August 27, 2026
Land grabbing may have entered the
global spotlight after the 2008 financial crisis, but the
struggle over resources has only intensified. Today,
competition extends far beyond farmland itself. Rising
demand for water, critical minerals, carbon credits and
conservation areas is fuelling new forms of land, water and
resource grabbing. At the same time, increasing
concentration in the seed industry, agribusiness and food
retail is consolidating control over agricultural
biodiversity, production systems and markets in the hands of
a few powerful actors. Their influence increasingly extends
beyond the marketplace to the institutions, policies and
norms that shape food systems. The result is a growing
struggle not only over resources, but over who holds the
power to shape the future of food systems.
These
issues will be at the centre of discussions at the
international event Terra
Madre Salone del Gusto 2026, where Slow Food farmers,
fishers, pastoralists, Indigenous leaders, food producers
and activists from more than 120 countries will come
together.
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“No transition can be called just if it
further concentrates control over land, water, seeds and
knowledge in the hands of a few powerful players,” says
Edward Mukiibi, President of Slow Food. “ Who decides
which seeds survive? Who controls access to water? Who
determines the future of agriculture? These are not simply
technical questions. They are questions about democracy,
equity and the kind of food systems we want to
build.”
Growing up in rural Uganda, Mukiibi
experienced firsthand how access to land, waterbodies,
biodiversity and local knowledge can shape the resilience of
farming communities. Similar concerns are increasingly being
raised by food producers across the
world.
Biodiversity is also about
livelihoods
For the communities represented at Terra
Madre, biodiversity is not only an environmental issue. It
is about livelihoods, culture and self-determination. The
FAO’s landmark assessment on biodiversity for food and
agriculture warns that many components of agricultural
biodiversity are declining worldwide. Slow Food argues that
reversing this trend requires more than conservation
measures. It requires political choices that protect
communities’ rights to manage, use and benefit from the
seeds, breeds, ecosystems and knowledge they have stewarded
for generations. The loss of biodiversity is not only a loss
of species. It is a loss of resilience, livelihoods and
choice. It weakens communities’ ability to feed themselves,
narrows consumers’ options, and concentrates power over food
systems in the hands of a shrinking number of actors.
Protecting biodiversity is therefore not only about
conserving nature, but also about ensuring that people
retain the power to shape the future of food.
Terra
Madre: different stories, shared challenges
The
delegates attending Terra Madre bring different experiences
but describe similar pressures.
Glorieuse Zania, a
young indigenous woman from the Bambuti community living in
the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is
helping Indigenous communities across Central Africa protect
traditional seeds, restore food sovereignty, and defend
their cultural identity. Historically the Bambuti community
has always lived in a forest zone with very rich
biodiversity. But in recent years, this balance has been
severely disrupted. In the Democratic Republic of Congo,
insecurity in the eastern part of the country has reached
very high levels. Because of this situation, many families
have been displaced and have even lost access to their
ancestral lands. As a result, many communities have been
forced to abandon traditional practices. This has also
caused major changes in their diet, including a growing
dependence on processed foods and imported seeds that are
often not adapted to their ecological context.
In
Argentina, María Florencia Alloni is working with
biodiversity-rich native forest foods, including the Taccu
Tree, similar to the carob, and other underutilized species,
while supporting initiatives that create economic
opportunities for rural communities and help conserve local
ecosystems. Her work shows how biodiversity isa driver of
both environmental protection and local development when
communities retain stewardship over the resources on which
they depend.
Across these different contexts, a common
theme emerges: access to resources is closely linked to the
ability of communities to shape their own food systems and
futures.
Food justice and the taste for
power
These questions will be explored during the
conference Food
Justice and the Taste for Power, one of the key moments
of Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2026, with speakers such as
Raj Patel, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker and
one of the most authoritative voices on global food systems,
Edward Mukiibi and Jessica Duncan, associate professor of
Rural Sociology at Wageningen University in the
Netherlands.
Their message is straightforward: The
future of food will depend not only on what we produce, but
also on who controls the land, water, seeds, biodiversity
and knowledge needed to produce
it.
