Decolonizing Food: The Path to Rights and Equity 

Decolonizing Food: The Path to Rights and Equity 

CLAUDIA LARICCHIA

Food systems are undergoing a delicate phase, finding themselves at the heart of an unprecedented climate emergency.

They are the bud of a multidimensional entity that they create and from which they are created, thus forming a reciprocal cycle that ultimately determines the architecture underlying life itself on the planet. This reciprocal entity embodies health – physical and mental health of humanity; the health of nature and animals.

It is climate justice, climate migrations, rights, social relations, environmental impact, and connection. Connection understood as a connection with oneself, with others, and with the planet.

It is a connection that lives within the bud of agri-food systems because it determines the essence of their primary form, which is the mindset, the indigenous factor, the regenerative mentality that generates everything from the alpha factor.

If humans are disconnected from themselves, they are also disconnected from others and the planet. Connection and mindset are the motherboard of that multidimensional entity, thus becoming a tool and never a goal (including technology, innovation, and the many nuances of food, from emotions to conviviality, biodiversity, and the social, environmental impacts connected to the inner dimension and ontological and ecological transition).

This is why Smily Academy starts from this bud nestled within agri-food systems. It tries to go to the origin, to transform it, to work on the transformation of consciences as the motherboard of the design of agri-food systems, determining a radical change. Even an eco-business thus becomes the fruit of a new seed, inspired for us by the perseverance, conscience, and wisdom of Jadav Payeng, The Forest Man of India, co-founder of Smily and the NGO, chaired by Rituraj Phukan. Smily cultivates this seed with indigenous populations, that 5% of the populations that hold and protect 85% of the world’s biodiversity.

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Indeed, Smily is the special program of the NGO of indigenous populations on climate justice. It mixes this seed with the excellence of non-indigenous populations that can support and adopt radically sustainable projects because they start from the conscience, and invests this new bud of the future in future generations, natural leaders of the new eco-entrepreneurial conscience.

For us, decolonizing food means this:

Because the multidimensional, multidisciplinary, hyper-complex, and hyper-connected architecture of that bud is also diplomacy. And certainly, involving indigenous populations now also means looking at and impacting the aspect linked to colonization, the still existing inequitable bargaining power, and the disparity between populations. Those rich in resources and nature and those rich in technology and financial resources.

Is it possible to overturn this model in the name of a future that belongs to young people? Is it possible to create communicating vessels between excellences to exchange knowledge, bargaining power, impacts, health? All this goes beyond the mere enhancement of native crops or a different mindset that makes them structurally competitive and sustainable, in a radical sense that takes into account cultural and social repercussions.

The return of social and environmental cooperation projects to indigenous populations benefits us all, as it gives value back to those who now hold the greatest, rarest, and most precious value.

To do this, even historical revisionism can step aside, looking with confidence at a biodiverse future from a human perspective. It is now a matter of focusing on communicating vessels through which identity, nutritional value, symbolic and ritual significance, innovation, support, and future flow. Not just products, therefore, but culinary practices that bring identity; rituals; traditions; innovations; rights, and climate justice.

Smily organizes learning experiences in iconic indigenous locations with international participants and faculty to touch that bud of conscience capable of blossoming eco-businesses. A good example of a result is InfiniTea, a project that aims to decolonize an iconic product of colonialism through the establishment of indigenous cooperatives and the return of international cooperation projects, collaborating with small entities dealing with distribution.

Moreover, we are partners of the International Summit on “Democratizing and Decolonizing Food: From Science to Society,” which will be held from December 17 to 20 in Kolkata, organized by NNEdPro, the Global Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health, in collaboration with the International Academy of Nutrition Educators; with BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health, working in synergy with the World Food Forum, facilitated by FAO, and many other high-level public and private organizations from over 65 countries.

For these structured and authoritative organizations from an academic and scientific point of view, having Smily Academy as an official partner means highlighting the commitment to the indigenous factor and regenerative and innovative approaches, which perfectly align with the mission of the organizing Foundation to advance education and knowledge transfer in nutrition.

The Summit will ensure global visibility towards a global network of professionals, academics, and industry leaders; a positive impact to contribute to decolonization through concrete initiatives on regeneration, health, and well-being; exclusive networking, to interact with world-renowned experts and influence future food and nutrition policies; innovation and collaboration and indeed support with indigenous communities through the return of international development cooperation projects.

It is also in this way that that sick bud, so far from the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, can heal, along with the humans who have created and are feeding on it.

Food systems are undergoing a delicate phase, finding themselves at the heart of an unprecedented climate emergency. They are the bud of a multidimensional entity that they create and from which they are created. Do not fear to grasp its essence by retracing life back from the colonialism of the extractive mentality we have perpetrated so far; it is the first step towards a Smily future.

Claudia Laricchia, Smily Academy, President and founder of the Smily Academy, the first Indigenous Eco-business Academy for international young ecopreneurs.[ www.smilyacademy.org] ; Claudia is also Correspondent, MAHABAHU for Europe from Italy.

15-06-2024

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