Glossary
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Agroecology is commonly understood as a science, a practice and a movement. As a science, it uses principles from the field of ecology to study the interactions between organisms in agroecosystems. It is often associated with transdisciplinary and action-oriented research, and the study of the entire food system. As a practice, agroecology combines indigenous and traditional knowledge, and scientific research, to generate productive, sustainable and resilient farming systems with minimal external inputs. This is achieved by optimizing processes and interactions occurring within agroecosystems, for example through crop rotations, cover crops, polycultures, crop-livestock integration, agroforestry and minimal tillage. It is generally associated with smallholder farming, and focuses on the production of nutritious food suitable for personal consumption and local markets. As a movement, agroecology seeks to address power imbalances within the food system, and generate a more just and equitable food system based on the principles of food sovereignty.
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Food justice is defined as the right of communities everywhere to produce, process, distribute, access, and eat good food regardless of race, class, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, religion, or community. The food justice movement emerged in the 1990s in the US, primarily amongst Black and ethnic-minority urban communities, to highlight in particular the racialised nature of inequalities within the food system.
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Food security is an idealised state or goal where all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.
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Food sovereignty is a political movement that emphasises the rights of food producers, distributors and consumers to have control over the food system, as opposed to coorporations and market institutions. It has been defined as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.
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A specific term which denotes a particular set of interconnections and interactions between things, within the wider food system, that has been defined and focussed upon for some particular purpose. Examples might be urban or organic food systems. They can be thought of as parts or sub-systems of 'the food system'.
https://tabledebates.org/building-blocks/what-are-food-systems
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Public procurement refers to the acquisition of goods, services or work by public bodies such as government agencies, hospitals, and schools, or by state owned enterprises such as railways or energy providers. Such spending can represent a substantial amount of taxpayers' money and of gross domestic product in many countries, and so how it is spent is a matter of public interest. Beause of this, changing public procurement is often seen as a way in which to influence business practices.
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The right to food was initially recognised in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has since been developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, who now recognise the importance of the right to adequate food, defining this as ‘regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear’.