A Vision of Food Sovereignty: Farmers Speak Out

The second day’s plenary session at the Bridging Borders Conference for Community Food Security opened with the Farmers’ Vision of Food Sovereignty. Kathy Oser, Executive Director of the National Family Farm Coalition introduced Dena Hoff of Montana (1), Alberto Gomez of Mexico (2), Carlos Marentes of Texas (3), and Karen Peterson from Saskatchewan, Canada.

Dena invited everyone to use their imagination to find creative ways to use food sovereignty to replace the industrial agricultural model used all over the world. She defined Food Sovereignty as rights—rights to define our own food policies, to protect our markets from corporate commodities produced below the cost of production, human rights, rights to biodiversity, to agrarian reform, immigration, a clean environment, women’s rights, fair trade, and indigenous and pastoral peoples rights… Food sovereignty, she said, is about who get to decide where and how our food is grown and who controls the distribution of the profits. Without access to land, water, seed, and capital, we have no chance to decide who gets the resources and who gets starvation.

She called for a change in food and agricultural and trade policies in the United States. Despite the disasters of the free trade model, these neo-liberal policies continue. At this moment another bilateral free trade agreement—this time between the US and Korea—is about to be passed in Congress. The truth is—she said—our decision makers lack the political will to adopt national policies for food sovereignty. For this reason, food sovereignty should become a household word. She invited everyone to help grow a strong, broad-based national campaign for food sovereignty. This campaign would demand a floor price for commodities (rather than subsidies), farmer-owned reserves, a comprehensive food program for disaster preparedness, supply management and conservation programs, and programs for young and minority entry farmers. “Lets build farm to farm, and kitchen to kitchen until we have a movement so strong for food sovereignty that policy-makers are either going to have to start leading or get out of the way,” she said.

Alberto pointed out that the agreements on food security signed 10 years ago at the World Food Summit, have been a failure. In 1996, 800 million people in the world were hungry. Today there are 850 million. The principle of food security based on the free market has created more hunger and more poverty. In 1993 Mexico produced nearly all its own corn. Last year 42% of the corn Mexican people ate was imported and half that was genetically modified. Today, Mexico is third in the world in corn imports, and 78% of its rice and 56% of its wheat is imported. For this reason, in 1996 Via Campesina proposed food sovereignty as an alternative. Alberto affirmed that a handful of transnational corporations want to decide what we eat in this world. But family and campesino farmers—who make up a third of the world’s population—still feed the majority in this world. The hour of food sovereignty has arrived, he insisted. But to have food sovereignty we need to take the agriculture chapter out of NAFTA. Via Campesina is preparing a movement of caravans to Mexico, to demand that agriculture be taken out of NAFTA for the sake of Campesino agriculture and for the sake of food sovereignty. He asked for support from Via Campesina’s many allies. “It is the only way to stop the commercialization of everything,” he said, “Globalize the struggle! Globalize hope!”

Carlos insisted that food sovereignty was not just a political slogan but a way to challenge neoliberalism and corporate agriculture. He noted that the US is now building a 700-mile wall to keep immigrants out. But the poor peasants who endanger their lives crossing the border are the displaced people suffering from free trade policies imposed by the United States. They are campesino women and children—victims of a disastrous industrial agricultural model that produces more and cheaper, but not better agricultural products. The easiest way to do this is, he said, is to have a supply of desperate laborers in conditions of illegality that can be abused and deported at any time. The model not only depends on the exploitation of migrant groups, legal seasonal workers are also exploited. Thousands of producers unable to continually overproduce at lower and lower prices are also victims. The only winners are agribusiness and food corporations. “Ya basta! Enough is enough! Stand up and practice some Spanish,” said Carlos, “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!”

Karen, spoke of the Canadian agricultural crisis. In 2004 Canadian farmers lost $10,000 in yearly income. In 2003 they lost $16,000. The last twenty years have been worse than the Depression years. The Canadian census recently indicated that 11% of Canadian farmers have gone out of business. Those families that remain on the land subsidize the farm with non-farm income, by depleting their savings, by selling off equity, and by going into debt. Meanwhile, the same year farmers lost $16,000, 75% of energy, fertilizer, processing and packing companies made record profits. That is not a coincidence, she said. Canadian farms are generating huge amounts of wealth. Yet, consumers pay more and more and farmers get paid what they were paid in the 1979. Farmers are generating tremendous wealth. Where is it going?

Nitrogen prices follow grain prices. When grain prices go up, fertilizer companies extract that extra profit from farmers. Farmers need power in the marketplace, not just better prices. The same is true for subsidies (paid for by taxpayers). Subsidies go directly into corporate hands,barely passing through farmers pockets. “Family farms are not just dying,” she said, “they are being systematically killed.” Then she said that buying local food was a great individual response, but to change our system we needed to develop a collective political response. “If all we do is buy local we are not going to stop corporate agriculture,” she said, “A few producers around urban centers may be able to make a living. The rest of us will go out of business… ethanol plants and feedlots will take our place.” She called for a collective response for food sovereignty, and pointed to the cooperative model as a way of getting a fair price. “When you can’t necessarily buy locally, buy cooperative… Food Sovereignty is not just about buying and acting local. We need to act local to create a national collective vision.”

1-Dena represents the Northern Plains Resource Council on the NFFC Board and Chairs NFFC's Trade Task Force. She has raised sheep, cattle, alfalfa, corn, and edible dry beans, among other crops, on their farm in Glendive, Montana since 1979.

2-Alberto represents the Union Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas (UNORCA), and the Via Campesina for Mexico-North America.

3-Carlos runs the Border Agricultural Workers project in El Paso, Texas and is a representative of Via Campesina.