Editor's Note [Volume 24 No. 10 (2024)]

https://doi.org/10.18697/ajfand.135.ED146

Food Sovereignty and Food Rights

What is food sovereignty? What is food rights? In the recent past I have had the privilege to attend two amazing events here in Nairobi. One, the graduation of the third cohort of African Food Fellows started by scholars at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, and the other at the World Agroforestry Centre's Gigiri campus in Nairobi as African Plant Breeding Academy Fellows graduated the third cohort. My one common observation is that we have amazing programs elevating brilliant young Africans to a level where they can confidently address issues of hunger, malnutrition and poverty. African food fellows are made to provide leadership in this sector and only do so once they have been equipped with the appropriate tools and knowledge. The plant breeders are equipped with new skills in breeding that enable them to expand their performance and work. In both situations and I am sure in many more, governance and policies still come out as real concerns. In all this I see young people who are passionate about making a difference in their countries and on the continent, about impacting the ground and wanting to ensure food rights for the vulnerable amongst us. These young people will understand that food sovereignty means us valuing and protecting our food culture and food sources, and providing for the vulnerable: elderly, the disabled, and the income-less. The young people need to be passionate about food rights and hopefully will be in decision making positions where they ensure that nobody ever goes to bed hungry. They will do so because unlike now, they will understand the issues. What we need now is help for more capacity building programs. We need a critical mass of these professionals. The partners who were there: FAO, African Orphaned Crops Consortium (AOCC), University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Davis, and many others all agree that we need each other. A hungry Africa is not good for anyone. The issue at hand is on food rights and food sovereignty, terms that oftentimes are not well understood, and many times are described so academically that it scares those who should implement programs for those vulnerable in our society. Food is so basic, yet to ensure access by all to enough nutritious, safe, and culturally acceptable food is not that easy. We all eat and all can say something about food. Yet, it takes more than that realization to be able to do the right thing.

We started collecting manuscripts and write-ups for this Special issue sometime back; it has been a bit daunting to be able to assemble the good collection we have now. Let me thank all our brave authors who have contributed, and also acknowledge our Guest Editor, Prof. Isaac Oluwatayo, for his enormous contribution towards the finalization of this Issue. Please take time to peruse these very interesting presentations.

It has been 20 years since we started seriously conceptualizing food rights starting with FAO’s guidelines on this issue. There is need to provide clarity to all and especially to governments to be able to understand what policies and intentional programs to put in place to ensure that as much as possible, everyone has affordable and easy access to healthy diets. In this aspect too, capacity building is needed.

Financial support to produce this special issue was provided by Food First (Institute for Food and Development Policy, USA) whom we thank and acknowledge sincerely.

Prof. Ruth Khasaya Oniang'o
Founder and Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8344-9093