Abstract
Food democracy as a social movement offers opportunities to participate in the development of the food systems, and to allow alternative perspectives for the consumption, production and commercialization of food. Political agroecology aims to bring together citizens who fight against environmental threats and to design and produce actions, institutions and regulations to achieve agrarian sustainability.
Consumers focus on the origin of their food but their ability to influence production systems is weak because power in food systems is concentrated in corporations. Food democracy is understood as the interest of citizens for more and better food options, and implies a growing democratic tendency and awareness, because agrarian and food policies have regulatory frameworks associated with transnational agendas. This panel aims to answer this dilemma with questions such as:
•Is it possible to understand food as a human right to the availability of food in sufficient quantity and quality and the means to obtain it?
•How can we satisfy the nutritional needs of all people, without discrimination, with food free of harmful substances, culturally accepted, sustainable and physically and economically accessible?
•How can we guarantee future generations the right to food and the rights to water, health, income distribution, education, work, care and participation in the formulation and implementation of public policies that affect them?
•How to mobilize citizen action to ensure that all people have access to enough food to lead an active and healthy life?
•How to integrate global efforts to consolidate a movement and platform that enshrines food sovereignty as a human right?
This panel will receive proposals that consider citizen initiatives aimed at integrating efforts for citizen action towards food freedom, and propose a balanced panorama between the will of the people and government and corporate decisions for food and agricultural production.
Keywords: Alternative food systems; Food democracy; local foods; sustainable rural development; Political agroecology