The 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize, given by the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, will be awarded October 15 to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and Community to Community Development (C2C).
UAWC, a Palestinian organization founded in 1986 with a mission to support smallholder farmers, “builds farmer cooperatives and seed banks, and supports women’s leadership, while continuing to seek its members’ human rights to food, land, and water.”
C2C, based in the United States, believes that “society should arrange its relationships so that everyone has equitable access to fundamental democratic processes affecting their everyday lives.” With this in mind, C2C works with “immigrant farm workers to develop farm worker-owned cooperatives,” developed Cocinas Sanas, a “nutrition education project,” and continues to encourage fair trade. C2C has also supported Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a union for farm workers, as they retaliated against unfair treatment, including refusal to pay wages and the provision of poor housing, from Sakuma Farms.
The Food Sovereignty Prize was created by the International Links Committee of the Community Food Security Coalition in 2009 as a response to the World Food Prize. While the World Food Prize prioritizes technological advances in food production, the Food Sovereignty Prize highlights “grassroots leaders working for a more democratic food system.” This democratization of the food system includes bringing attention to food sovereignty issues, creating or supporting programs and policies that advocate for food sovereignty, utilizing collective action, connecting with others on a global scale, and recognizing the role of marginalized groups in the international food system.
