The Tree Mugger

via Food Security or Food Sovereignty? The view from the global South

From discussions with a diverse array of food sovereignty actors in West Africa including peasant food producers, farmer organisations, academics and civil society groups involved in the World Social Forum (WSF) in Dakar, it became clear that food ‘security’ and food ‘sovereignty’ represent increasingly diverging visions for the future of agriculture and food in the world.

While the definitions of food sovereignty varied between actors, there are some core values that are widely shared. Most broadly, food sovereignty is defined as “the right of people to choose their food systems”. This right exists at all levels, from the household and local community, to national and global. It includes decisions about how to produce and consume food, but also extends to the types of relationships that are built into this process. According to Mamadou Goita (from the Institute for Research and Alternatives in Development), while food security is the sum of having access, purchasing and consuming food, food sovereignty refers to the capacity of people to choose what they want to eat, how it will be produced, and what relationships this entails with others. For Mr Goita, therefore, “food sovereignty is a right that food security does not include.”

Achieving food sovereignty requires both recognising the political nature of food and addressing social inequality in the global food system.

(via Vimla Bahuguna: Treehugger of the Chipko Movement | EcoWalktheTalk)

By Bhavani Prakash

Chipko women hugging trees : Wikipedia

Much has been said and written about the Chipko Movement. It continues to be one of the most prominent and analysed of environmental movements emanating from India. Long before ‘treehugging’ became a fashionable word in the west, women villagers of the Garhwal region on the foothills of the Himalayas (Uttarakhand District in Northern India) were practising it by becoming brave champions of the forests. To resist commercial felling of trees, they hugged them, giving rise to the term ‘Chipko’ which means ‘to stick‘ in Hindi.

The modern day Chipko movement is now nearly 40 years old.  On March 26, 1974, a group of peasant women in Reni village, Hemwalghati, Uttarakhand, India, prevented the cutting of trees by contractors of the state Forest Department.

Vimla Bahuguna

Vimla Bahugana, a Gandhian social worker became one of the prominent women leaders of the movement. Women bore most of the consequences of tree felling. They had to travel long distances to collect firewood. Water sources were drying up, and the soil was getting eroded as their trees were cut for cricket bats and other commercial products. Women were at the forefront of the movement.