Agricultural Resilience and Food Security

26 Apr 2019 10:28 AM | Deleted user

Agricultural Resilience and Food Security FLFPC - Policy Committee

Presentation - Dell deChant, FLFPC Board Member and Policy Committee Co-Chair

Based on five concepts related to agricultural resilience and food security


* Agricultural Resilience "Agricultural resilience is about equipping farmers to absorb and recover from shocks and stresses to their agricultural production and livelihoods. Some shocks are short-term, others long-term.  Some come suddenly while others are predictable.  And some are more severe while others slowly erode farmers’ ability to farm."  - From Farming First https://farmingfirst.org/resilience 


* Security and Insecurity  "Food security is defined as the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Stages of food insecurity range from food secure situations to full-scale famine. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing 'when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.' " - Disabled World, https://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/nutrition/foodsecurity/


* Sustainabilty sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” - UN Commission on Environment and Development)

https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/about-us/what-is-sustainability/



* Food Sovereignty Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”– Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007. 

See also: U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, http://usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org/what-is-food-sovereignty/


* Urban Food Sovereignty Urban Food Sovereignty is here conceived as the right of persons in urban ecosystems to define their own food and agriculture policies and practices, and to produce healthy and culturally appropriate food through their own means using ecologically sound and sustainable methods, independent of industrial food systems. - USF Urban Food Sovereignty Group .  

See website  https://sites.google.com/site/urbanfoodsovereigntygroup/home




Beyond Definitions:

Cultural Context: Who defines terms, develops data, engages media?  Whose insecurity is this?


Ecological Context: To what extent is the ecological crisis considered? Whose sustainability is this?


Political Context: Who is at the table?  What are the power relationships: Federal, state, local?


Agrarian Context: Is there an alternative to the industrial food system? 



* Policy Reflection Topic


Legislation prohibiting home rule on vegetable gardens - Senate Bill 82, House Bill 145.


https://www.watchdog.org/florida/florida-senate-oks-garden-variety-preemption-bill-to-keep-government/article_915f3c64-4c3c-11e9-b911-53517aa8242f.html


http://floridapolitics.com/archives/294062-right-to-grow-vegetables


Good accessible texts on Food Sovereignty and Food Justice 


Big Hunger: The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups – Andrew Fisher


Food as a Human Right: Combatting Global Hunger and Forging a Path to Food Sovereignty -  Will Schanbacher 


Food Justice – Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi


Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community – Hannah Wittman, et al (eds)


Grounded Vision: New Agrarianism and the Academy – William Major


The Politics of Food: The Global Conflict Between Food Security and Food Sovereignty - Will Schanbacher 


Religious Agrarianism: And the Return of Place – Todd Le Vasseur


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