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In response to the deepening crisis of food systems as well as the invigorated debate and action on food sovereignty in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in 2023 the Arab Reform Initiative launched a research agenda with the dual aim of documenting and diagnosing the challenges facing food provision in different countries of the region, and of analyzing the significance and potential of food sovereignty as a mobilizing frame, policy objective and plan of action.

To date, this agenda has produced the following outputs: six national-level studies on food sovereignty in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Tunisia. These in-depth reports document the state of food production in each country and the demands of food sovereignty advocates, analyzing the impediments to achieving them in the current political economies of the region, and identifying priorities and opportunities for change. The agenda has also produced a regional thematic study on the question of seed sovereignty across the region; three case studies conducted in Lebanon on the history and politics of land tenure and its impact on agricultural labor and food production, the influence of Western donors on national agricultural policy, and the effects of Israel’s ongoing ecocide on agricultural production and the lives and livelihoods of farmers, especially in the South; and three case studies conducted in Tunisia on the effects of EU trade agreements on national agricultural policy, the resistance of small-scale farmers to legislation that undermines local seed proliferation, and the economic viability of local seeds.

To present the research and its findings, the Arab Reform Initiative is organizing a 2 hour webinar on the 19th of October at 4pm. Moderated by regional food sovereignty researcher Julia Choucair-Vizoso, it will feature voices from the different researchers who have worked on those topics since 2024 in a moderated discussion in English and Arabic.

The webinar will seek to answer the following questions:
Why has food sovereignty gained popularity in MENA in recent years, and what are the political, economic, and geopolitical factors that have elevated food sovereignty as a mobilizing frame in the region?

What does food sovereignty, as it is being used in the region, mean exactly, and what are the salient elements and points of productive tension of this concept in regional discussions?

How can we make sure that food sovereignty speaks to the geopolitical realities of our region, and how do we adapt or transform a concept that originated in Latin America, and whose global use has historically excluded voices from MENA, to the needs and aspirations of people in the region?

Where do we go from here, and what can researcher-activists do to push food sovereignty now and in the future in the diverse contexts of MENA?

Speakers:

• Zeead Yaghi, Lecturer in History, American University of Beirut
• Yasser Souilmi, Research Fellow, Arab Reform Initiative
• Abdalaziz Al-Salehi, Researcher in the field of social sciences and humanities
• Ansar Jasim, PhD Candidate, Freie Universität Berlin
• Mariam Al-Jaajaa , General Manager, Arab Protection of Nature
• Kanj Hamade, Co-founder, Economic Development Solutions (EDS)
• Taif Alkhudary, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge

Moderated by Julia Choucair Vizoso, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Reform Initiative, Regional Researcher on Food Sovereignty