Food sovereignty for climate justice

Social and environmental movements from around the world gather at the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum this week, as the need for food sovereignty could not be more urgent. 

Environmental injustice and climate chaos accelerate daily, driven by a global neoliberal economic structure rooted in patriarchy and colonialism. 

Agribusiness and fossil fuel corporations deepen hunger, destroy biodiversity, displace peoples and poison communities — all while profiting from the crisis they created. 

Livelihoods

Against this destruction, food sovereignty offers not only resistance but a real pathway to survival with dignity. It is foundational to climate justice.

Food sovereignty was first articulated in 1996 by La Vía Campesina, the global movement of peasants and rural peoples. Since then, it has been embraced by thousands of organisations and social movements worldwide. 

The Nyéléni Declaration of 2007 defines it as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through socially just, ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their collective right to define their own policies, strategies and systems for food production, distribution and consumption.”

In practice, food sovereignty goes well beyond food security. It is a political movement and a living pathway toward transforming the broken food system. 

It asserts food as a human right, not a commodity, and centres solidarity, justice and life over profit. It defends land, seeds and biodiversity, recognises women’s central role in food production, and demands that peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolk and smallholder farmers control the decisions shaping their livelihoods and territories. 

System

Understanding why food sovereignty is essential to climate justice means first confronting the role of agribusiness in driving the climate crisis. 

The global food system, dominated by agribusiness, is today responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. 

This model is built on agrocommodities: soy for factory farms, palm oil for processed foods and biofuels, and industrial meat for global supply chains. Its logic is clear: maximise profit through monocultures, chemical inputs and land grabs. 

The consequences are equally clear: forests razed, soils destroyed, rivers polluted, biodiversity lost, communities poisoned, workers exploited, and Indigenous Peoples displaced.

Agribusiness is not a broken system. It is functioning exactly as designed, to turn life into profit. 

Knowledge