3^rdInternational Conference On Agricultural Engineering and Food Security

Biography

Biography: Franz-Theo Gottwald

Abstract

The term food sovereignty has its roots in the association Via Campesina, a group of peasants and farmworker organizations. By now, a multitude of NGOs and farmer unions support this concept for a sustainable supply for an increasing global population. While food security describes the state in which all human beings would have economically and bodily access to safe and nutritious food at all points of time, for food sovereignty the necessary nutrition for an active an healthy life would be assumed, as well as the free choice of food based on culturally grown or individually preferred diets and food patterns (FAO 2006) (Windfuhr & Jonsén 2005).

To establish food sovereignty globally legal requirements would somewhat differ from the current politics and policies: local markets and an exchange of goods between local producers and local consumers would be necessary to decrease prices and increase sovereignty. Furthermore, selected staple food for a healthy alimentation for all citizens would need to be subsidized (for last practice see Below Horizente’s Food Security Policy.
An “either…or” becomes redundant, to think inclusive fundamental: increase in production and food sovereignty, shape green revolution and ecological intensification. One prerequisite for this development addresses molding the direction of future market structures legally and ethically – regarding technique, patents, soil, and consumer rights, as well as animal welfare plus environmental and landscape protection. Most urgently established power asymmetries have to be shifted and superseded for harvesting the benefits of food sovereignty in combat for hunger.