What is the ‘Food Autonomy Festival’?
What is the Food Autonomy Festival and for whom is it organized?
The Food Autonomy Festival (FAF) is about celebrating resistance and alternatives to the dominating industrial food system. It is a space where activists, farmers, researchers, and food-lovers (and many others who fight for social and ecological justice) are brought together. It is a gathering for everyone who is interested in food justice: those who know about these topics already, and those who want to learn more. Collectively, we will take engagement with food beyond procurement and make it a site of resistance, solidarity, and autonomy.
Why is food autonomy important?
We at ASEED believe that a just food system can only be created if different levels of oppression and inequalities are fought simultaneously. Today, the global food system reflects a society where capitalism is the director, patriarchy the writer, and colonialism the producer (among other oppressive systems). To fight for a just food system, therefore, means taking an anti-capitalist, decolonial, intersectional stance, paying attention to the different oppressions that are keeping these systems running.
The FAF is connected to different struggles based on the goals that we are all fighting for. We believe that getting together to talk about Food Autonomy allows for conversations about autonomy in many ways: how to achieve this, and which oppressive systems need to be destroyed on the way. That is, food autonomy can only be achieved if the climate crisis is fought, the patriarchy is smashed, ableism deconstructed, capitalism is destroyed, colonialism demolished… and so on. This is why we want the FAF to be a place where we can fight for agricultural justice, climate justice, food autonomy, and overall systemic justice. In doing so, strive in both our perspectives and practices, to challenge racism, sexism, coloniality, and oppression in all its forms.
Why is the Food Autonomy Festival important?
The FAF presents examples of real resistance to the food and climate crisis, as well as the state and corportate-controlled hierarchical systems that fail to create a socially and ecologically just world. At the festival, various food-autonomous initiatives are brought together to learn from each other. Together we aim to put food at the centre of social, economic, political, and climatic issues. The FAF is an example of how gathering for place-based causes and collective discussions on local problems becomes an occasion for all to learn about grassroots local resistance. It is also a space which takes wisdom from people’s struggles globally, and works toward larger international actions.
