“Hunger isn’t just about an absence of food, it’s an absence of money. And look who goes hungry: in the US, seven out of the 10 worst-paying jobs are in the food system, and globally the people most likely to be hungry are farm workers.” – Raj Patel
Over 2 billion people are considered moderately or severely food insecure, and almost half the world’s children cannot afford a healthy diet. La Via Campesina, a global movement of farmers, coined food sovereignty to describe “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.”
In this month’s study in struggle, we read about food sovereignty and the central role of capitalism, corporate monopolies, and imperialism in the global food crisis. We also discussed many movements fighting back – from peasant movements, to migrant farm workers, to Indigenous communities, to women food workers.
Below we share some summaries of our readings and discussions, with a full list of resources below.
What Is Food Sovereignty
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through socially just, ecologically sound, and sustainable methods, as well as the right of communities to define their own policies and systems for food production, distribution, and consumption.
The six pillars of food sovereignty are: food for people as a need not a commodity; value livelihoods for food providers; localize food systems; local decision-making control; build traditional, customary, and Indigenous knowledge and skills; and work with nature instead of energy-intensive models.
Source: here
Food, Land & Colonialism
“Today, four mutually reinforcing dynamics are converging: a structural crisis of global capitalism, escalation of military imperialism by dominant powers, the development of military technology with increasingly destructive effects, and the deliberate use of food as a weapon…
The defense of land and food has historically been part of people’s struggles against colonizers. Since the early colonial period, land, water, forests, and territories have been seized to enrich global hegemons. Today, neo-colonialism and neo-imperialism continue through military interventions and trade systems, neoliberal financial and monetary institutions, and multinational corporations.
Armed conflict is the single greatest driver of hunger globally.”
Source: here
The Looming Food Crisis
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is creating a crisis in the agricultural industry in Asia and Africa, with India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya and Egypt among the countries most at risk and 45 million more people at risk of hunger and starvation. One-third of the global fertilizer trade, as well as roughly one-quarter of crude oil and a fifth of liquefied natural gas, pass through the strait.
The current crisis highlights how deeply food systems are tied to fossil fuel inputs, and now further compounded by the climate and debt crises in much of the developing world.
Source: here
Food sovereignty depends on farmworkers
While support for buying local food is increasing — one study found two-thirds of Canadians were willing to pay more for local food — there is still much that gets left off the table in conversations about local food.
“The “buy local” adage doesn’t address the deeper issues with Canada’s food production systems.
Inter-provincial trade barriers, outdated pesticide regulations, food insecurity and other gaps all undermine Canada’s ability to build an equitable and sustainable food system. Most critically, discussions often overlook the very people that make food production possible: farm workers. These workers form the backbone of the agricultural sector, yet many face unsafe working conditions, inadequate pay and exclusion from basic labour protections.”
Source: here
Food sovereignty goes beyond false binaries
As buzzwords will, food sovereignty has been appropriated by governments to justify militarism. Italy and France recently unveiled “food sovereignty” policies that in effect direct their militaries to control the supply chains that keep their citizens fed. The only people who have rights to have rights under this vision are the French or Italians.
“This moment of global crisis presents a false choice: either embrace corporate-driven globalisation or retreat into nationalist protectionism. Food sovereignty offers a third path — democratically controlled food systems that balance local resilience with global solidarity.”
Source: here
Anti-Communism of Food Politics
Following the Communist Revolution in China, American policymakers were concerned that discontented peasants around the world might look to the Soviet Union for stability. The Green Revolution was a tool of American foreign policy in post-World War II era in the global south as part of the war on communism.
“It’s called the Green Revolution because it wasn’t the red revolution or the white revolution—it wasn’t the red revolution of the Soviets or the white revolution of the Shah of Iran. It’s called the Green Revolution because it’s set up in opposition to those social transformations. So if you don’t want to go red or white, you go green. Well what does green look like? It looks like fields filled with lots of capital, and not so much people.”
Source: here
Capital Control of Land
The transnational accumulation of land, forests, and territories by corporate and financial entities is an integral part of growing land concentration and inequality. Land grabbing and increasing land inequality have led to the emergence of a select group of transnational landowners who own and control huge amounts of land around the world. The top ten control a staggering 404,457 km². Land grabbing and rising inequality are not isolated phenomena, but the result of systemic trends rooted in capitalism and state policies, particularly neoliberalism. In recent decades, financialization has reshaped land tenure and use.
This land rush, coupled with long-standing trends of land concentration, has led to a stark imbalance: 1% of farms now control 70% of the world’s agricultural land.
Source: here
Industrial Food System & Climate
Access to food is a major casualty of climate change, with people’s ability to grow crops, raise livestock and access food increasingly disrupted by the effects of climate change. At the same time, the industrial food system is a major driver of climate change and accounting for over a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of this pollution comes from: intensive livestock production for meat and dairy, waste of food, reliance on global trade, land grabbing and deforestation, and heavy chemical pesticides and fertilisers.
Industrial farms account for more than 70% of the world’s farmland and water use, but feed only 30% of the world’s population. Most food emissions originate from countries like Brazil, US, and New Zealand where agriculture is dominated by industrial meat and dairy farms and large-scale plantations of export crops, like soybeans, hybrid maize and oil palm. A surplus is produced that fuels the overconsumption of meat and processed foods, often through international trade, while destroying local food systems through land grabbing or dumping. This is perpetuated through trade agreements – trade accounts for 20% of emissions from our food today.
Source: here
Agro-Colonialism in the DR Congo
Many of the oil palm plantations now owned by multinational corporations in West and Central Africa were built on lands stolen during colonial occupations. The Anglo-Dutch multinational food company Unilever began building its palm oil empire in the DRC under Belgian colonial role.
The empty promises of “development” were followed under the Mobutu’s dictatorship during the late 1960’s, when the new DRC government took a minority ownership in the company and renamed it Plantations et Huileries du Congo- PHC. They were repeated when the Canadian company Feronia Inc bought PHC from Unilever in 2009 with over US$150 million in backing from European and US “development” banks, and then again most recently when handed over to a private equity firm based in the tax haven of Mauritius– backed by university endowments, philanthropic giants and pension funds. In each of these iterations, the company’s owners and investors relied on a set of manufactured land documents to justify their occupation of over 100,000 hectares of lands.
Source: here
Dismantling Patriarchy While Building Food Sovereignty
Without grassroots feminism there is no food sovereignty.
Even though they are responsible for 60-80% of food production in developing countries and 50% of the world’s food production, women are the most exposed to hunger, as part of the economic and gender injustices they suffer. There are currently around 1.6 billion women farmers in the world (more than a quarter of the population), but only 2% of the land is owned by them.
Source: here
UAE’s growing power in global food system
Ever since the food price crisis of 2007-2008, followed by Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all of which disrupted supplies for Gulf States, the Emirates have amassed some 960,000 hectares of farms overseas. Outsourced food production requires moving goods from overseas farms to local consumers, which the UAE does with it’s port companies, aviation providers and warehouse operators. Such a logistical empire also brings with it overlapping geopolitical and military interests, for example the UAE’s role in Sudan.
“Taken as a whole, the UAE is racing ahead to consolidate global farming operations connected to sophisticated transport logistics (air, road and sea). Its ambitions are not only to produce its own food but to serve as a global trade hub.”
Source: here
10 years of China’s Belt and Road: Expanding Markets
Since 2018, China has been the leading country providing investments internationally to agriculture, averaging USD 1.71 billion annually. While China has made significant strides in securing control over its overseas food supply through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments and food trade push, its dependence on food imports has grown. Parallel to this trend, is the expanding involvement of Chinese corporations through BRI across the global food chain, from seeds to processed foods. Three main areas are of particular concern: increasing agriculture imports from Africa; the seizing of dwindling fish stocks; and the expansion of e-commerce.
Source: here
Battle over seeds in Latin America
By introducing control criteria over plant varieties and management procedures, government regulations consolidate a system that favors corporations and reduce the scope for farmers to use, save, and exchange seeds. Much of this siege is based on legislation shaped by the standards of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). This framework limits farmers’ right to save, reuse, and exchange seeds, and expands the rights of those who claim “ownership” over new varieties. Added to this are the regimes derived from the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which authorise the patenting of plant varieties and agricultural technologies, reinforcing communities’ dependence on industry.
Peasant and civil society organisations from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Ecuador are organizing on joint actions to confront the growing control that transnational corporations seek to impose on seeds and other reproductive materials through intellectual property, marketing laws, various regulations, free trade agreements, and the UPOV laws.
Source: here
Global Disobedience to Privatization of Seeds
Seeds are part of human history, work and knowledge systems, and our relationship with them is a never-ending conversation of care.
People’s freedom to work with seeds hinges on the responsibility of communities who defend and maintain them, who care for them and enjoy the goods they provide. Today there is a strong assault on people’s seeds. Whatever the form, it is about legalising abuse, dispossession and devastation.
Whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas, communities are fighting this pressure. We vigorously oppose registration, certification, patenting and marketing schemes, treaties, conventions, national and international laws and legal frameworks such as UPOV and other seed laws that promote the dispossession of the common goods and knowledge of our peoples. We, as peoples in resistance, guardians of the seeds, will continue keeping, sharing and reproducing our seeds so our presence will germinate from our roots.
Source: here
Spotlight: MST Resistance
In 1984, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) was founded at a meeting in Cascavel, Paraná by ninety-two peasant leaders. In the four decades since its founding, the MST has achieved significant milestones: for one, 450,000 families have gained legal tenure of their land, which has been transformed into agrarian reform settlements. The residents of the settlements have formed 1,900 peasant associations as well as 185 cooperatives, ranging from local agricultural production cooperatives to marketing and service provision cooperatives that operate on a regional level. Part of what is produced in the settlements is processed in 120 MST-owned agro-industrial sites. In addition to the settlements (assentamentos), which have gained legal ownership of the land, there are another 65,000 organised families living in squatters’ encampments (acampamentos) fighting for legal recognition of land.
Source: here
Solidarity with Food Workers
There are workers who are persistently overlooked: the millions who labour to produce, process and serve people their food, most of whom are in the informal economy. Whether we are talking about peasant farmers in Peru, street vendors in Zimbabwe or gig workers delivering food in India, workers across the food system – in production, processing, distribution or preparation – are essential for bringing food to people’s tables and yet they remain among the most exploited workers in the world.
Peasants and landless farmers are often forcefully removed from ancestral lands by industrial agriculture or pushed out due to climate change and eco-destruction and must struggle to survive. Many migrate to become underpaid and undocumented workers in the agriculture industry of wealthier countries. These are the unseen workers who pick fruits, harvest vegetables, and pack meats for far away consumers — often with no healthcare, legal protection, or right to unionise. Then we have the food delivery workers, dependent on a platform economy governed by algorithms that promises freedom and efficiency but only offers them insecurity, arbitrary penalties and meagre pay.
“Food sovereignty cannot be dissociated from labour justice. That means fair wages, healthy and safe working conditions, social protection and collective bargaining. Let’s fight together for a food system rooted in solidarity, not exploitation!”
Source: here
Full List of Resources:
- Food Tank Explains: Food Sovereignty, here
- Video: Food Markets 101, An Interview with Raj Patel, 2013, here
- Food Sovereignty in the Face of War, Imperialism, and the Hunger of Peoples Around the World: La Via Campesina document, 2026, here
- Video: The Looming Food Crisis: Why the Strait of Hormuz Is Disrupting Global Agriculture, Interview with Adam Hanieh, 2026, here
- Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution [Executive Summary, p 5-8] by FIAN International, 2025, here
- Food and the climate crisis, by GRAIN, 2024, here
- Food sovereignty means having options beyond the false binary of corporate globalisation or nationalist isolation by Raj Patel, 2025 here
- A Century of Agro-Colonialism in the DR Congo by GRAIN, 2022, here
- Canada’s food sovereignty depends on better jobs for farmworkers, by Susanna Klassen and Hannah Whittman, 2025, here
- Caught Up in the War on Communism: Norman Borlaug and the “Green Revolution”, Interview with Raj Patel, 2020, here
- From land to logistics: UAE’s growing power in the global food system, by GRAIN, 2024, here
- Expanding markets, undermining food sovereignty: 10 years of China’s Belt and Road, by GRAIN, 2024 here
- The battle over seeds in Latin America: the legal siege and people’s response, by GRAIN, 2026 here
Food Sovereignty Movements
- A journey through 30 years supporting the struggle for food sovereignty, by GRAIN, 2021 here
- The Political Organisation of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), by Tricontinental, 2024, here
- Solidarity, not exploitation: we stand with food workers from farm to table, by by FIAN, GRAIN & StreetNet International, 2025, here
- Video: Indigenous food sovereignty is growing, Seeds of Sovereignty short film, 2025 here
- A call for civil disobedience against the privatisation of peasant seeds, by GRAIN, 2023, here
- Dismantling Patriarchy While Building Food Sovereignty, by Friends of the Earth, 2022, here
- Food Justice Now!: Deepening the Roots of Social Struggle, Review of Joshua Sbicca, 2019, here
- Video: Revitalizing Indigenous Foodways: NATIFS, Owamni, and the Indigenous Food Lab, 2025, here
- Radio: Modern method? Reviving the “aquaculture” techniques of our ancestors, Unreserved, 2026, here
- ‘I’m sick of having sleep for dinner’: Students demand UBC address food insecurity during Friday walkout, 2022, here