Food is a Human Right – The EU must guarantee it!

EU Food Justice Forum declaration

Food is a human right. Yet hunger and malnutrition continue to affect millions of people, while food systems face growing pressures from conflict, climate change, environmental degradation and inequality.

The EU Food Justice Forum declaration, endorsed by more than 70 civil society organisations and partners, calls on the European Union to transform food systems around human rights, food sovereignty, and social, gender and environmental justice.

As the EU considers the future of its food and agricultural policies, the declaration sets out a clear message: the right to food must be at the centre of EU policy, both within Europe and in its global action.

Read the declaration

Seven priorities for food justice

The signatories call on the EU to make the right to food a lived reality by:

1. Supporting democratic and participatory governance, ensuring that people and communities affected by food insecurity have a meaningful voice in decisions shaping food systems.
2. Ensuring adequate resources to realise the right to food, including through policies and financing that address hunger and malnutrition.
3. Promoting small-scale producers, agroecology, territorial food systems and decent work, recognising their contribution to resilient and sustainable food systems.
4. Regulating food environments to protect consumers’ health, creating conditions that support access to healthy and nutritious food.
5. Implementing social protection measures to realise the right to food, particularly for people facing poverty, inequality and vulnerability.
6. Prioritising the right to food and policy coherence over competitiveness, ensuring that EU policies do not undermine people’s access to food and the ability of communities to produce it sustainably.
7. Addressing the drivers of undernutrition and ending the use of hunger in conflict, recognising the links between food insecurity, conflict and humanitarian crises.

Food is not a privilege.
Food is not just another commodity.
Food is a Human Right.

The declaration calls on the EU to act now to make this right a reality for everyone, everywhere, at all times.

EU Food Justice Forum

The declaration builds on the EU Food Justice Forum “Global Crises, Rights & Policies”, held in Brussels on 9 June 2026. The Forum brought together representatives from EU institutions, civil society organisations, academia, farmers’ organisations, workers’ unions and international partners to strengthen the right to food within the EU’s political agenda through inclusive dialogue.

For Alliance2015, the declaration builds on our continued engagement on food security, nutrition and food systems transformation, and our efforts to bring these priorities into EU policy and external action.

The outcome of the Forum provides a shared civil society vision for how the EU can put the right to food at the heart of its policies and contribute to more just, resilient and sustainable food systems.

Marina Lourdes Losilla Jiménez