The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa is a network of African organisations showing policy makers that food sovereignty will come if they help farmers adopt African sustainable farming practices.

We are pushing for African Leaders to:

• Champion Small African Family Farming Systems based on agro ecological and Indigenous approaches that sustain food sovereignty and the livelihoods of communities while not neglecting other appropriate farming models
• Protect the rights of the African people to indigenous seeds, plant and animal genetic resources and combat bio-piracy
• Resist the Corporate Industrialization of African agriculture which will result in massive land grabs, displacement of indigenous peoples especially the pastoral communities and hunter gatherers and the destruction of their livelihoods and cultures
• Reject the corporate takeover of African land, food production systems, indigenous knowledge and resources
• Bring to an end the continued exploitation of African resources for the consumerist demands of the North.

We helped to set up the alliance in November 2009 (33 KB pdf).

Wide membership
The members of the alliance represent small-scale farmers, pastoralists, hunter-gatherers, indigenous peoples, citizens and environmentalists from Africa.

Members: African Biodiversity Network (ABN); Community Knowledge Service (CKS) ; COMPAS; COPAGEN; ESAFF, The Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum; Friends of Earth Africa; GRAIN ; Indigenous peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) ; PELUM Association; PROPAC ; ROPPA ; La Via Campesina Africa/UNAC ; Women for Change; World Neighbours.

Food sovereignty indicators

• Healthy and culturally appropriate, respecting the taboos, norms, practices
• Ecologically sound and sustainable
• Right to defining their own
• Puts people at the heart of system and policy
• Defends inter and intra-generational interests
• Systems determined by farmers, fishermen and pastoralists
• Empowers peasant and family farmer-driven
• Transparency on agreements
• Guarantees food and income for all
• Ensures rights to territory and biodiversity
• Implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality
• Promotes equality among racial groups, social classes and gender
• Led and managed by traditional institutions
• Community driven and community owned
• Respects spirituality of the community
• Revitalisation and revaluing of traditional knowledge