Food sovereignty has become an urgent necessity in the face of successive health, climate, geopolitical, and economic crises.

By José Graziano da Silva and Julio Berdegué in Correio Braziliense | 28/04/2025

In recent decades, the world has witnessed the exhaustion of the global food security model. Today, this model groans under the weight of successive health, climate, geopolitical, and economic crises—now compounded by a rise in customs tariffs that buries the ideology of free trade. The concept of food sovereignty is gaining strength as a political, practical, and ethical response, offering an alternative to traditional food security. More than an alternative, it asserts itself as an imperative for countries seeking to guarantee the right to food.

The notion of food security, formulated after the Second World War, aimed to ensure the availability of food, prioritizing increased agricultural production and reducing external dependence. The Green Revolution multiplied the productivity of staple crops such as rice, wheat, and corn.

However, the production crisis of the 1970s prompted the first major revision: it was no longer enough to simply produce food; equitable access had to be ensured as well. Nutritional quality, environmental sustainability, and respect for food cultures were incorporated into the concept. In 1996, at the World Food Summit, the right to regular, permanent, physical, and economic access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food was formally recognized.

Despite this progress, the dominant model remained anchored in the assumption that global markets would be sufficient to guarantee food supply for all. That assumption is now under serious threat.

The COVID-19 pandemic, trade restrictions, the war in Ukraine, and the surge in food and input prices between 2019 and 2023 exposed the model’s vulnerabilities. The need for shorter supply chains and greater food autonomy has become urgent.

Food sovereignty now stands out as a concrete political response. It asserts the right of peoples to define their own agricultural and food policies. It calls for strengthening local production and opposes the growing concentration of power in the hands of multinational corporations. It is a call to prioritize the collective good.

In Latin America, the debate is gaining momentum. The region is one of the world’s major hubs of agricultural production and exports. In 2021, it recorded a food trade surplus of US$138 billion, with Brazil alone accounting for US$76 billion. However, this global integration has been accompanied by an increasing dependence on imports for domestic consumption, the marginalization of millions of small-scale producers, and the worsening of food insecurity among the poorest segments of the population.

Today, export abundance coexists with hunger and exclusion. Food security policies must confront this reality. It is not about rejecting international trade, but about ensuring that public policies prioritize adequately supplying national populations.

Food sovereignty means equipping countries with the necessary capacities to guarantee the right to food under any circumstances: producing nutritious food with climate-resilient systems; promoting both traditional and scientific knowledge; ensuring infrastructure for transportation, storage, and distribution; creating legal frameworks for universal public policies with consistent budgets; protecting biodiversity and ecosystems; and valuing rural workers. It demands that countries responsibly assume the duty to feed their populations with quality, respect, and dignity.

In countries like Brazil, cross-sectoral policies have promoted food sovereignty. In Mexico, since 2018, the governments of the Fourth Transformation have redirected agricultural budgets to benefit small-scale producers, indigenous peoples, and family farmers. President Claudia Sheinbaum launched “Cosechando Soberanía,” a program that integrates credit, technical assistance, and marketing support with an agroecological focus.

In Brazil, the Zero Hunger Program demonstrated that it is possible to combine food access policies with support for local production. Brazil exited the FAO Hunger Map in 2014. However, setbacks under previous administrations before 2023 dismantled key policies, exacerbating hunger. The reconstruction of these policies under President Lula’s administration represents a reaffirmation of the State’s role in guaranteeing the right to food.

In the face of the collapse of the globalized neoliberal model, countries that fail to prepare to secure their food sovereignty will be condemned to dependence and submission. We are not starting from scratch. Latin America has the history and the potential to lead this transition. Strengthening food sovereignty is an urgent necessity and an unavoidable political choice.

José Graziano da Silva is Director-General, Instituto Fome Zero and Julio Berdegué is Minister for Agriculture of Mexico

First published in Correio Braziliense
https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/opiniao/2025/04/7124548-da-crise-a-autonomia-por-que-a-soberania-alimentar-e-ainda-mais-urgente-