people, consumers, trade unions, environmental, justice, solidarity, human rights organisations, community-based food movements, journalists and researchers. They shared experiences, built a common understanding of food sovereignty, developed joint actions, and prepared to influence key policies in Europe. Some of the most inspiring food sovereignty experiences in Europe are presented on the following pages.

Read the food sovereignty stories from Europe:

• Food versus the big city of Istanbul
• Resisting land grabbing in Germany
• Regaining trust: alternative food systems in the Czech Republic
• Human-centred agriculture fighting exploitation and racism

This section of the magazine was produced in collaboration with the Nyeleni Europe movement, with generous support from Friends of the Earth Europe and Misereor.

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Scroll down to read stories from Algeria, Australia, Switzerland and Colombia. 

Algeria

Innovation keeps tradition alive

Food sovereignty in marginal areas of the Maghreb has always depended on the conservation of tree diversity such as the fig tree in the Atlas chain and the date palm in the Sahara. For centuries, maintaining high agrobiodiversity has allowed peasants to adapt to their environment, extend the maturation period of their crops, and to develop a wide variety of flavours and uses for these crops (construction, crafts, medicine, etc.). However, this diversity is becoming increasingly threatened, as traditional crops lose ground to new eating habits. To tackle this situation, peasants in M’zab, a territory in the northern Sahara Desert and fig growers in Kabyle mountains in Algeria teamed up with scientists in a partnership facilitated by BEDE (Biodiversity Exchange and Dissemination of Experiences). Together, peasants and scientists are experimenting with technological and social innovations that range from expanding uses of traditional products (for example, new uses for fig vinegar) to experimenting with biological pest control agents. These efforts don’t just pay off for peasants and researchers. By revaluing their agricultural and food heritage, people in the oases of the Maghreb not only reclaim their food sovereignty but are also at the forefront of climate change adaptation.

For more information contact BEDE (bede@bede-asso.org)

Australia

Defending small scale farms

The rise of a movement of small scale farmers selling directly to consumers in Australia (and elsewhere) is being seriously challenged, and even hampered by national policy. Scale-inappropriate and outdated regulations and planning schemes discriminate against small scale farmers. For example, policy defines small, pastured pig and poultry farms as ‘intensive’ and they are subjected to the same requirements as giant sheds full of thousands of confined animals. In response to the need to defend small scale farmers, the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance has established a Legal Defence Fund, and crowdfunded nearly AUD$70,000 over the past year. More than AUD$7,000 has already been distributed to three farms in critical need of support as regulators forced them to stop farming. For example Happy Valley Free Range received support with her forced move to a property in another shire. A legal hotline that will provide urgent help to farmers is in the planning. The next step is to collate the known regulatory and planning barriers and commence writing and lobbying for reformed, scale-appropriate legislation to support a food sovereign future where growers of ethical and ecologically-sound produce can thrive.

For more information contact Mathias Stalder (tammois@gmail.com)

Switzerland

A popular vote on food sovereignty

It’s official! Swiss people will have the opportunity to decide whether food sovereignty is to be included in their constitution. Swiss direct democracy allows every citizen to initiate a popular citizens initiative. In 2014, Uniterre formed an alliance with 70 like-minded organisations to do this. Two years later the first two hurdles were passed. The process began with drafting a new constitutional article. The decision was made to ensure that the text was detailed enough to avoid misinterpretation that could accommodate existing laws. Ten points are proposed and these include banning GMOs, the right to cultivate and commercialise peasants seeds and, of particular importance for the milk sector, quantity and price regulation. After the text was accepted by the Federal Chancellery, hard-working and creative volunteers collected 109,000 valid signatures within 18 months to complete the submission. The path ahead is one of building more popular support. None of the major political parties dare support our vision of alternative production and trade. As the initiative committee member Fernand Chuche proclaimed during the handover of the signatures: “Discussions about production and consumption of foods have reached a turning point. And the absence of a credible message from the government leads to engagement of the people. This is a warning and a chance at the same time.”

For more information contact Mathias Stalder (m.stalder@uniterre.ch) or www.ernaehrungssouveraenitaet.ch.

Colombia

Farming for peace

The Agricultural Workers Union of Sumapaz is leading a process to constitute a Peasant Reserve Area (ZRC) in Sumapaz, part of greater Bogotá, Colombia. Aiming to build peace at the territorial level, this was born as an agricultural initiative to protect the world’s largest ‘páramo’ wilderness area and ensure a dignified life for peasants.

The community’s development plan for the Peasant Reserve Area seeks to protect and strengthen the peasant economy through agroecological production, phasing out the use of chemicals, monocultures and extensive cattle-raising. The plan also aims to enhance local collective action, and to forge links with the urban area of Bogotá as a way to ensure food sovereignty. These strategies are based on principles of endogenous development, legal access to land and the recognition of the importance of a thriving rural economy. Importantly, it stipulates that peasant organisations should be able to take decisions autono-mously in their territory.

After a public hearing in August 2016, attended by over 850 farmers, academics and government repre-sentatives, adjustments are currently being made to the plan. Although the process has met with resistance on the part of State authorities, the peasants of Sumapaz consider the Peasant Reserve Area a crucial way to implement the peace agreements and to “transform our negative realities into a culture of peace.”

For more information read Revista Cultural Sumapaceña “El Fogón”, Edición N°4 2017, Fundación Parcela Cultural Campesina. (parcelaculturalcampesina@gmail.com)

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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.

DOWNLOAD

“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.

DOWNLOAD

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.

DOWNLOAD

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

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Some important changes are going to take place in ILEIA in 2017. In a recent meeting the ILEIA Board has decided that after over 30 years of work to support family farming rooted in agroecology, the organisation has to close on July 1^st, 2017. The reason for this decision is that we did not  succeed in raising sufficient funds to keep the organisation going in the present mode.

This has been a difficult decision. The good news is that the AgriCultures Network, founded  by ILEIA, is  alive and kicking. With the Network we are exploring new ways to carry forward ILEIA’s legacy, globally and in Europe, and continue supporting the practice, science and movement of agroecology and family farming.

We have appreciated the collaboration with all of you over the years. We are especially grateful to the farmers who have worked with us to analyse and share the lessons they learnt during often hard and pioneering work in the fields of our planet. You continue to be a great source of inspiration.

We understand this message will raise many reactions. Do not hesitate to contact us at info@ileia.org  if you have any questions or suggestions.

With warm regards on behalf of the ILEIA team,

Edith van Walsum,

Director

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