What would it take to build a truly healthy, free, and just food system? Many people take food systems for granted, without realizing both the gross injustices of our status quo — and on the other hand, the incredible potential for constructing a new international food system based on the principles of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is defined as the right of all people to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable means, as well as the right to construct their own food and agricultural systems. The movement for food sovereignty has been growing steadily over the past 25 years, and an upcoming free course provides a chance for people to learn more and participate in building solidarity.
From August to October 2021, Friends of the ATC, the international solidarity-building arm of the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) of Nicaragua, will be co-hosting their second annual Ben Linder Solidarity School with La Via Campesina, a leading international social movement which consists of hundreds of grassroots organizations representing small food producers. This free online course is available to anyone who wants to learn more about food sovereignty, the struggle for international solidarity, or building social movements more generally. Applications to participate in the course are due August 4th, and can be accessed via this link.
The school was named after Ben Linder, a young electrical engineer who traveled to Nicaragua from Oregon in 1983 to support the Sandinista revolutionary struggle. While building a community-based hydroelectric dam with two Nicaraguan civilians, Linder was killed by the U.S.-backed Contras. The course seeks to honor Linder’s spirit of internationalism, educate the world about the violent history of U.S. imperialism, and encourage students to find a similar spirit of solidarity.
The 10-week course tries to build solidarity and understanding by contextualizing Latin American history, explaining key concepts, and uplifting historical and current people-centered movements for change. Some of the course material is translated from La Via Campesina’s Central American Leadership course. Other courses will be taught by well-established internationalists, agroecologists, and organizers.
Specific class topics include: Nicaragua and the Sandinista Revolution; History and current context of Latin America and U.S. imperialism; ATC and La Via Campesina peasant organizing/movements; Food sovereignty and agroecology; and Solidarity and internationalism. Throughout the course, students will learn how all of these topics relate to food sovereignty, and will be encouraged to make connections between their own work and the global challenge of building international solidarity within a neoliberal framework.
Food sovereignty is an alternative to the more conservative “food security” framework for food policy, as well as a valuable lens through which we can realize the intersections between many problem areas within the Climate Justice (CJ) movement. While the food security paradigm attempts to address issues of hunger through market-based solutions, food sovereignty is a more emancipatory framework which addresses the root causes of food insecurity. These causes reside in the imperialist system which perpetuates gross inequalities in land ownership patterns between large landed elites that produce export crops for the world market, and small farmers (campesinos) producing food for domestic consumption. Food sovereignty also resists the commodification of formerly communal lands, and seeks to decommodify them. In both cases, the solution is democratic agrarian reform. In other words, food sovereignty advocates for the needs and aspirations of food producers, distributors, and consumers to be placed at the heart of food systems and policy, not the demands of markets and corporations.
The term food sovereignty was coined by La Via Campesina at the 1996 World Food Summit, and proposes an important alternative to many international neoliberal policies, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and now the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) which prioritize corporate profits, the property rights of transnational corporations, and the global marketplace over states’ ability to determine their own food and agricultural policy. Wealthy Northern nations like the U.S. typically promote these neoliberal policies to serve domestic corporate interests. Corporations take advantage of the language of these laws to demand access to foreign markets and land ownership — all while maintaining domestic subsidies on popular commodity crops like corn, wheat, and soy. This allows Northern corporations to produce and export crop surpluses to the global South, undermining local markets, forcing producers into bankruptcy, displacing them from their homes, and giving corporations power to purchase their farmland.
In contrast to the current global corporate-controlled food system, La Via Campesina (literally translated as “The Peasant Way”) advocates for peoples’ right to determine their own food systems. La Via Campesina envisions a food system with better conditions for workers, equitable land access for producers, and greater transparency so consumers can easily make informed decisions about the quality and production of their food. Peasant producers are already responsible for producing 70 percent of the calories that humans consume, while only using less than 35 percent of agricultural land. Small producers in the global North also partake in La Via Campesina, as they are similarly unfairly disadvantaged by international food policy.
Food sovereignty frameworks present an alternative where local communities control their own land, produce food for their communities and regions, and participate in global markets at their own discretion, rather than by default. These frameworks nourish local people, economies and cultures, rather than facilitating the upward redistribution of wealth from small farmers to multinational corporations.
The global struggle for food sovereignty aligns well with the global struggle for climate justice, as both seek to dismantle oppressive systems and replace them by allocating greater democratic accountability to the people, lessening the corporate stranglehold over international and domestic policy, and improving quality of life for peasants, workers, and marginalized communities. Climate justice advocates should have an explicit interest in food sovereignty as it presents an alternative to the industrial food system, which is responsible for over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is the leading cause of biodiversity loss and deforestation.
The Ben Linder Solidarity School is an effective way for anyone to get involved in the food sovereignty movement and participate in building international solidarity alongside members of La Via Campesina. The course is not only a great primer for those new to the movement, but also presents opportunities for people to deepen their previous solidarity work through partnering with the ATC. The course also gives students a chance to connect with each other and learn about different food sovereignty and international solidarity projects taking root around the world.
Last year’s Ben Linder School is also available for free on the Friends of ATC website for those interested in an asynchronous learning experience. Applications for this year's school are due on August 4, 2021, and can be accessed via this link. You can keep up with Friends of the ATC on their Instagram or by subscribing to their newsletter!
