This week's article was focused on dismissing any ongoing conflict between food sovereignty and security and explained how sovereignty is actually a helping hand that guides security. Food security is concerned with a person's reliable access to nutritious food, whereas food sovereignty discusses an umbrella of social justice issues between factors like gender, race, social + economic classes, generation and mandates (I love his choice of wording) change be made on both a local and federal scale.
I love how an insert from Smith on page 6 explains how the definition of food sovereignty is subject to change. This is because it can mean something different, as it goes on to say later, that most food sovereignty movements are community based. Meaning that the definition is subject to change based on the specific social injustices a particular community is facing. I was so intrigued by the toxic waste and race paper by the United Church of Christ Paper. It reveals how the placement of toxic waste facilities is connected to the race of nearby citizens. I was curious so I did some more googling, the paper was published 1987 and found that over half of all Americans lived in zip codes containing at least one uncontrolled toxic waste site. However, the catch is that 3 out of 5 African and Hispanic Americans lived in these areas. Even having one of these uncontrolled waste sites is dangerous, let alone some neighborhoods containing multiple. These sites are potent because they allow contaminants to soak into the groundwater which is then pumped up as people's drinking water.
Overall, I like how this article starts from scratch and provides thorough definitions of food security and food sovereignty. We are able to understand the argument at hand even if we have no previous knowledge. My understanding is that food sovereignty doesn't take away from food security programs, but instead acknowledges that these programs may have occasional procedural injustices and food sovereignty is there to check them along the way in addition to other social injustices.
3 comments:
I agree that food security and sovereignty are connected. They can work together to reach the common goal of delivering food to people while ensuring communities' well being. The paper that you looked into is interesting because I didn't even know that (at that time) so many people lived near waste sites. The impact that one of the waste sites has on the water supply is a great way of connecting security and sovereignty. The people have lost access to clean water, and clean water can be given, but it is also important to address why their water became unsafe in the first place.
I also agree that food security and food sovereignty are two peas in a pod, and they do not exist in just themselves, but rather go hand in hand. It usually ends up being those who are impoverished or marginalized that do not get a say in who produces their food and what policies go into creating that food. This snowballs into those people not having nutritious food to stay on track with their caloric intake each day and maintaining overall health. It is apparent that where you find food insecurity, you are destined to find a lack of food sovereignty, or vice-versa.
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