It's nothing new to find ourselves in the pages of Anchoa saying that the current system is failing us, that food sovereignty is increasingly out of reach. Just look at Argentina, which embodies the violent paradox of food apartheid: an agro-exporting country, with a large portion of its population living without access to decent nutrition. The regional outlook is even more bleak: more than 432 million people suffer from hunger in Latin America.

It's from a position of privilege that we can choose which topics to cover in our pages, but in these times, when food is manipulated and used as a weapon of war, we cannot be silent.

At Anchoa, we take a stand of solidarity with every marginalised people and every hungry child. Food sovereignty and access to nutrition are universal rights. Beyond religion or political leaning, it's important to raise awareness and open fruitful dialogues on topics that make us uncomfortable. Not because we want to cause offense and unnecessary controversy, but because it's our duty as communicators within gastronomic journalism, in the field of food writing, to bring to light topics that need spaces and contexts to develop. We fear being misunderstood, but we understand that collective growth goes beyond individual fears.

We believe that through empathy we can come together in our differences, echoing and uplifting voices that are actively erased and silenced by the hegemonic Western gaze. Latin America may be physically far from places like Congo, Palestine, and Sudan, but we take a stand in solidarity with those communities. If supply chains are globalised, so must our attention and affinities.

On July 31st 2025, in the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli military forces attacked the Seed Multiplication Unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) Seed Bank with bulldozers and heavy machinery. They destroyed the unit's warehouses and infrastructure, which housed essential equipment, seeds, and tools for the reproduction of indigenous seeds. It is an act of violence against Palestinian efforts to preserve local biodiversity and ensure food sovereignty.

As the UAWC explains, “The Local Seed Bank is one of the most important pioneering initiatives in Palestine to protect agricultural biodiversity. UAWC established it more than 20 years ago with the aim of collecting, preserving and developing Palestinian local varieties that are adapted to local environmental conditions, and are characterized by their high resistance to diseases and their ability to withstand harsh climatic conditions. This seed bank includes more than 50 varieties of vegetables and other plant species, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, zucchini, and many other crops that formed the basis of Palestinian food security across generations.”

This horror occurs within a greater one: the massive assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank. Dozens of people in Gaza are dying daily as a result of famine and the destruction of health infrastructure. Dozens of people are being killed daily at food distribution posts commanded by Israeli forces and private military companies. Our journalist colleagues are fainting from hunger live on camera.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is a global initiative and standard that classifies the magnitude of food insecurity. The UN has already declared that Gaza has entered the most acute phase of the classification—a critical situation. On July 27th 2025, the Israeli human rights organisation Btselem declared what many other organisations had already asserted: that the State of Israel is unquestionably committing genocide in Gaza.

This is nothing new. The military use of starvation has been a common element in colonial and authoritarian politics. The violence in Palestine echoes other similar acts of violence around the world. In the first months of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces bombed the country's main seed bank in Kharkiv. In Sudan, RSF paramilitary forces looted and destroyed the national seed bank in Wad Medani, which contained thousands of varieties of millet, sorghum, and other seeds. Today, RSF forces have besieged the town of Al Fashir for more than fourteen months, preventing the transport of food and causing a catastrophic situation of malnutrition.

The present is linked to a long human history of food violence. We need only look at the famine orchestrated by the British Empire in Irish communities at the end of the 19th century, where a monoculture was established that led to more than 1 million deaths and mass exoduses. Or the Bengal famine of 1943, which is estimated to have resulted in approximately 3 million deaths and was one of several famines largely caused by the United Kingdom's colonial policy. During the Holocaust, Nazi forces implemented a hunger policy as part of a broader strategy of genocide and destruction.

All of this is highly preventable. Thousands of tons of food await trucks at the borders of Gaza, blocked by military forces. The issue has never been food shortages, but the fairness of their distribution.

Eating is always an act of reciprocity and gratitude. There is no food without water or soil. There is no digestion without the microscopic bacteria that inhabit us. There are no recipes without the heritage of knowledge and culture. We are all here on this planet because we were fed; if we approach the earth as a great Mother, we can appreciate that this relationship does not end in childhood. As much as our dominant culture tries to convince us of our isolation, we never eat alone.

Brazilian activist Chico Mendes said that an ecology without social justice is little more than gardening. We also affirm that a gastronomy without a social perspective is little more than gluttony.

We invite each other to the table. To dialogue, to discuss, to meet. But you can't talk during a famine. From Anchoa, we write to replant a world where food ceases to be a commodity and becomes a right and a delight. 🐟