Food is culture and tradition, and the definition of food sovereignty reflects that. The definition below is from the Declaration of the Forum for Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni 2007, which was composed at the first international food sovereign summit;
“Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers and users. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal - fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just incomes to all peoples as well as the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social and economic classes and generations.”
As a movement, food sovereignty is relatively new. The first summit, as noted above, was in 2007. When international advocates and activists reach a concensus about their mission, it empowers and connects the mission for outreach at the local level. The more voices having a focused conversation, the louder it gets, and the harder it is to shut it down.
In 2014, I launched a project called the Library Seed Bank. This brought the concept of seed libraries to the area of southern New Jersey where I live. A seed library is a collection of open pollinated and heirloom seeds housed at a public library, and treated as standard library media. A current library card is needed to check these small packages of seeds out. Patrons are requested that seeds are collected from these plants, and depending on the library, seeds are returned. There are no fines if seeds aren't returned. The first seed library I launched was at the McGowan Memorial Library in Pitman, New Jersey, and six weeks later the second was launched at the Woodbury Public Library in Woodbury, New Jersey. I spent a year researching seeds and seed libraries before the launch. When I first started the research there were approximately 50 seed libraries in the United States. Today, we have more than 600.
If you think about it, the first step in securing most food is seeds. Generally, from one plant you get a harvest, and you get a lot of seeds for the next season. As I started to advocate for seed libraries, and seed saving, the more it became clear to me that what I needed to do for myself and my process was to expand the conversation about seed saving, and securing food.
I'm a visual artist and I live the creative process. I welcome every opportunity it offers, including creating the change that came with activism. The challenge for me was working with two different parts of the creative process, and the process wasn't showing me how to combine them. I trust the process, yet I was getting frustrated because I wanted to create visual arts. My ego was trying to over ride my intuition which is where my creative process is from.
I have a bachelor degree in the fine arts. My medium was photography. For a while I was shooting photos of what I was growing which became a book, Future Tomatoes, The Beauty of Heirloom Tomato Buds and some Stories About Them. It contains macro shots of the buds of tomato plants, and stories about those tomato plants. The more time I spent as an activist (and working a day job) the less time I had for art.
My art took a back seat. I was creating change, which I liked, yet knowing the history of art and activism, I felt that a piece was missing. The only way I could see to capture what I was doing was to document it with photography, which didn't feel right. I kept pushing the change that I wanted to see.
Then an opportunity came along to apply for a fellowship with the Vera List School of Politics and Art at the New School in New York, NY. The question proposed was we're living in a post democratic society, is it a good thing with social media breaking down barriers and creating communities that otherwise might not happen, or it a bad thing with multinational corporations coming into local communities and impacting their local sovereignty.
Nail meet head. One of the reasons the seed library movement happened was as a response to the the potential loss of local seed sovereignty because of the privatization of seeds. Seeds are becoming intellectual property and with that, comes usage rights. Depending on the contract, saving seeds can become a violation of the contract. With some humanitarian aid, the requirement for the aid includes using seeds from the corporations who are consolidating the seed business, and those contracts forbid saving seeds.