Food Sovereignty
Tuesday, December 10th, 2024

What is food sovereignty? Effectively, it means community control over their means of sustenance. Food touches many dimensions: it is not only about community economics, but about community health and community culture.  It is difficult to discuss food sovereignty without reference to the land. Federal troops and starvation tactics (notably, killing buffalo) relegated Native Americans to a tiny fraction of their original lands. Black Americans, despite failing to receive 40 acres and a mule, nonetheless acquired 15 million acres in the half century that followed Emancipation. But those lands were lost over time due to violence (lynchings) and legal chicanery.