Differences Between Food Security and Food Sovereignty

Central Rivers Farmshed isn’t just an organization that promotes a local food economy, home gardening, or co-packing. Farmshed also focuses on providing local, whole foods to those experiencing food insecurity, promoting cultural food access, and local farmers. In 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of Farmshed’s programming had to be postponed or adapted to be virtual. Changes had to be made in order to adapt to the current situation of the world. One of the results of this shifting landscape is a partnership born with CAP Services Hmong Uplift program to start Sib Pab, a Hmong meal delivery service to Hmong elders and families in the Stevens Point community. This program was meant to address lack of access to cultural foods that elders were experiencing. Farmshed started out with having an intern for the program and eventually hired a program manager once the program expanded to more addresses and into Stevens Point Area High School.

Sib Pab was only the beginning of Farmshed’s work for improving food access to lower income households in the county. We partnered with Hunger Relief Federation for Badger Boxes, Local Food Purchasing Assistance for Farm Fresh and Free, the Hunger and Poverty Prevention Partnership (now known as PartnersHP) for the Mobile Pantry. All these programs centered on local small and medium sized Wisconsin farms and food producers.

Throughout these years, multiple terms have been used to describe the activities and purposes of these programs. ‘Food access’, ‘food security,’ ‘food insecurity’, and ‘food sovereignty.’ For this blog, we are going to focus on the terms ‘food security’ and ‘food sovereignty.’ These terms are commonly used interchangeably or within the same context. However, they have distinctly different meanings that are important to discern in this work. 

Food Security vs Food Sovereignty: How are they different?

One of the most clear distinctions between these concepts comes from Tara Maudrie, a third year PhD candidate at the John Hopkins School of Public Health, and Dr. Gary Ferguson, associate professor at Washington State University College of Medicine. Tara is a citizen of the Sault Ste Marie Tribe of Ojibwe Indians and Dr. Ferguson is a Qagan Tayagungin tribal member. In a jointly written paper, they call for the distinction between food security and food sovereignty as being viewed as survival versus thriving. Food security is fulfilling basic needs while food sovereignty focuses on the cultural or spiritual significance of foods that are stewarded in a way that is good for people, the land, animals, and water. In the paper, Indigenous food sovereignty is described as “a holistic approach to food that incorporates values of relationality, reciprocity, and relationships.” Rather than viewing food sovereignty as a mechanism to solving food security, Maudrie and Ferguson state that it is a completely different kind of food system with different values, rooted in Indigenous knowledge, and can bring more benefits for all people than mainstream food security efforts.

Here is a breakdown of the main differences stated in paper:

Indigenous Food Sovereignty:

• Reciprocity-based with land, animals, and water

• Relational foodways

• Includes origin story foods, ceremonial foods, and foods harvested, processed, and prepared using in traditional ways

• Ecological and environmentally friendly methods of stewarding foods

Food security:

• Based in Euro-American food systems, dominant system in the United States

• Measuring food security largely economically based

• Originally calorie focused

• Isn’t specific to cultural foods, especially with indigenous people

An impactful statement made in the paper is a direct call out to those with a growing interest in food sovereignty.

“Although the food sovereignty efforts of Indigenous communities have only recently captured dominant society attention (after millennia of intentional destruction and weaponization of food systems by settlers against AI/AN peoples), the underlying values and practices of these movements existed long before the arrival of settlers and are not a response to the shortcomings of the dominant food system but rather a resurgence and flourishing of Indigenous ways of knowing and being.”

A key message from this analysis is that food sovereignty is an Indigenous way of knowing and a completely separate food system to food security, and has existed long before food insecurity became an issue. These are terms not to be used interchangeably. Much of the work we do at Farmshed is through the lens of food security, with our own spin on prioritizing working with local farmers in our work. Right now, more policies and funding need to be enacted to support Indigenous peoples to focus on food sovereignty work to address inequities existing in their communities. Most importantly, Indigenous food sovereignty doesn’t just bring benefits to Indigenous communities, but all communities.

Next time you hear someone talking about our food systems, consider sharing the research brought to us by Tara Maurie and Dr. Ferguson. Feel free to share the podcast where they discuss their paper on the Health Promotion Practice Project.