Food sovereignty: The people's alternative

Two conflicting approaches to food production are currently dividing the world: on the one side, the large-scale production of crops for export, controlled by transnational agribusiness companies; on the other, the agriculture of small family farmers.

In this Comment, Ernest Cañada outlines how small family farmers are opposing the dominant agribusiness model with an alternative approach based on the concept of food sovereignty. Drawing on a detailed discussion of the situation in Nicaragua, he argues that the small-scale production of food for local consumption can provide lasting, sustainable food security for people in Latin America and throughout the world.

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food sovereignty (310k PDF)