Connect with organizations on the frontlines of the struggle for food sovereignty.
La Via Campesina, International
Arguably the world’s largest social movement, La Via Campesina brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature. Altogether, it represents about 200 million farmers. It is an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent from any political, economic or other type of affiliation.
All organizations listed here collaborate and co-create the movement for food
sovereignty alongside La Via Campesina, among other allies:
Nyéléni
A groundbreaking international gathering of more than 500 representatives from 80 countries working on food sovereignty was held in Mali in 2007. The organizations in Mali wanted to give the World Forum for Food Sovereignty a name which would have meaning to the farmers of their country. They chose Nyéléni. Since 2007, this name has become a powerful symbol for the food sovereignty movement. Who was Nyéléni?
Nyéléni European Food Sovereignty Movement, Europe
Nyéléni Europe is the widest international network aiming to realize food sovereignty in Europe. By bringing together farmers, consumers, NGOs, trade unions, environmental and development organizations, the Nyéléni Europe Movement is aiming to build common strategies in order to re-organize the way we organize our society around food and agriculture today.
The international Nyéléni newsletter is the voice of the international movement for food sovereignty. Its main goal is to strengthen the grassroots of the movement, by providing accessible material on key issues and creating a space – for individuals and organizations involved in the struggle – to exchange their experiences and share information.
Food First / Institute for Food and Development Policy, U.S.-based; International scope
Food First works to end the injustices that cause hunger through research, education and action. Informed by a vast network of activist-researchers, Food First’s analysis and educational resources support communities and social movements fighting for food justice and food sovereignty around the world.
Grassroots International, International
Grassroots International builds alliances with and funds progressive movements in the Global South and advocating for social change, with a primary focus on land, water and food as human rights. Grassroots International works around the world to help small farmers and other small producers, indigenous peoples and women win resource rights: the human rights to land, water and food and supports community-led initiatives and movements worldwide.
Landless Workers Movement / MST, Brazil
Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Portuguese, is a mass social movement, formed by rural workers and by all those who want to fight for land reform and against injustice and social inequality in rural areas. The MST was born through a process of occupying latifundios (large landed estates) and become a national movement in 1984. The movement has led more than 2,500 land occupations, with about 370,000 families – families that today settled on 7.5 million hectares of land that they won as a result of the occupations. Through their organizing, these families continue to push for schools, credit for agricultural production and cooperatives, and access to health care.
National Family Farm Coalition, USA
The National Family Farm Coalition represents family farm and rural groups whose members face the challenge of the deepening economic recession in rural communities. The combination of member groups’ grassroots strength and NFFC’s experience working on the national level enables the coalition to play a unique role in securing a sustainable, economically just, healthy, safe and secure food and farm system. Additional power comes from collaborative work with a carefully built network of domestic and international organizations that share similar goals.
Navdanya, India
Navdanya means “nine seeds,” symbolizing protection of biological and cultural diversity and the “new gift” for seed as commons, based on the right to save and share seeds In today’s context of biological and ecological destruction. A network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 17 states in India, Navdanya is actively involved in the rejuvenation of indigenous knowledge and culture. It has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering, defended people’s knowledge from biopiracy and food rights in the face of globalization.
UNORCA, Mexico
UNORCA is a campesino organization in Mexico working on land reform and food sovereignty. UNORCA represents broad indigenous and peasant representation of small farmers, laborers, youth, women, fishermen and farmworkers from all regions of Mexico.
U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, USA
The US Food Sovereignty Alliance works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies, and assert democratic control over the food system. USFSA believes all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food, produced in an ecologically sound manner. As a U.S.-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups, USFSA upholds the right to food as a basic human right and work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty.
Updated 8/2014
