More Than Food Security: A Political Proposal Rooted In Territory

In 2025, Brazil was once again removed from the UN Hunger Map. After years of setbacks, this milestone reignited debate around public policy and the need for lasting strategies to guarantee the right to food.

 

But is putting food on the table enough? Or should we also be asking who decides what ends up there in the first place?

 

For a growing number of countries, the answer lies in another idea: food sovereignty. It’s not just about feeding people, it’s about making sure they can decide what, how and for whom food is produced.

 

Nations like Mali, Ecuador, Nepal, and Brazil have begun to incorporate food sovereignty principles into their legislation and public policy. It’s a shift in focus: from access to food, to democratic control over food systems.

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What’s At Stake When We Talk About Food Sovereignty?

The concept was formalised in 1996 by the La Vía Campesina movement at the FAO World Food Summit. Since then, it has become a framework that connects food to social justice, environmental sustainability and political participation.

 

The difference between food sovereignty and food security is significant. Food security can be achieved even with imported food, or through large commercial networks. Food sovereignty, on the other hand, demands local production, traditional knowledge, shorter supply chains, and decentralised power.

 

This isn’t just theory. It’s a practical approach, applied across scales and contexts. At its core is the right of people to define their own food policies, rooted in cultural diversity and territorial realities. And it raises a key question: can we really call it “security” if we don’t control the source?

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Six Principles That Still Guide The Agenda

In 2007, the Nyéléni Declaration, from the World Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali, laid out the movement’s key pillars:

• Food for people

• Valuing food providers

• Localising food systems

• Local control

• Knowledge and traditional practices

• Working with nature

 

These principles respond to today’s most pressing issues, from climate change and biodiversity loss to deep rural inequality. More than an ideal, they offer concrete pathways for rethinking the future of food systems, with justice and belonging.

 

From Plans to the Soil: How Food Sovereignty Takes Root in Brazil

Brazil was one of the first countries to translate the principles of food sovereignty into concrete public policies. Starting in the 2000s, institutions such as the National Food and Nutrition Security System (SISAN), the National Food and Nutrition Security Council (CONSEA) and the Food Acquisition Programme (PAA) were created.

 

The PAA, launched in 2003, introduced a different logic: the State buys food directly from small farmers and delivers it to schools, hospitals and public institutions. This policy strengthens local producers, connects rural and urban communities and supports diverse, community-based food systems.

 

One of the strongest examples of food sovereignty in practice in Brazil comes from the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). In 2023, the MST became the largest producer of organic rice in Latin America — rice grown on reclaimed land, harvested collectively, packed in cooperative warehouses and served in school canteens and community kitchens across the country.

 

More than impressive figures, the MST offers a daily practice of food sovereignty: land as a shared good, production as a collective decision and food as a right, not a commodity. It’s a model that connects social justice, environmental sustainability and grassroots participation.

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Brazil’s experience shows that fighting hunger is not just about handing out food. It’s about supporting those who grow it, ensuring fair prices, respecting food cultures and strengthening local supply networks. And if these principles work in Brazil, why not elsewhere?

 

From Setback to Reconstruction: Hunger Leaves, Hunger Returns

Starting in 2016, Brazil began dismantling many of the policies that had once been seen as global benchmarks in the fight against hunger. Budget cuts, weakened participatory institutions and shrinking support for family farming became the new norm.

 

During the former Jair Bolsonaro administration (2019–2022), the situation worsened. The CONSEA was dismantled, food pro-grammes were halted, and dialogue with social movements nearly disappeared.

 

The impact was immediate. In 2021, Brazil returned to the UN Hunger Map, nearly a decade after having left it. While the COVID-19 pandemic deepened the crisis, the institutional breakdown had already been underway.

 

In 2023, a new government began rebuilding key frameworks. CONSEA was reinstated, the PAA relaunched and a new national programme, Brazil Without Hunger, made fighting hunger a top priority again, this time firmly grounded in the principles of food sovereignty. By 2025, Brazil had once again been removed from the Hunger Map, according to the FAO.

 

The lesson is clear: well-designed, inclusive public policies rooted in local realities can reverse food crises in a short time, if there is political will. And if that’s true for hunger, why not for other global challenges?

 

Good Sovereignty and the SDGs: A Brazilian Take on Global Goals

Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2) aims to end hunger and promote sustainable agriculture. It's a vital goal, but Brazil's experience suggests that achieving it requires going beyond global indicators.

 

In its national approach to SDG 2, Brazil formally incorporated food sovereignty into three of its targets: 2.5, 2.b, and 2.c. 

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• Target 2.5 includes commitments to protect seed biodiversity and explicitly references food and nutritional sovereignty.

• Target 2.b, on regulating agricultural trade, links market corrections to respect for sovereignty.

• Target 2.c, which addresses food price volatility, includes public stock policies and distribution measures guided by sovereignty and security.

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These changes extended the scope of SDG 2 and showed that global goals can and should be reinterpreted locally. It’s not enough to measure hunger we must listen to those who experience it. It’s not enough to produce food, we must decide together who it’s for.

 

By integrating food sovereignty into its official SDG framework, Brazil raised a powerful question: What if more countries did the same? And what would our food systems look like if they truly reflected the people they serve?

 

Rethinking the Future Means Changing Who Gets a Seat at the Table

Food sovereignty is not a frozen idea from 1996. It’s still relevant because it speaks to something fundamental: the right of people to decide how they feed themselves and their communities.

 

In the Global South, where hunger remains a daily reality, food sovereignty offers practical tools. These include policies that support local production, value traditional knowledge, invest in family farming and strengthen community-led organization.

 

But for this agenda to move forward, international frameworks also need to evolve. The Sustainable Development Goals must go beyond increasing food supply. Hunger won’t be solved just by producing more. It requires redistributing political power, recognizing local autonomy and aligning practice with principle.

 

Rethinking the economy starts here: by taking control over food systems away from a powerful few, and opening space for models that are more just, diverse, and connected to the planet.

 

Hunger is urgent. But urgency shouldn’t mean shallowness. The answer must be deep, and it must come from below.