Food sovereignty
Topic: Agricultural Marketing, MSP, Buffer Stocks and PDS · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to decide their own food and farming systems. It includes their right to produce healthy food that suits their culture, in a sustainable way. It goes beyond having enough food. It asks who controls seeds, land, markets and diets: local farmers and communities, or distant markets and corporations.
Example
A tribal community in Odisha chooses to keep its traditional millet seeds and grow food for local diets. It does not switch to a single crop chosen by outside buyers. It is exercising food sovereignty.
Don't confuse with
- Food security (FAO, 1996): food security means all people at all times have physical and economic access to enough safe and nutritious food. It asks whether people get food. Food sovereignty asks who decides how that food is produced.
Related concepts
- Public distribution system
- Fair price shop
- Central issue price
- Targeted PDS
- Universal PDS
- Leakages in PDS
- Ration card portability
- Food security
- Nutrition security
- Hidden hunger