Global collective practices advancing food sovereignty in indigenous and peasant communities: a systematic review

This article examines food sovereignty practices, focusing on the experiences of peasants and Indigenous communities as key actors in both implementation and discourse. A systematic review following the PRISMA methodology was conducted to analyze peer reviewed studies on specific food sovereignty practices between 2019 and 2023. The inclusion criteria emphasized self-organized and collective food cultivation. The search was carried out on August 22, 2023, in the SCOPUS database. Yielding an initial pool of 844 articles. Through a consensus-based screening process among three researchers, narrowing the selection to 163 articles, resulting in 51 research articles after excluding duplicates and unavailable articles. The discussion is structured into five categories: decoloniality, Indigenous communities, peasant communities, community groups, and the theoretical-practical development of food sovereignty. The findings reveal how structural factors related to land access, governance, and power relations shape food sovereignty practices, while highlight social and environmental impacts related with industrial food systems. Key practices identified include local forms of association and cooperativism; sustainable agricultural techniques that enhance food production while addressing health and environmental risks associated with pesticide; small-scale trade initiatives such as bartering, peasant fairs, food exchanges, and local market sales; and the recognition of diverse knowledge systems, particularly the preservation of traditional foods and ancestral wisdom. These results emphasize the need to integrate governance frameworks with social economy approaches, promoting community participation in shaping territorially grounded food systems.