Food is the foundation of life. In terms of human life, food sits alongside water, air, and shelter from extreme weather conditions as essential for maintaining life. As an essential component of every living thing, it is not surprising that food has been worshiped and celebrated throughout the millennia.
A sovereign is someone, or a group of people, who have supreme authority over others. A sovereign is sometimes a monarch, sometimes worshiped, often respected. Often a sovereign is seen to be independent of others in their society. A sovereign has authority and sometimes has power and overall control.
As the food sovereignty movement continues to grow and receive increasing profile among public media, this post looks at different forms of sovereign which have been associated with food.
Demeter and Ceres
Demeter is the Greek Goddess of agriculture, fertility and harvests. She was considered to oversee the fertility of grain and represent the giver of food. Demeter is representative of a civilised agricultural society within the ancient Greek religion. In some texts she is also referred to by the names Sito or Thesmophoros. Her name is derived from the ancient Greek for mother, being ‘meter’, so Demeter was thought of as a Mother-Earth figure.
A depiction of the Greek Goddess Demeter, seen here with a harvest of maize
Demeter was worshiped during the ancient Greek festival of Thesmophoria which was held during the hot dry summer months of the year. During this period Demeter was believed to take rest from being a Goddess of harvests. The festival was particularly marked by the sacrifice of pigs as few crops would grow in the Greek summer.
The ancient Roman religion also has a Goddess of agriculture, fertility and harvests. Although there are 12 Roman Gods and Goddesses identified as having connections to agriculture, Ceres is the one most strongly associated with harvests and caring for the earth to enable production. Like Demeter, Ceres was also believed to preside over grain crops and represented maternal fertility.
Harvest Festivals
Within British society there is a long-running tradition of celebrating harvest festivals. This tradition has been slowly dying out over the past couple of decades but I have many memories of celebrating harvest festivals as a child. In Britain the practice of harvest festivals takes place in late-September and can be traced back to Pagan times. It is often associated with religion and giving thanks to God for the harvest and providing food for the coming year. It is partly through the shift away from a majority Christian society that has led to the decline in the practice of harvest festivals in the UK over recent decades.
Harvest festivals are also celebrated in other countries around the world. In the US and Canada the harvest festival has come to be celebrated during Thanksgiving. Many countries have a similar festival to that in Britain, but throughout many developing countries there are traditional festivals marking harvests within various local ethnic groups. Harvest festivals can be widely diverse in the form of festivities and celebrations, but they have one common theme: celebrating the crop yield and being thankful that the earth has provided food.
CGIAR and Monsanto
In the 1940s, science, technology and innovation emerged as the new sovereign of food by taking a place as the primary authority on agricultural production. From the 1940s through to the 1970s, the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation funded research institutions to develop high-yielding crop varieties in order to increase production. This period became known as the Green Revolution.
During the Green Revolution agricultural practices based around improved varieties of seeds (particularly maize and rice), fertiliser inputs, pesticide use, and mechanisation became the dominant model of production throughout much of Latin America and Southern Asia. The increased yields are cited as having prevented famine in Asia and saving many millions of lives. Due to this, the high-input, technology-based, mechanised agriculture system developed during this period became the reigning sovereign, the authority on how to increase production.
The sovereign ruler in this method of agricultural production during the Green Revolution was the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, commonly referred to as the CG). The CGIAR was officially established in 1971 but the research institutes which had driven the Green Revolution became members of the CGIAR. Today, the CGIAR consists of 15 research institutes which have specific mandates working on agriculture in developing countries worldwide. They continue to hold much of the authority in agricultural research in developing countries.
In recent decades the model of science and technology-based agriculture has seen the steady rise of the influence and authority of agricultural research corporations. The most widely known is Monsanto which now holds a position of sovereign due to the authority and power it holds. Monsanto are known for breeding improved seeds, producing fertilisers and pesticides, and developing genetically modified (GM) crop varieties. Monsanto products are so widely used that they hold a monopoly over the industry and Monsanto has become a household name.
Many would say that not only are large agri-business corporations considered as the authority on agriculture but that they also have power over others and thus can sway political and development the agenda towards their own interests. Corporations such as Monsanto and Syngenta are known to lobby political and governing bodies and influence trade agreements and associated agricultural policies, including those regarding seed production. Along with public concern about GM crops, the political and financial lobbying power of large corporations have triggered widespread debate and numerous pubic protests. Thus, although they may hold a sovereign authority over the sector, many in society do not respect or worship this form of sovereign.
Food Sovereignty
It is from this context that we see the emergence of the global food sovereignty movement. Food sovereignty as cause is best known through La Via Campesina, an association of peasant farmers which was founded in 1993. Since that time the food sovereignty movement has steadily grown globally, particularly in response to the emergence of other concerns such as environmental degradation, climate change, and demand for organic produce.
Peasant farmers in Northern Ghana making use of variations in soil conditions
In the growing food sovereignty movement it is food and food producers who are the sought-after sovereign. Food sovereignty is grounded in securing the rights of food producers, the human right to food, and using agro-ecological practices. Agro-ecology is a practice of production which utilises natural ecological processes, limiting environmental degradation, and focuses on low external input methods of production. These methods of production work most effectively on a small scale to accommodate variation in environmental conditions. Therefore, agro-ecology and the food sovereignty movement focuses on local food systems. Within models of agricultural production systems, this method sits firmly opposite those advocated by research institutes and corporations such as the CGIAR and Monsanto.
Food sovereignty focuses on food for people and society, supporting healthy and local relationships between food and communities. In this movement, feeding people is the sovereign: it is the human right to food and local control over food systems which has the authority and is, in a way, worshiped and celebrated.
Although the food sovereignty movement originated in developing countries and continues to be particularly focused on peasant farmers in poorer communities, the movement is growing in the UK and other Global North countries. This movement is concerned with adoption of food sovereignty principles globally so although continuing to support peasant farmers in developing countries, there is now much encouragement for food sovereignty to be practiced in every country and on a bigger scale.
This weekend I’ll be at the UK’s first large food sovereignty gathering, organised by Food Sovereignty Now. I’ll be joining hundreds of other people to discuss the principles of food sovereignty and how this agenda can be advanced through activism, research, policy, and practice. I am looking forward to sharing thoughts and ideas with likeminded people and developing a strategy for action. I’m also looking forward to taking the opportunity to celebrate the only common feature of the various forms of food sovereign discussed here: food and food production.
Expect to hear more from me on this topic following the gathering at the weekend.
From the Earth Up 