Food Security or Food Sovereignty: The Case of Land Grabs

The last decade has witnessed a serious change in the distribution and accessibility of food. In 2010 Ethiopia was home to 2.8 million people in need of emergency food aid; yet this country had concurrently sold more than 600,000 hectares of agricultural land to transnational companies that export the majority of their produce (Reuters, 2011; Economist, 2009; Green, 2011). Ethiopia remains a country facing great food insecurity, which is a lack of access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food (WHO, 2011); a paradigm that focuses upon the financial and distributive aspects of providing food. Although Ethiopia is just one of many countries facing this dilemma, it illustrates how the issue of food sovereignty is becoming increasingly as important as that of food security. This paper will address the role that sovereignty plays in light of mass foreign acquisition of land in countries which face high levels of food insecurity. The importance of food security and food sovereignty will be exemplified within the context of ‘land grabbing’ in a demonstrative case study of Ethiopia.