This Nature Food correspondence was written in the lead up to the UNFSS+4 Stocktake in 2025, as a 'parallel' stocktaking of the Summit through a human rights lens. Using selected PANTHER principles (Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Transparency, Human Dignity, Empowerment, Rule of Law) the authors evaluate the Summit through three key tenets of a rights-based approach:
Young people around the world are mobilising for food sovereignty: the rights of peoples to define and control their own food and agricultural systems and the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food. While food sovereignty movements are emergent and take multiple forms, they share a common frustration with the failure of established political institutions to address the needs of people and communities.
This thesis is about the micropolitics of transforming food and agriculture governance institutions in a complex and uncertain world. For decades, food sovereignty movement actors have been mobilising to resist the privatisation of land, seeds, labour, culture and knowledge. Since 2010, they have been participating in policy negotiations inside the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) through an autonomous International Civil Society and Indigenous People’s Mechanism (CSIPM).
