Nyéléni - the Forum for Food Sovereignty

For putting the concept of "Food sovereignty" firmly on the map.

"Food sovereignty" is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture policies, to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade so as to attain their objectives of sustainable development, to determine in what measure they want to be autonomous and to limit the dumping of products on their markets.

Food sovereignty is thus an alternative to the neo-liberal agricultural policies imposed by the World Trade Organisation, The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A growing number of organisations make references to this proposal without really understanding or accepting its eminently political character, which is in stark opposition to the dominant capitalist economic system.

Ever more personalities from the political, trade union or associative worlds use the term food sovereignty trying to restrict its meaning to that of an isolationist proposal, synonymous with self sufficiency and rejection of exchanges and complementarities.