Yoshitaka Ota
United Nations, New York
Conference Room 4
June 20, 2024

Food Sovereignty and Ocean Equity

Food sovereignty asserts peoples’ right to “healthy and culturally appropriate” foods and the right to define their own food systems.

Food sovereignty movement emerged as a reaction to industrialization of food production, the power of private, corporate entities over access to land and resources, and transnational governance networks. This movement is founded on the idea of dignity for both individual food producers and consumers, and provides both depth and breadth to the concept of sustainable food. Food sovereignty is of particular importance for Indigenous Peoples around the world, whose food systems have been suppressed and continue to be marginalized by the colonial and extractive global capitalism.

Rather than treating “health” and “culture” in isolation, Indigenous approaches to food integrate physical, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of “well-being”. Yet, our current, unjust and inequitable ocean governance system that is defined by exploitation and marginalization—from plastic pollutions to the dominance of the Western “conservation”—continue to undermine their rights to assert their sovereignty over how food is produced and consumed, while weakening opportunities for international cooperation and achieving food sustainability in its true forms.

The Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus, an international network of scholars dedicated to social equity in ocean governance, proposes adapting food sovereignty as a framework for recognizing the diverse values and roles that seafood plays in our global ocean policies. More specifically, we recommend:

1. Including cultural considerations in ocean pollution management;
2. Prioritizing food sovereignty of Indigenous and coastal communities in fisheries management;
3. Critically reviewing the current models of Blue Economy and climate adaptation, with an explicit focus on the systemic inequities manifested through our histories of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism, and ensure these policies and programs are designed specifically to dismantle these inequities.