Food security and food sovereignty: open issues

Abstract

After a very brief contextualization of the global food security crisis emerged as an outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, I firstly address the notions of food security and food sovereignty, especially focusing on the emergence and the features of the latter. Then, in the third section and in the conclusion I argue for the need to radically address the general notion of “sovereigntyâ€, whose current definition – even in expressions such as “food sovereignty†– is clearly linked to the framework of Western modernity and the Western modern state. My point is that in order to effectively suggest “food sovereignty†as a possible solution to “food security†as a global problem, we should radically rethink and rework the notion of sovereignty, unmasking its connections with the localized and culturally biased epistemic framework from which it emerged, and in reference to which, if unwittingly, it still keeps on being predominantly defined and applied.