The Evolution of Food Justice Solutions

The approach of food sovereignty encompasses the distribution of adequate food supplies (food security), includes the autonomous right of the community to control it's own food system, and addresses a range of social and environmental justices. 

Something that I have understood in my own personal and spiritual life is that everything is connected; however as I further my studies, I see more and more instances of this in our society and the scientific world. Poverty, racism, deforestation, climate change, food access, corporate greed, they are all intrinsically linked to each other and should not be address in a vacuum. Much of science has been whittled down to hyper-specific fields and specialties that rarely cross boundaries. Not to say specialization is a bad thing, but I think when you lose sight of the connection with other fields or issues, the work you are doing can be futile. And I think that's what the approach of food security is. It looks at one problem, food access, and addresses that by increasing access of food. No concern for why the food insecurity exists in the first place, or the repercussions food distribution may have on communities. Food sovereignty takes this approach and widens the lens to allow more factors and consequences be visible. Just as it has been said we need large and small changes to fix these problems, we also need narrow and broad lenses to develop the solutions. 

The case study at the end of the article demonstrates this in many ways. For one, whatever reasons dams were built and water in the river contaminated looked only at the direct problem at the origin, whatever that may be - most likely poor agricultural practices. A broad view would have considered the effects that these practices would have on the nearby ecosystem (the river and the salmon), as well as communities along the river relying on those resources (the indigenous groups). Secondly, the "solution" of providing the community with canned seafood as a replacement only looks at the sustenance angle. Completely forgoing long term health effects of eating processed food, or the spiritual connection the indigenous culture has with the salmon. Of course no solution will ever be perfect (probably), but by taking into considered multiple aspects, we can get pretty close to true food justice (along with all the other justices).