Why Understanding Food Sovereignty is the Key to a Better Food System

What is food sovereignty? 

Food sovereignty is the concept that people have the right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and the right to define their own food and agriculture systems.  

This is important. Control over what we grow and how we eat is a fundamental part of what it means to be human, meeting our needs for both nutrition and cultural expression. Whether through policy or simply by removing access, denying people their heritage foods is to deny them a valuable part of their humanity. 

For Indigenous communities across the world, this means that their food-related knowledge, values and wisdom must be respected, and that these communities must be able to exercise autonomy and agency in their relationships with the land and with each other, in determining their own food systems and practices, and in accessing foods that are both healthy and culturally relevant. 

What’s more, Indigenous food sovereignty is increasingly being recognised as central to building long-term resilience into our food systems — in ways that benefit everyone. 

The role of Indigenous food sovereignty in building resilience 

To build a future where everyone is properly nourished and where nature and biodiversity are protected, we need to create an actively restorative relationship with the land: one in which ecosystems, soils and waters are not just respected, but replenished as a matter of course. Making space for native voices in the redesign of our food systems gives us the opportunity to make sure these systems support the thriving of all peoples while undoing the damage done to both land and communities by industrial agriculture. 

This is now being recognised by leading scientists from across the globe as a central step towards strengthening our environment and improving public health. In developing the updated version of the Planetary Health Diet (launching in October 2025), the EAT-Lancet Commission 2.0 has agreed on the importance of building a diverse food system that takes into account cultural differences and makes better use of local and Indigenous knowledge. The revised Diet will be adaptable to suit the needs and preferences of different cultures; prioritising food sovereignty was noted as a crucial way of achieving this.  

So, how exactly can Indigenous food sovereignty build resilience for everyone? 

1. LEVERAGING TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE

The agricultural practices of native communities are informed by a wealth of knowledge that combines modern scientific understanding with older wisdom gathered over generations — often millennia — through observation, an intimate relationship with the land that allows for deep understanding of natural processes, and trial and error. This is a rich source of often region-specific data that modern farming has largely ignored, and represents a valuable untapped resource. 

Professor Tracy Berno (Associate Dean – Postgraduate, Faculty of Culture and Society at Auckland University of Technology) refers to this as Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and says, “The traditional wisdom and science of Indigenous people provides a pathway to responsible action to counter our current, unsustainable food systems.” 

2. SAVING SEEDS, SAFEGUARDING DIVERSITY

Traditional, native and heritage foods offer a gateway to healthier populations and stronger, more resilient food systems. The industrialisation of food production was developed to favour yield, which was valuable in reducing hunger and malnutrition in the 20th century. However, the effects of breeding for yield over everything else has brought less nutrition, less flavour and less interest to our plates. Planted in monotonous swathes across vast tracts of land, modern crops are also highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, diseases and pests, while the health of the soil is depleted.  

One of the most significant ways in which food sovereignty has been lost has been in the commodification of seeds. In The Third Plate: Field Notes from The Future of Food, Dan Barber speaks of “a tradition of seed saving and seed improvement that reaches back into prehistory” as being one of any community’s most important responsibilities until relatively recently; many Indigenous communities are still upholding this crucial role of seed stewardship. Native seed varieties are a foundational part of agriculture for many Indigenous farmers, as well as part of their cultural heritage.  

Maintaining diversity in our seeds is crucial if we are to guarantee our food supply into the future and keep both our planet and its people healthy and nourished. Heritage seed varieties are usually deeply localised, with properties that have evolved over millennia — often with the help of careful Indigenous seed selection — to respond to conditions in a specific region. Combined with greater natural genetic variation, this makes them infinitely stronger than modern varieties — better able to withstand climate shocks, disease outbreaks and pest attacks. 

3. RESTORATIVE AND REGENERATIVE

By and large, the methods used by native populations to produce food are kinder to the environment than industrial agriculture, working with natural systems, not against them. 

“Food is not merely something we take from the land; it is a vital way through which we form a relationship with the land, waters and sky,” says Chef Mindy Woods, proud advocate for Indigenous Australian food culture — specifically that of Bundjalung County — and winner of The World’s 50 Best Champions of Change Award 2025. “This relationship should be reciprocal, based on a give-and-take dynamic that honours and nurtures the ecosystems that sustain us.” Indigenous farmers are also more likely to be operating on a smaller scale, which supports greater crop diversity and avoids many of the environmental pitfalls of large-scale corporate agriculture. 

Steve Brescia is Executive Director at Groundswell International, a global network of local NGOs strengthening rural communities to build healthy farming and food systems from the ground up. He explains the importance of small farms in supporting our natural environment. “Today, there are about 500 million smallholder farming households in the world, representing nearly one-third of the world’s population. They grow food by working with their local resources and ecosystems all across our planet, as they have always done.  

“As they continuously innovate and work with nature, instead of against it, these smallholder farmers represent one of the most powerful forces we can support to overcome the interconnected crises of climate change, poverty and hunger. With our NGO partners across 11 countries in West Africa, the Americas and South Asia, we support over 100,000 farmers — most from Indigenous and peasant communities — who are regenerating more than 500,000 acres of land through agroecology, improving the lives of nearly 1.2 million people. We don't see these farmers as recipients of aid but as agents of change, leading us toward more just and sustainable food systems for all.” 

Why does this matter for restaurants? 

Of course, food businesses have a particularly vested interest in ensuring the longevity, resilience and bounty of our food systems, so it makes good strategic sense to support Indigenous food sovereignty as a central part of revitalising those systems. Past that, however, sourcing from native communities can also mean more variety in your ingredients and, consequently, more creativity in your kitchen.  

Working with heritage seeds that are native to your area offers your customers a real sense of provenance that goes deeper than ‘local’ — these are unique flavours that could only have evolved where they did, and are often vastly more flavoursome and nutritious than standardised, modern crops. Your menu becomes an experience, a true sense of place that can be traced back through centuries. Where possible, look to purchase these from growers who are of local Indigenous communities, building strong local supply chains and supporting people who are farming in ways that benefit your local ecosystems and the wider environment. 

Keep an eye out for our follow-up article throughout this week! We’ll be sharing stories of native food systems from across our global network and highlighting practical ways restaurants can support Indigenous food sovereignty in ways that benefit everyone. 

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Lead image credit: Luisa María Castaño Hernández, Groundswell International