La Via Campesina, a global alliance of small farmers and peasants, put forward food sovereignty at the 1996 World Food Summit. It was a response to food security, which focuses on whether people have enough calories, not on who controls how food is produced.
In the US, the idea carries special weight for Native nations. Federal policy removed tribes from their land, killed bison herds and pushed commodity foods onto reservations, which disrupted traditional diets. Tribal food sovereignty efforts now restore seed banks, buffalo herds, fishing rights and traditional foods such as wild rice.
Black farmers use the concept too. Black land ownership fell sharply over the 20th century through discrimination, heirs' property rules and USDA lending bias. Black-led farms and land trusts frame food sovereignty as a way to regain land and self-determination. The concept goes beyond access: it asks who decides.