What can we do about speculators and millionaires buying or leasing all available farmland? Why are there so few vegetable growers left, supplying local markets? How, in these troubled global times, with trade tariffs and wars for oil shaking the structural realities of business-as-usual, can communities feed themselves without costing the earth?

Over four days and three nights we addresses these and a whole host of related questions. Our approach was multi-sensory – with food, walks, memories, music participation and performance all playing a part. Our wider conceptual framework was the food sovereignty movement, ten years after developing an Irish iteration of this global approach to food farming and place.

Here is the first of a series of articles on aspects of Feeding Ourselves 2026. Here we focus on how food sovereignty fitted into our conversations on local communities and local food producers.

Food Sovereignty eh?

Food sovereignty is about our ability to feed ourselves as communities, in a genuinely resilient, culturally aware, ecologically sound manner, free from the shocks, risks and exploitations of global agri-industrial trade.  Food sovereignty has a vision for agriculture food and rural spaces with people at the core – all the people. So it is not an inward looking phenomenon – proponents want everyone, everywhere, to have access to good, clean, fair and culturally appropriate food.

Ten yours ago, a Food Sovereignty proclamation was written (see above). Today it still reads as relevant, from a new Land Commission to penalising junk food. One of the tasks we set ourselves was updating this document, 10 years later, in light of the La Via Campesina’s Kandy declaration – the latter sets up a collective roadmap for systemic transformation.

In other words – what alliances, and which pathways, are needed to bring food sovereignty as a concept and practice forward to challenge the dominate systems bringing us on a hyper-destructive, self-fulfilling death spiral?

The Kandy declaration (see below) is also strong on the global corporate agri impact, while doubling down on intersectional understandings and asks, on the role of both debt and carework, and on food, health and economic sovereignty forming a coherent set of needs for a better world.

Over the course of our four days, we certainly widened an deepened our understanding and application of food sovereignty at Feeding Ourselves.

Key areas included recognising and resourcing local food producers; improving agri-knowledge and innovation services, developing the groundwork for a land observatory in Ireland, seed sovereignty, an agroecological framework for Ireland and food sovereignty at the local community level. Here we focus on two – local communities and food producers.

Food Sovereignty and local communities

Barry Hickey and Ruth Hegarty at Feeding Ourselves

Our Food Sovereignty at the Local Level session really widened the movement out beyond agroecological farmers and environmentalists – finding roots and connection with inner city communities. Barry Hickey head gardener and organiser with the Glen community garden, via his work with the HSE’s Health Action Zones – showed real food sovereignty in action – “even though we mightn’t use the term food sovereignty, we are engaging with that concept. The idea of growing food and being sustainable, supporting our own food needs, is an intrinsic part of why people from a working class area in the north side of Cork city to come an garden on a daily basis.”

This is where community work, community health and growing together converge. 70 families are involved in growing veg here, while there are also budding growers being trained. The potential for these growers to step into some labour gaps on agroecological farms emerged from the conversations here.

Better integrating the newly emerging schools meals program into local community provisioning also emerged strongly as a topic -this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something positivre with the emergence of schools meals en masse in Ireland now. Dulhallow community food initiative on school meals stood out as a best practice example, as highlighted by Ruth Hegarty (Food Policy Ireland) and Evonne Boland (Open Food Network Ireland).

These sorts of initiates show the multiple benefits of building real wealth in communities.

Practical Support for Local Producers

Alison Roberts of Talamh Beo presents findings from Talamh Beo’s survey work with members

Underpinning a more resilient food system, with better public procurement and other more integrate thinking, are local food producers. Ireland performs especially badly here, for a variety of historical and related contemporary reasons.

What benefits would recognising and resourcing local food producers bring? Some positive impacts of the basic income for artists initiative were presented, which showed how important it has been for artist’s wellbeing, with significant savings on the costs of providing psycho-social services outlined too.

Talamh Beo presented new research on basic income for local food producers. Having conducted 50+ interviews, received 130+ responses to a survey and held a a number of small group conversations, the findings were revealing.

What was most noteworthy was how a basic income for local food producers could enable longer term, planning and practices. Staff could be hired, investments made in the farm, in seed saving/land care, in education and community, while generational renewal, improved wellbeing and staying in farming could be realistically contemplated too.

What was especially interesting about Feeding Ourselves was how integrated the thinking and focus was. As well as working on basic income supports, thinking went into improved agri knowledge and extension services, more organised and socially useful public procurement, supports for food hubs, for digital farmers markets and food organisers, and the benefits of just getting on with it.

The water catchments (bioregional) and practical focus as presented by Sarah Prosser of Bioregioning South East Ireland showed how work was already in motion. Roger Ahern – a Cork-based grower in receipt of a basic income – spoke of the reduced stress and the investments he’d made with this underpinning of support.

Then and Now

In 2016, our food sovereignty proclamation centred producers, but it did not have proposals for anything as developed as the ideas and practices presented on basic income here. Similarly, in 2016 we emphasised how many citizens face hunger daily, but the community support dimension to widening food sovereignty is more developed now -as it needs to be.

By bringing in a wider set of initiatives, and integrating better into public support services, we can see the collaborative work to further develop food sovereignty, as proposed in the Kandy declaration, coming more to the fore. More of course is needed, now more than ever.

Feeding Ourselves is organised by Cultivate, Feasta, Food Policy Ireland, and Talamh Beo, and supported by a number of other organisations, as listed below. Thanks especially to the Irish Environmental Network for the support.