For decades, rural peoples movements of peasant farmers, indigenous people, pastoralists, and fisherfolk (to name a few) have organized at the global level for a new food system based around the concepts of the human right to food, food sovereignty, and agroecology. Increasingly, grassroots movements and frontline communities from North America are joining the global fight for agroecology and food sovereignty, bringing local struggles into global policy spaces and confronting the governments to ensure the right to food. Joining global movements and intervening in global policy, in turn, strengthens grassroots activism and builds solidarity.

This publication brings together the voices of four leaders in the US agroecology and food sovereignty movement who have participated in the process of fighting for democratic political spaces where social movements could advance agroecology. For these leaders, joining the global struggle has made them better organizers and leaders in their own communities and strengthened their work. Instead of taking away their capacity, international experience and work deepened their analysis, opened their eyes to the global struggle, allowed them to see the impact of US policies on a global scale, and connected their own struggle with others. Their work in their local communities led them to the global stage, where they connected to global social movements and gained a new perspective that strengthened their local struggles as part of the global struggle.