Food sovereignty: Is my eating habit affecting the

environment?
Mihai-Rafael Blaa
This short essay will focus on food sovereignty and on how our
approach to food, in general, affects the relationship between environment
and food production. Along the discussion, subjects such as global food
system and political aspects will be touched in order to build a better
perspective of what the food sovereignty 'philosophy' really wants to
achieve.
First off, the term 'food sovereignty' emerged in the mid 90's within a
movement which is very known in the agricultural world, among many other
fields: Via Campesina. A movement which has brought a great deal of
attention and sparked controversy within many political circles due to its
approach on the food system. It was founded as an organization in the early
nineties and nowadays it apparently counts over 150 organizations under its
umbrella, spreading in 73 different countries.
Briefly, food sovereignty can be considered an idea, an approach and a
philosophy in the same time, due to its daring purpose: the (global) food
system should be controlled by the ones who produce it. Moreover, the
priority in production should shift from the big multinational companies to
the small-scale farmers. Right off the bat, this small definition show why it
sparked controversy: it would change the food system as we know it, having
implications in all aspects of modern life, more or less. The implication of this
idea would result in the disappearance of big agricultural entities and the
emerging of a grand food production network; a dense one too. The
seemly limitless monoculture fields would disappear, only for its place to be
taken by thousands of small farming operations.
The impacts are predictable: political, economical and, most
importantly, environmental; therefore social implications, as well. There is no
solid evidence against the fact that traditional agriculture, as we know it, is
not self-sufficient: not economically, since it is heavily subsidized by the
government of almost every country; not energetically, since it relies on the
usage of fertilizers which are obtained in a very primitive way: burning
unimaginable amounts of fossil fuel (which helps the environment in no way;
worse, it adds to the greenhouse effect).

This approach would literally shift powers in the economical and

political world, since food sovereignty - beside the previously mentioned
aspects - pushes for environmental matters: self-sufficiency and the
conservation of biodiversity.

The conservation of biodiversity might seem an entirely different

matter, but it would be an indirect and unavoidable positive effect, as I will
explain. Biodiversity is unique to each place on earth. Tradition horticulture
relies almost entirely on monoculture which determines the disappearance of
a previously existing ecosystem consisting of species specific to the given
area. In lay man's terms, it would be destroyed, only for it to be replaced by
a limited number of species: the culture itself and possibly few others used
for biological control purposes.
To conclude, food sovereignty can be rightly considered a futureoriented idea from which the world could benefit in many different ways, as it
provides a basis for the survival of different species. It would also maintain
the human cultures alive, as it directly addresses the rather poor farmers
which still hold to their traditional environmentally-friendly farming
techniques.