Newsletters Nyéléni in English

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 organisations involved in the struggle – to exchange their experiences and share information.

Voices from the field

Newsletter no 59 - Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

Voices from the field 1

Indigenous Peoples and the Treaty Right to fish

Rochelle Diver and Chief Gary Harrison, Indian Treaty Council (IITC) and IPC Working Group on Fisheries, Great Lakes Region and Alaska respectively

In the US and Canada, the rights for Indigenous Peoples to fish are affirmed by Nation to Nation treaties signed between colonial governments and Indigenous Peoples. However, in Alaska, the trawl industry has annihilated salmon populations, collapsing ecosystems that Indigenous Peoples protected for over 25,000 years. Colonization replaced sustainable stewardship with greed– trampling fishing rights and destroying nature. Trawlers decimate habitats, kill salmon indiscriminately, and drive entire rivers to extinction—all for profit. This is ecological genocide.

Additionally, mining, as well as coal-fired power plants are contaminating fish with mercury and other chemicals and in-turn are contaminating our people. Ten percent of babies born in the Great Lakes region are pre-polluted with mercury. What use is the right to fish if the fish are harmful for our people and future generations? The intergenerational impacts of mercury and forever chemicals in our lakes are both physical and cultural. Developmental impacts from mercury hinder our children’s ability to retain our languages, stories and traditions.

Supporting Indigenous rights is supporting human rights and small-scale fisheries. Please join us in our fight for a toxic-free food system.

Voice from the field 2

Gaza’s fishers: a beacon in the struggle for food sovereignty and liberation

Saad Ziada, Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Palestine    

The fisheries sector in Gaza has been totally destroyed – we speak about equipment, boats, storage facilities, everything. Fisherfolk already lived in extremely precarious conditions before October 7 as a result of the blockade which affected access to the sea, incoming materials and export opportunities. Now their livelihoods have been destroyed, and their lives and lifestyles are under serious threat of erasure. Fishermen have been killed trying to fish near the shore on improvised floating devices to avoid starvation.

Since the ceasefire many families have returned to their neighborhoods but have not found anything left. We were able to find one motorized boat that survived all destruction. The fisherfolk remain steadfast though and are eager to rebuild their livelihoods, but the ceasefire has not fulfilled its promises in terms of incoming fuel, equipment and other basic materials to restart life. Even nets are hard to come by leaving us few options to restart the fisheries sector. But we are fighting a struggle for existence, a struggle for food sovereignty and against cultural erasure. We cannot do that alone and call on WFFP, IPC and its members, to demand accountability for the crimes committed and support us in rebuilding a fisheries sector of cultural importance which will serve as a beacon in the struggle for food sovereignty and liberation.

Voices from the field 3

From abundant fish to struggling for sustenance: Resilience in Uganda’s fisher communities

Namaganda Rehema, FIAN Uganda and Margaret Nakato, Katosi Women Development Trust

Uganda’s once thriving lakes have become sites of militarized control. Soldiers now dominate the waters where small-scale fishers once freely worked to sustain their livelihoods. Fishers are struggling to comply with harsh new fisheries regulations from 2017, brutally enforced by the military’s Fisheries Protection Unit.

The military routinely arrests fishers, destroys their boats, and confiscates their gear– acts that disrupt families, markets, and the delicate web of local food systems. Women, who process and trade the fish, bear the brunt. Once a unifying force, fish has become a symbol of disintegration. Once an abundant and vital source of protein, it is now scarce.

Amidst the hardship, the fisher communities are responding with collective action. They have initiated petition letters, held numerous meetings with policy makers, and engaged the media to bring their struggles to light, leading to significant progress, including changes to fisheries law.

Their struggle is more than a fight for resources; it is a fight to sustain their families, their communities, and their culture.

In the face of continuing militarization, they remain steadfast in their focus on food sovereignty, refusing to let their rights be overshadowed. For in their hands lies the power not just to fish but to shape the future of the lake they have long called home. Theirs is a fight for dignity,  justice, and the right of every community to feed itself.

Voices from the field 4

Community-based transformation

Claudia Pineda, FIAN Honduras

Honduras is a biologically diverse Central American country whose communities were forged in the struggle for survival, particularly in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Fonseca. There, thousands of families that depend on marine species for small-scale fishing and shrimp farming suffer from the destruction of their ecosystem. They are victims of the rapid and detrimental transformation of their territory as a result of environmental pollution and the deforestation of their mangrove forests due to agribusinesses and shrimp farming practices.

They are witnesses of how these practices based on an instrumental vision of nature have socio-environmental effects, with the reduction and loss of livelihoods, and increased vulnerability to extreme weather events. Both situations trigger migration and extreme poverty. Access to food is one of the main drivers of internal displacement and migration to countries such as Spain and the United States. This phenomenon leaves families with social problems in terms of changes in population structure, family disintegration and loss of labour force, to name a few.

However, resistance to this model is mounting, and fishing communities are increasingly demanding the right to participate in the definition and control of food systems. This is how, since 2024, began the construction of a community management’s model of their natural goods, based on local knowledge and practices.

Voices from the field 5

The Blackchin tilapia outbreak: A major ecological disaster in Thailand

Network of Thai Citizens Affected by the Blackchin Tilapia Outbreak (19 Provinces)

A blackchin tilapia outbreak began in Thailand in 2010 when Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) imported the species from Ghana to breed at its farm in Samut Songkhram. Within a year, the fish had spread to public canals and aquaculture ponds, and to nearby provinces. The species aggressively outcompeted native aquatic life, destroying shrimp, fish, crabs, and mollusks, leading to massive losses for small-scale fish farmers and coastal fishers. Many faced debt, land loss, and even suicide.

In 2017, affected communities filed complaints with the National Human Rights Commission, revealing CPF’s failure to comply with biodiversity protection measures. By 2024, the outbreak had spread to 19 provinces, threatening Songkhla Lake’s biodiversity and neighboring countries. Environmentalists called it “one of Thailand’s worst ecological disasters.”

On January 13, 2025, affected communities protested at CPF’s headquarters, demanding compensation and ecosystem restoration. “This serious problem originated from large corporations. We demand that environmental criminals be held accountable and that the state enforce strict biosafety laws to safeguard food sovereignty”, said Mr. Walop Khunjeng, a fisherman from Samut Songkhram.

CPF has yet to take responsibility and instead sued Biothai, an organization exposing the crisis. Experts warn that open-system fish farming may become unviable, forcing small farmers into CPF’s corporate-controlled closed systems.

Boxes

Newsletter no 59 - Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

Box 1

Mobilize at the Sub-Committee on Aquaculture

April marks a crucial moment for the Working Group on Fisheries of the International Planning committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC FWG) as we mobilize in Antalya, Turkey, to participate as observers in the Sub-Committee on Aquaculture , a subsidiary body of the FAO’s Committee on Fisheries (COFI). This political arena serves as a platform for shaping aquaculture policies and development strategies. With its Bureau led by Turkey and including representatives from Indonesia, Mexico, Senegal, and the United States, this space demands our attention and advocacy to counter the push for aquaculture expansion aligned with FAO’s Blue Transformation roadmap—a menace to small-scale fishers and Indigenous Peoples’ food sovereignty.

Industrial aquaculture fuels land and resource grabbing, displaces fishing communities, and strips them of their customary rights and livelihoods, all while accelerating environmental destruction. This corporate-led model benefits the few at the expense of the many, deepening inequalities and undermining our survival.

The IPC FWG demands a shift toward a human-rights-based approach that uplifts small-scale fishers as essential stewards of food security and biodiversity. We call on governments to implement the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines) and reject market-driven agendas. The fight for food sovereignty and the centrality of small-scale fishers and Indigenous Peoples must be the priority in these global discussions.

Box 2

In memory of Budi Laksana

Budi Laksana, Secretary General of Serikat Nelayan Indonesia (SNI) and a leading member of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), passed away on 28 November 2024 in Brasilia. He had traveled to Brazil to join comrades at WFFP’s 8th General Assembly, where he embodied the next generation’s fight for food sovereignty before succumbing to a sudden thrombosis attack.

Budi Laksana played a leading role in formulating the UN Small-scale Fisheries Guidelines, endorsed by the FAO in 2014, and worked tirelessly for their implementation in Indonesia and beyond. Under his leadership, SNI fought to protect traditional fishers’ territories and way of life from oligarchic interests. He was always at the forefront of marches and protest campaigns, denouncing the oligarchic policies of the Indonesian government from the speakers truck in front of the masses.

Coming from a traditional crab fishing family, he strongly opposed corporate aquaculture and industrial fishing, which he saw destroying not just livelihoods but entire food cultures and local economies. His vision for fisher peoples was grounded in principles of sovereign rights over food systems, inter-generational knowledge, and environmental stewardship. In his final days at the WFFP assembly in Brasilia, his positive spirit, comradery and passionate speeches on food sovereignty infused energy and solidarity amongst the over one hundred fisher delegates from fifty countries.

Budi Laksana championed women’s leadership, helping initiate the woman-led Nyimas Kumambang Fisherwomen’s Cooperative. As a stalwart supporter of food sovereignty, he placed women and their role in the entire value chain of fisheries at the forefront. As a woman fisher leader who accompanied him in his final days noted, he was “fighting and refusing to submit to a system that is greedy and impoverishing fisherwomen.”

Budi Laksana was a family man, leaving behind his beloved wife and three sons of five, ten and twelve  years of age behind.

Our thoughts go to his family and close comrades. Budi Laksana’s spirit will forever bring inspiration and power to fisher peoples’ struggle for food sovereignty.

Comrade Budi Laksana, rest in power.

Box 3

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In the spotlight

Newsletter no 59 - Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

In the spotlight 1

Resisting industrial aquaculture!

Global aquaculture production has tripled since the start of this century and people are now consuming more seafood from farms than from fisheries. But within the impressive numbers are two distinct types of aquaculture, with very different outcomes for food security.

One is small-scale, typically involving either the inland farming of freshwater carps or the semi-wild farming of molluscs along the coasts. These hardy species require little, if any, feed or other inputs, and are often integrated with other crops and animals. The rapid growth of this type of aquaculture has been hugely important for global food security, with few negative impacts.

The other type is industrial aquaculture. It focuses on breeds of shrimp, salmon and other “high-value” species that require large volumes of commercial feeds and vast amounts of antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals to stop disease outbreaks. It produces for export and supermarkets, not local markets, and relies on highly exploited labour. It is also controlled by powerful local elites and corporations with farms across different geographies and their own feed mills and processing factories.

These corporations destroy more food than they produce. Every year, 15% of the entire wild catch of fish is ground up and fed to fish and shrimp in industrial farms. Industrial aquaculture farms use up to 6 kilograms of wild fish to produce a kilogram of salmon and 1.5 kilograms of wild fish to produce a kilogram of shrimp. The wild fish are mostly taken from traditional fishing areas in the global South, where they would otherwise provide local people with cheap and nutritious food, while farmed salmon and shrimp go to mostly wealthy consumers in the North. Worse still, corporations build their fish farms in areas traditionally used by local fishers and farmers, taking away the waters and lands they use for fishing and farming and then rapidly destroying them with pollution and disease.

Industrial aquaculture farms are multiplying and getting bigger, but so too are movements to stop them. Fishers and fish workers are leading actions around the world to stop companies from destroying their fishing grounds. This past year a number of communities came together in Poros, Greece, to launch an international #FishFarmsOut campaign, while, a few months later, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP) launched a global campaign against industrial aquaculture at their 8th general assembly, declaring: “Industrial aquaculture is NOT fishing; it is privatizing, fencing and destroying our territories; dispossessing fisher peoples from the lands and waters; polluting water and coastal ecosystems with dangerous chemicals; driving ocean grabbing and climate change; and contributing to the criminalisation of and violence against fisher peoples.”

The struggle to end industrial aquaculture and build back local fisheries and small-scale aquaculture is critical to the larger movement for food sovereignty, dignified working conditions and climate justice.

For more info: GRAIN’s report – The pushback against Aquaculture Inc

In the spotlight 2

Ocean, Water and Fisher People’s Tribunals

People’s Tribunals emerged after World War II, with the Vietnam War crimes tribunals serving as a landmark case. Since then, these tribunals have become important tools for civil society to expose injustices and build moral pressure outside official legal systems. They are typically initiated when formal courts fail to protect human rights or refuse to act.

When Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action (SNEHA) and Delhi Forum decided to plan a series of Peoples’ Tribunals for fisher peoples in India in 2018, they did not envision other countries would pursue the same paths. Recognizing the inadequacy of traditional methods, they planned a series of Ocean, Water, and Fisher Peoples’ Tribunals with the first being rolled out in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, and Bangladesh in 2020. Since then, Movimento de Pescadores e Pescadoras Artesanais do Brasil (MPP) in Brazil (2022) and Masifundise in South Africa (2024) have held tribunals in their countries, and other organisations are planning for similar processes.

As non-governmental judicial courts, the Ocean, Water, and Fisher Peoples’ Tribunals address critical issues like human rights violations, environmental crimes, and social injustices. They amplify the voices of oppressed communities and recognize their knowledge and experiences. While the verdicts are not legally binding, they serve as powerful forums of justice and solidarity building and allow affected groups to speak truth to power where judicial systems fail.

The importance of the tribunals was recognised by Michael Fakhri, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He writes:

There are two different ways to imagine our oceans, rivers and lakes. There are those that treat bodies of water as economic opportunities, as a ‘blue economy’, something that can be exploited yet somehow balanced with sustainability policies. They envision governing bodies of water through markets and financial instruments. Thinking in these market-driven terms will ensure a world rife with inequality and violence.

Whereas, there are those whose lives are intertwined with bodies of water. Ocean, water and fisher peoples are essential to aquatic ecosystems and life. They understand oceans, rivers, and lakes as central to who they are and their way of life. The full realisation of ocean, water and fisher peoples’ human rights is the most powerful way to ensure the world’s bodies of water thrive.

The process and verdict of the Ocean, Water and Fisher Peoples’ Tribunals provide one of the most important expressions of international solidarity in relation to aquatic life. They provide a crucial understanding of what is at stake and what is to be done to ensure our bodies of water continue to be the source of life.

While the tribunals have produced profound empirical evidence of state failures to protect the human rights of fisher peoples and have weaved nets of solidarity, fishing communities are still waiting for material improvements to their lives. The jury verdicts hold potential to bring governments to the table at a time when other political strategies on their own appear insufficient.

For more info: TNI’s report – Ocean, Water and Fisher Peoples’ Tribunals Cutting the nets of capital and weaving nets of solidarity and the Website about Blue Economy Tribunals in Asia

Newsletter no 59 – Editorial

Newsletter no 59 - Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty

Illustration : Rosine Nsimire (Alliance pour la vie), Alessandro Musetta – Agathe, the matriarch above the water is a mixed-media digital publication documenting the experiences of artisanal fisherwomen from Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

In a rapidly changing world, beset by war and billionaire oligarchs, fishing livelihoods remain ignored in policy discussions. US President Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ agenda, worldwide extractivism, neo-protectionist nature enclosure through 30by30 (Global Biodiversity Framework), government-backed aquaculture expansion, and profit-driven mega projects continue eroding fisher peoples’ territories and livelihoods.

The rise of the radical right has led some governments to reduce or eliminate development aid,  and philanthropy holds greater sway in determining what and who gets support, further deteriorating the funding landscape. As NGOs and fisher movements increasingly rely on funding from philanthropy, this can lead to co-optation of some organizations’ political agendas and create division between those maintaining food sovereignty principles and those following funder-directed focuses like 30by30, ‘blue foods’ and ‘blue transformations’[1].

Fisher movements must unite to discuss political positions and tactics. Following the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty’s (IPC) decision to avoid endorsing the UN Food Systems Summit, similar positions may be needed on other imposed agendas. Fisher movements need to set their own agenda, and actively shape the direction of the larger food sovereignty movement. The Nyéléni Global Forum in September 2025 in Sri Lanka offers such an opportunity: to put fisheries on the agenda, build solidarity with other small food producers, food workers and climate movements, and advance the food sovereignty struggle.

FIAN International, GRAIN, IPC working group on fisheries, TNI, WFF, WFFP

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Waves of resistance, no 59

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[1] For more info, refer to the list of material on page 6.

Voices from the field

Newsletter no 58 - Nyéléni process: creating a joint political agenda for systemic transformation

Nyéléni 2025 process

Indigenous Peoples heading to the third Nyéléni Global Forum

Saúl Vicente Vázquez, Unidad de la Fuerza Indígena y Campesina (UFIC), IPC facilitating committee

Indigenous Peoples have struggled alongside other social movements of small-scale food producers since 1996, when the vision of Food Sovereignty was launched at the World Food Summit in Rome and became a reference in the global debate on trade, food and agriculture; a people-centred vision. The need for stable, healthy and affordable, culturally appropriate food, primarily produced locally and removed from neoliberal policies, privatisation and free trade and dependence on global markets, became the central reference at the global level for all key movements and organisations working on these issues.

Since then, we have managed to build a widespread movement within the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), influencing the policies of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), through autonomous organisation, mobilisation and the holding of two Nyéléni Global Forums for Food Sovereignty, with important achievements such as the Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure, the Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a reform of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), along with the adoption of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism for its relationship with the CFS, the adoption of the principles and elements of agroecology within the FAO and the High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, among others. All these international agreements and policies have led the way and have already begun to influence national and regional public policies and initiatives.

Despite these achievements, over the past decades we have approached a fundamental crossroads. People are increasingly worried and feel increasingly threatened. Governments have so far been unable to find sufficiently robust responses to people’s concerns and to the risks of multiple crises related to climate, biodiversity and extractive practices that continue to destroy the planet. There is a crisis of governance at the UN and at the national level.

We are convinced that we can take a different course, but we urgently need to join forces to push for the necessary changes. We need to fight for economic solidarity, climate justice and against the dominant influence of transnational corporations (TNCs) and big tech companies.

It is in this context that the third Nyéléni Global Forum is taking place, from where we propose to build a broader and stronger movement with a common platform and actions that can make a difference, promoting a profound transformation, a systemic change that allows the participation of the people, of the social movements that advocate for food sovereignty, participatory democracy, community empowerment, human rights, solidarity, cooperation between peoples and peace, and to promote real solutions to these multi-faceted crises.

Nyéléni 2025 process

Near East and North Africa (NENA) region

Jana Nakhal, World March of Women

We prepare for the 2025 Nyéléni Global Forum as our region goes through an Israeli terrorist war, including a genocide on Gaza, a destructive war on Lebanon, and continuous attacks on Syria and Yemen, in addition to a plunderous war by the Gulf princes on Sudan.

The amount and extent of wars that the NENA region has experienced in the last 100 years and is still experiencing, has affected its food sovereignty, amongst other people’s rights in the region.

This, in addition to indirect and political intervention from the global north, has meant that the region’s food sovereignty has also been absent from the agendas of the civil society and states’ policies. Additionally, it is approached through the food security lens, while dismissing a very much needed intersectional approach to the issue. 

Consequently, and while developing the Nyéléni process, we are also producing a list of expectations from and hopes for the Nyéléni Global Forum. We think that this forum is an opportunity for our region to globalize its causes and find solidarity, but also to learn from other contexts and experiences, and to pitch in with our local culture and the heritage of our decolonial movements.

In this sense, the Global Forum seems like an opportunity for our region as well as other regions, to process the rooted intersectional character of food sovereignty, and create a space of sharing knowledge, learning and radicalizing our conceptions and movements.

There is no doubt that patriarchal, capitalist, colonizing powers are launching renewed terrorist offensives on peoples of the global south. And we can only resist them through a collective grassroots and intersectional world view, which posits food sovereignty, access to basic human rights—such as access to housing, land and resources, education, health, etc.—the liberation of peoples and women, as well as personal liberties, as inalienable rights.

Nyéléni 2025 process

Africa region

Ali Aii Shatou, IPACC

The African regional consultation, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 2024, played a central role in framing Africa’s position. Participants reflected on their food systems, identified key issues, and developed a declaration that emphasizes the following outcomes:

Small scale food producers are recognized as the backbone of Africa’s food security. Support for these producers through access to natural resources and recognition of the value of peoples’ knowledge is critical to ensuring sustainable food systems.

Agroecology emerged as a key solution to the interconnected challenges of climate change, land degradation, and food insecurity. The consultations emphasized the need for policy support to scale up agroecological practices, including resilient seed systems and climate adapted farming methods.

A strong call was made for policies that empower women and youth in agriculture. This includes access to resources, promoting youth engagement in agriculture, and ensuring that women’s leadership is central to food sovereignty efforts.

Protecting land and water rights for small scale producers, pastoralists, fisherfolk and Indigenous communities was highlighted as essential to preventing land and water grabbing and ensuring that these resources remain a basis for food production and cultural survival.

Despite numerous positive outcomes, food sovereignty movements in Africa face significant challenges:

Many African governments remain aligned with industrial agriculture models, which prioritize export-oriented farming and undermine local food systems.

Multinational agribusinesses dominate food systems, pushing profit-driven agendas that prioritize genetically modified crops over local, traditional varieties.

Climate shocks are threatening agricultural productivity, while migration from rural areas undermines the sustainability of smallholder farming.

The African movement expects Nyéléni 2025 to be a platform for bold policy advocacy which challenges existing power structures and prioritize people-centred, sustainable food systems. Key demands include policies that prioritize small scale producers, agroecology, and land and water rights, as well as a call for an end to land and water grabbing and corporate control of food systems. There is also a desire to amplify the voices of marginalized groups, such as women, youth, and Indigenous communities, and to foster cross-border solidarity to address shared challenges like climate change and food insecurity.

Nyéléni 2025 process

Asia and Pacific region

Tammi Jonas, Australian Food Sovereignty Network

Sixty representatives from 12 countries and more than 20 global and regional social movements and civil society organisations across Asia and the Pacific came together in Negombo, Sri Lanka, to reflect on the current polycrises caused by patriarchal colonial capitalism, and to collectively build our strategies towards the third Nyéléni Global Forum. From the fields and local halls to the plenary, we shared stories of struggle and resistance specific to Asia and the Pacific, yet generalisable to all regions of the world. Whether at the level of micro-finance peddled to smallholders or World Bank loans to sovereign states, debt is crushing families, communities and countries, propped up by neoliberal policy reforms introduced by the IMF across the region. Disaster capitalism is rife across a region suffering greatly under climate change, from corporate tourism that robs fisherfolk of access to their customary waters while destroying natural barriers against tsunami, to mega-infrastructure projects purported to stem salinity from rising sea levels thereby inundating peasants’ rice paddies.

From land and water grabbing to the new frontier of carbon and data grabbing, colonial capitalism is moving to the cellular and even digital level. The struggle for food sovereignty is founded on knowledge, territory and sovereignty, asserting rights as enshrined in the UNDROP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas) and UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), which require a profound restructuring of who holds, uses, and shares power and knowledge in agri-food systems, and puts control of the means of production back in the hands of Indigenous Peoples, dalit, landless, peasants and local communities, starting with land, our mother.

Working with invited allies from other key global movements for health, debt justice, climate justice, social and solidarity economy, labour, and gender diversities, we look towards Nyéléni 2025, active in our optimism to work collectively for everyone’s right to nutritious and culturally-determined food grown in harmony with nature, processed and distributed by and within our communities, and democratically governed by us, for us.

Nyéléni 2025 process

North America region

Cicely Garrett, National Black Food and Justice Alliance (NBFJA)

The food sovereignty movement in North America (N.A.) is active, even if decentralized and lacking a core coordination support structure. For the purposes of the Global Nyéléni process, North America region is made up of more than the two nations of Canada and the United States (U.S.). There are over 1,200 sovereign Indigenous, Native, Metís, and Inuit nations that call the land home. Many of these are active in the regional food sovereignty movement.

The food sovereignty and food justice movements have faced a growing set of challenges in both Canada and the U.S., as a systems approach to food is still mostly missing from most levels of government, public sectors (i.e. health, education), and public awareness. In the U.S. in particular, the government has cut thousands of families from food assistance and other social programs and institutions use violence and incarceration against social movement communities.

At the same time, signs of a new wave of popular, mass movements for #BlackLivesMatter, Climate Justice, and actions against Monsanto and other corporations have emerged. New and existing national alliances are strengthening the leadership of working-class families and communities of colour to reclaim their lives and their bodies from structural racism and defend justice and food sovereignty.

The North American consultations happened virtually on May 8th and 9th, 2024. There were 125 participants, including coordination members, support staff and translators, representing over 70 organizations, coalitions, networks, farms and community food centres, based in the many nations that make up Turtle Island. While a lot of conversation focused on the challenges to achieving land justice and food sovereignty, there was a great focus on amplifying successful strategic interventions and root causes systemic changes. There was a renewed call and commitment to solidarity and transformative actions to build collective power. All in all the consultation was a beginning, a catalyst if you will, to continued coordination in route to the 2025 in-person Global Nyéléni convening and beyond. 

Nyéléni 2025 process

Latin America and Caribbean region

Perla Álvarez Britez, CONAMURI/CLOC

In our region, we are determined that this third Nyéléni Global process will help us to strengthen the movement for food sovereignty: to convene a widespread popular movement, to build new relationships between humans and nature and among each other, so that we can leave this beautiful land to the next generations.

In our Popular Consultation in February 2024, we called for new waves of popular agrarian reforms and for the expansion of agroecological food systems to achieve food sovereignty: we are aware that this implies a systemic change.

In our consultation we involved some twenty organisations from the continental, regional and national levels, including peasants, Indigenous Peoples, fisherfolk, fisherwomen, women, youth, the movement for human rights, climate justice and health, among others. Our children deserve a better world, the possibility of a total meltdown is more certain than ever and ever closer if we do not act. Therefore, we call on all emerging movements, the climate justice movement, the feminist movement, the workers’ movement, youth and academia committed to the struggles of the people to join this call to the Global Forum in India in 2025.

We call for joint action with our allies to demand that governments take responsibility for ensuring public policies based on human rights and the rights of nature, to fight against corporations that devastate our territories, to build new subjectivities based on feminist contributions, and to take on diversity as a challenge for the future. We are therefore organising a series of open webinars to build a common agenda.

We hope that the Global Forum will conclude with a powerful call to humanity, to governments and intergovernmental bodies to act with real solutions, not false solutions; a call for peace, with social and environmental justice, with respect for the diversity of life and people. Therefore, from Latin America and the Caribbean we propose a new ICARRD+20 (International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development), where we will have active and leading participation of the people.

Nyéléni 2025 process

Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region

Ia Ebralidze, ELKANA

In recent years the Nyéléni ECA movement has made significant strides across Eastern Europe and Central Asia in fostering solidarity among individuals and organizations committed to food sovereignty and working on connecting local agroecology initiatives. Collaboration with the FAO regional office has amplified civil society voices, enabling meaningful contributions to regional policy debates. The National-level mobilization efforts despite pandemic challenges, have continued their efforts. However, as the region is characterized by diverse political and social cultures, country development levels, and agricultural systems, the Nyéléni working strategy of the region is still under formation. A new strategy aims to achieve clear processes and transparency within the network to build trust and boost strategic action.

Politically the region faces intersecting crises – the Russian invasion in Ukraine, frozen and/or ongoing armed conflicts in Caucasus and Central Asia, as well impacts of war in Palestine,  preceded by the effects of climate change, especially water shortage, and natural disasters resulted not only in loss of thousands of lives, displacements of millions, destruction of civil infrastructure and cutting supply chains but also highly destabilized the whole region. The rise of authoritarianism and populism all over Eastern Europe and Central Asia, using the traumatic and fragile conditions of the populations, the introduction of so-called “Agent laws” backed up by the Russian Federation, results in stigmatization and marginalization of civil society organizations including individuals and organizations working on peasants’ and indigenous’ rights or food sovereignty.

Meanwhile, skyrocketing food prices, disrupted supply chains, and limited access to essential resources—land, water, and labour—are devastating local food producers. These pressures have intensified working migration, marginalized small-scale farmers, and deepened regional food insecurity.

Yet, amidst these crises, agroecology has proven its critical importance. As a low-input, family-based farming system, agroecology offers a foundation for food security and resilience during extreme events. The small-scale food producers, despite immense challenges, remain the backbone of sustainable food systems. To support them, public policies must strengthen civil society and Indigenous organizations, prioritize human rights, include vulnerable constituencies, and bolster local economies.

Boxes

Newsletter no 58 - Nyéléni process: creating a joint political agenda for systemic transformation

Box 1

Political debates in the FAO and CFS get heated as governments stall

The long wave of the Covid pandemic, the food crisis, and multiple conflicts affected political discussion in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) spaces. Trade shocks and their impact on food systems have been extensively discussed in the Committee on Commodity Problems (CCP). Most countries continued to support neoliberal policies, while some isolated voices mentioned local markets as a response to the global market volatility and fragility. The Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM) joined the new Committee on World Food Security (CFS)’s workstream to develop an Action Plan that could serve as a roadmap to strengthen the dissemination and implementation of the policy documents agreed by CFS at local, national, regional and global levels.

The same need for implementation was raised by the fisheries movements at the Committee on Fisheries (COFI), where they advocated for the implementation of the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines at the national level. Another space to promote the food sovereignty agenda was the Global Forum on Family Farming within the United Nations’ Decade on Family Farming (UNDFF).  The IPC Working Group on Youth participated to bring the voices of young farmers and Indigenous Peoples and create a toolkit to facilitate generational turnover in agriculture. In the meantime, negotiations in the Plant Treaty (ITPGRFA) are at a critical stage. By refusing to regulate digitised version of seeds (DSI), governments are allowing corporations to bypass the Treaty rules, creating space for a huge new wave of biopiracy on peasant and Indigenous Peoples’ biodiversity. The coming years will be pivotal for peasants and Indigenous Peoples movements, as efforts will soon converge towards organizing a new International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20).

Box 2

Let’s counter the corporate offensive on global governance!

Many fronts important for the food sovereignty movement

The right of communities to grow their food and to feed themselves is increasingly under threat, including in global policy spaces such as the United Nations. Large corporations and their political allies are taking advantage of current wars, climate, biodiversity and social crises to prioritise the industrial food system, serving profits instead of people.

The UN bodies negotiating climate (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – UNFCCC) and biodiversity (Convention on Biological Diversity – CBD) policies are in the cyclone’s eye. Over time, the UNFCCC has fostered a surge of false solutions such as carbon markets that are turning nature into profit, without bringing any benefit to the climate. Risky geoengineering technologies that are supposed to ‘fix the climate’ by manipulating solar radiation or industrially capturing carbon are also on the rise. All these ‘technofixes’ threaten to increase land-grabbing and could destroy ecosystems that food producers rely on. Even though the CBD has shown a lack of ambition and financial power at the last COP16 in Cali, it has maintained a de facto moratorium on geoengineering, thanks to a strong civil society mobilisation.

The digitalisation of agriculture and AI technologies are also entering policy spaces, threatening farmers rights, as seen in the recent UN Summit of the Future. Now or never, solidarity and strong resistance at all levels of power are needed and will allow us to transform the food system.

For more info: listen to the podcast mini-series “Who will control the food system?” , read Trojan Horses on the Farm: Challenging the digitalization of agriculture – and watch the animated video: Big Brother is Coming to the Farm (in 12 languages).

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 58 - Nyéléni process: creating a joint political agenda for systemic transformation

Building a stronger movement: gearing up for the third Nyéléni Global Forum

Launched in 1996 at the World Food Summit, food sovereignty promotes a people-focused approach to food systems, prioritizing locally produced, stable, healthy, and affordable food over dependence on global markets and neoliberal policies. The Nyéléni Forum in Mali (2007) established this vision as a global standard, uniting movements and organizations dedicated to food sovereignty and social justice. In 2015, the Nyéléni International Forum on Agroecology reinforced this, placing peasant, indigenous, family agroecology at the centre of a strategy for addressing climate and biodiversity crises.

Despite these achievements, we now face interconnected crises — economic, social, political, environmental and health-related—which are rooted in the oppressive capitalist system. These crises require systemic, transformative change beyond what existing frameworks offer. To achieve this, a broader, stronger movement with a unified agenda and coordinated action is essential. Expanding the food sovereignty movement with new voices and perspectives can drive impactful change that addresses current global challenges.

In response, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) has initiated the “Nyéléni process,” a global mobilization that builds on the successes of the 2007 and 2015 forums. Named to honour the past gatherings, the Nyéléni process calls on social movements worldwide to unite in joint proposals for systemic transformation. The process will celebrate a key milestone in September 2025 at the third Nyéléni Global Forum in Karnataka, India, offering a unique chance to set the agenda for just, sustainable food systems and system change. By fostering an inclusive, intersectional movement, the Nyéléni process aims to inspire and direct coordinated global efforts towards a hopeful, just future.

Building momentum toward the third Nyéléni Global Forum, social movements advocating for transformative change are already shaping the agenda for September 2025. Central to the Nyéléni movement political goal is the development of a joint political action agenda – a pivotal step towards realizing the Nyéléni process’s main objectives. This joint political action agenda will focus on key aspects that have emerged from the Nyéléni regional consultations organised in 2024 to provide a unified direction for social movements in the years ahead.

On a more technical level, while the host organisation is finalising logistics to allow the forum to take place, the regions are already building the delegations that will attend the Global Forum, striving to have all sectors represented, including those organizations or groups outside the food sovereignty movement, and respecting intersectional criteria. Meanwhile, many working groups— composed of representatives of social movements and support organizations—have emerged and are developing the work towards the forum: methodology, communication, fundraising, logistics, involvement of researchers, care and respectful processes, interpretation, and political formation.

Newsletter no 58 – Editorial

Newsletter no 58 - Nyéléni process: creating a joint political agenda for systemic transformation

Nyéléni process: creating a joint political agenda for systemic transformation

Illustration: First poster (of three) created for the Nyéléni Forum 2025

Seventeen years have passed since 2007, when the first Nyéléni Forum took place in Mali, bringing together social movements for food sovereignty from all over the world. The movement has been growing and gaining momentum, advocating at all levels for collective rights, human rights and food sovereignty. However, much remains to be done.

The world is in unprecedented turmoil, and we are all facing deep-rooted overlapping crises. We need a paradigm shift to reclaim the right to shape our own food systems for the well-being of people and the planet.

That is why we are calling for a new mobilization within and beyond the food sovereignty movement, to build our response at both global and local levels, and tighten alliances with climate justice, antiracism, health, labour, feminist, and social and solidarity economy movements and organisations. Systemic transformation is now or never.

We, the small-scale food producers and their allies, launched a new Nyéléni process, inviting global social movements, organizations, and networks to articulate an intersectional convergence towards joint proposals for a system change. Through this multi-year process, we’ve brought together thousands of grassroots organizations and other allies across six world regions, to discuss and put forward joint proposals for a system change and a strong political agenda for the years to come. The Nyéléni Global Forum, to be held in 2025 in India, will be the space for strategy and organization, and to kick off this new phase of the food sovereignty movement.

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Voices from the field

Newsletter no 57 – A new framework for trade based on food sovereignty

Voices from the field 1

Morocco: appropriating food sovereignty for markets!

Ali Aznague, Siyada Network

In the Arab region, agriculture is at the heart of neoliberal policies that grant generous financial subsidies to large investors while marginalizing small farmers. The World Trade Organization, major donor institutions (such as the IMF and World Bank), and comprehensive free trade agreements have exacerbated this situation.

In Morocco, agricultural policy consists of two strategic plans aimed at furthering commercial and export-oriented agriculture: “The Green Plan (2008/2018)” and “The Green Generation (2020/2030).” Ironically, the government maintains the concept of “food sovereignty” but strips it of its political and social content. Similarly, agricultural policies in the Arab Republic of Egypt, such as Article 79 of the 2014 Constitution, outline the principles of food sovereignty; yet actual practices follow a market logic rather than the emancipatory potential of food sovereignty.

The situation in the Arab region is becoming increasingly difficult and complex due to rising food prices, the resurgence of counter-revolutionary forces, and the Israeli war of extermination against the Palestinian people. Therefore, there is an urgent need to build a militant agricultural movement against hunger and the commodification of food, and to increase pressure to adopt the actual principles of food sovereignty in both words and actions. The principal slogan of the “Siyada Network in the Arab Region” involves establishing partnership relations with countries of the Global South based on cooperation and breaking away from food dependency.

Voices from the field 2

India’s price support policy

Nandini Jayaram, Karnataka State Farmers Association (KRRS), India

The food shortages India faced in the 1960s led the government to adopt measures to boost agricultural productivity. The Price Support policy began during this time with the establishment of the Agricultural Price Commission in 1965, later reconstituted as the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in March 1985. This body announces the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 23 crops, including cereals, pulses, oilseeds, and commercial crops, before each cropping season. The MSP acts as a safety net for farmers, ensuring they receive a fair price for their crops even if market prices fall below a certain threshold. It also aims to incentivize the production of key crops, preventing shortages of staple food grains. The government procures food grains at MSP for distribution through the Public Distribution System (PDS), subsidizing food for millions. So, it is indeed a policy that promotes food sovereignty.

Farmers’ movements have long demanded that the CACP revise cost calculations by including rentals and interest for owned land and fixed capital assets and adjust for inflation. We also seek a legal guarantee for MSP to prevent purchases below the announced price. Currently, there is no legal backing for MSP, forcing many farmers to sell crops at lower rates due to inadequate procurement mechanisms and market access issues.

Voices from the field 3

Mali’s agricultural orientation law

Ibrahim Sidibe, CNOP, Mali

Mali regulates markets in a general manner, and for the trade of agricultural products this responsibility has been given to the Agricultural Orientation Law (LOA) and the  Agricultural Development Policy (PDA). Enacted in 2006, the LOA covers all economic activities in the agricultural and peri-agricultural sectors, including agriculture, livestock farming, fishing and pisciculture, aquaculture, beekeeping, hunting, forestry, gathering, processing, transportation, trade, distribution, and other agricultural services, as well as their social and environmental functions. It aims to guarantee food sovereignty and to become the engine of the national economy with a view to ensuring the well-being of the populations.

The Agricultural Development Policy (PDA) is based on the accountability of the State, territorial collectivities, agricultural professionals, farmers and civil society. It emphasizes promoting food sovereignty, the reduction of rural poverty, social advancement of women, youth, and men in rural and suburban areas, partnerships and creating common markets within large economic entities at sub-regional, regional, and international levels. Following developments in national and international contexts (such as the Paris Declaration and new modalities of development assistance), Mali and its Technical and Financial Partners have formally committed, since 2008, to a sectoral approach for the agricultural sector. Currently, institutional or organizational sales are not formalized, and we are still in the process of negotiating an appropriate framework.

Voices from the field 4

Spain’s food chain law

Andoni García, COAG, Spain

The Food Chain Law, passed in Spain in 2013, aims to improve the food chain’s functioning by requiring written contracts for producers that include prices. In February 2020, it was amended to mandate that prices paid throughout the food chain, starting with farmers, must legally cover production costs. This change followed protests by agricultural organizations demanding fair prices. In December 2021, the law was further amended to incorporate the EU directive on unfair trading practices and several COAG proposals, achieving significant regulatory elements within the European political framework.

Two key instruments enforce the Food Chain Law: the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA), which collects complaints from farmers and other entities, conducts inspections on price abuse, contract issues, and other abuses, and the Chain Observatory, which conducts price and cost studies across the value chain for each agricultural and livestock production. The 2021 reform also prohibits selling at a loss by large distributors, ensuring products cannot be sold below purchase price. However, the law faces limitations due to competition laws, which prevent collective price negotiation, price fixing, or strict linkage of cost and price studies to contracts. Moreover, the law aims to protect each farmer and livestock breeder individually, not collectively, except for certain exceptions for cooperatives.

Voice from the field 5

Territorial markets in Colombia

Juliana Millán, RENAF, Colombia

In RENAF we have created a campaign to identify territorial markets across the country, enhancing their visibility and combined success. The aim is to understand and share the many different ways in which these diverse markets work, their various forms of association and production, including traditional production that does not need or use agrochemicals. RENAF members and other regional small producers are empowered by access to this information, which has facilitated collective network responses to crises such as COVID-19, empowering territorial markets and enabling their survival, and enhancing ecological food diversity.

Voice from the field 6

Canada’s supply management system

Cathy Holtslander, National Farmers’ Union, Canada

Canada’s supply management system provides stability in the dairy, laying hen (egg), broiler chicken, turkey and hatching egg sectors by controlling the amount produced, preventing shortages, and keeping under-priced imports from being dumped into Canada’s market. A transparent, cost-of-production pricing formula ensures that farmers receive a fair income. As a result, Canada does not experience wide fluctuations in supply and prices – nor the need for massive government subsidies to farmers.

Farm size remains small to moderate, particularly when compared with these commodities in the USA. Each commodity is governed by farmers elected to their provincial marketing board according to provincial regulations under federal framework legislation. Supply management allows farmers to invest in equipment, training, animal husbandry, genetics and land stewardship for the future while requiring them to produce the right amount of product at the right time and meeting quality standards.

The system also insulates dairy, eggs and poultry from currency exchange fluctuations and other shocks that affect export-oriented and import-dependent sectors of the food and farming system. It also avoids competition for the markets of farmers in other countries who are providing food for their own populations.

Export-dependent dairy nations (USA, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina) frequently attack the system in order to get access to Canada’s market. Within Canada, corporate actors attack the system both to force prices paid to farmers below the cost of production (benefiting food manufacturers), and as a bargaining chip to gain concessions for other sectors in trade negotiations.

Some smaller farmers who direct-market would like to see more flexibility in the system. To improve its ability to face these challenges, supply management boards can improve and expand new-entrant mechanisms to provide more affordable access to production quotas, and encourage alternative production systems that promote renewal, resilience and response to consumer desires for diversity, and develop a ‘triple bottom line’ approach to cost of production pricing formulae to ensure environmental and social costs are not externalized.

Boxes

Newsletter no 57 – A new framework for trade based on food sovereignty

Box 1

A trade system that prioritizes peasants’ rights: Collaboration over competition

Efforts to build a developmental and equitable trading system have occurred in the past. One notable example is the Havana Charter, which aimed to ensure full employment and domestic industrialization in the post-war international trade order. It sought to establish comprehensive rules for trade, investment, services, and business and employment practices. However, under pressure from corporate lobbies and the United States, the charter was abandoned and replaced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which eventually evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Another significant initiative is the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP), established over three decades ago by the Group of 77 (G77), a coalition of developing countries. The GSTP aims to boost trade among developing nations. In late 2022, Brazil ratified commitments under the GSTP, reigniting international interest in the agreement, which is now just one ratification away from coming into effect. However, these initiatives are often constrained by the prevailing neo-liberal framework, which focuses on promoting trade in agro-industrial products and technology-intensive manufactured goods.

What is needed now is an alternative framework that emphasizes cooperation and collaboration over competition, and solidarity over sanctions. This framework should support rural economies, enable diverse food systems to thrive, and ensure that the rights of peasants, Indigenous peoples, workers in both rural and urban areas and migrants are central to transnational trade.

Box 2

A brief history of agricultural marketing boards

The dismantling of public marketing boards has been a major feature of the shift in agrarian policy from state-led to market-led development.

Historically, marketing boards have a mixed record. Many marketing boards were extractive in nature, used by governments to squeeze surpluses out of their farming populations and to contain urban wages through price restraints on staple foods. This speaks to the particular geopolitical context in which many of them arose in the 1960s and 70s, during which time development strategies heavily favoured industrialisation. Corrupt and authoritarian regimes have also used marketing boards as a means of consolidating power by placing political appointees on to the board.

Despite some of these flaws, marketing boards performed valuable functions. They were often an important instrument to ensure the distribution of staple foods. Mexico’s former grain trading agency, CONASUPO, for example, offered an official purchase price for basic grains, providing a buffer against international market swings and subsidized competition. Marketing boards continue to operate in a number of countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, where they handle the majority of the marketing and distribution of export crops.

The criticism that is often levied against marketing boards must also be balanced against the alternatives. State monopolies in agricultural marketing systems have now largely been replaced by the oligopolistic practices of multinational food buyers and retailers. There is thus ample scope to think (again) about the potentials and pitfalls of public marketing boards.

More in here.

Box 3

Rethinking the regulation of agricultural markets for agroecological transition in Europe

The wave of farmers’ protests that have swept across Europe in recent months, including in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, Romania and Lithuania, have set in motion new calls for rethinking Europe’s approach to the regulation of agricultural and food markets.

While the particular politics, concerns and demands vary by country, these protests all respond to the extraordinary cost price squeeze farmers are experiencing: in 11 EU countries, prices paid to farmers fell by more than ten percent from 2022 to 2023. The economic precarity experienced by farmers must be set against the backdrop of the longer-term structural crisis in European agriculture.

It is clear that current EU policy frameworks, in particularly the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), has not been able to meet the scale of the current challenge to ensure fair prices and decent incomes for farmers. This was not always the case. The CAP used to deploy a whole panoply of instruments aimed at maintaining relatively high and stable prices for farmers producing foodstuffs deemed strategic, so as to ensure sufficient production to cover the food needs of European populations and reasonable prices for consumers. These tools were nearly all abandoned from 1992 onwards in order to comply with the commitments of the World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Agriculture, with market regulation instruments replaced by direct income support for farmers. Over time, this support was made conditional on compliance with an increasing number of standards.

What lessons can be learned from the successes and failures of past policies to regulate agricultural markets, in Europe and elsewhere in the world, in order to rebuild the CAP on the basis of food sovereignty and enable the agroecological transition?

This key question will be the focus of a groundbreaking conference taking place on ‘Rethinking the Regulation of Agricultural Markets for Agroecological Transition in Europe’ organised by the European Coordination Via Campesina with partners. Scheduled for 3-4 March 2025 in Brussels, the conference will bring together academics, peasants, and small- and medium-sized farmers from across Europe to promote the co-construction of knowledge in service of a new CAP that is fit for purpose.

More information on the conference, here.