Land and food sovereignty

Abstract

Land and food politics are intertwined. Efforts to construct food sovereignty often involve struggles to (re)constitute democratic systems of land access and control. The relationship is two-way: democratic land control may be effected but, without a strategic rebooting of the broader agricultural and food system, such democratisation may fizzle out and revert back to older or trigger newer forms of land monopoly. While we reaffirm the relevance of land reform, we point out its limitations, including its inability to capture the wide array of land questions confronting those implicated in the political project of food sovereignty. Our idea of the land framework of food sovereignty, described as ‘democratic land control’ or ‘land sovereignty’, with working peoples’ right to land at its core, is outlined, with a normative frame to kick-start a debate and possible agenda for future research.