Join the Presbyterian Hunger Program, a founding member of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, in celebrating the award winners announced one day before World Food Day (October 16)!  

You can read — and share — the press release below, issued today in honor of the International Day for Rural Women (October 15). It’s a fitting moment to highlight the powerful work of Association Nourrir Sans Détruire, which uplifts women and strengthens their access to resources across Burkina Faso.
 

English is below and the French and Spanish translations can be read here.

PRESS RELEASE

Contact:
Christina Schiavoni 
[email protected]
617-690-4079

17th Annual Food Sovereignty Prize Awarded by US Food Sovereignty Alliance & Climate Justice Alliance

Organizations from New Mexico and Burkina Faso to Be Honored in Virtual Prize Ceremony

WASHINGTON, DC, October 15, 2025 — The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) and the Climate Justice Alliance are thrilled to award the annual Food Sovereignty Prize to two outstanding organizations: New Mexico Acequia Association in Santa Fe, NM, and Association Nourrir Sans Détruire in Burkina Faso.

Each year, the Food Sovereignty Prize is given to two organizations—one domestic and one international—for their exemplary work to advance food sovereignty. This year’s honorees are both notable for their integration of traditional cultural practices and agricultural methods in their restoration of land, water, and community. By organizing local communities to resist poverty and displacement, they are shining beacons of hope amidst a rising tide of global authoritarianism and political violence. They are also the first organizations to receive the prize in their respective state and country.

New Mexico Acequia Association (NMAA) is a grassroots organization that has been advocating for the protection of local acequias since 1988. Acequias are the centuries-old communal irrigation systems that have sustained traditional agriculture in the high desert for many generations, long before New Mexico became a state. NMAA’s model of water and small-scale governance is an antidote to the continued pressures of industry and corporations to commodify or pollute the water of New Mexico’s communities. Their advocacy for over 30 years has been focused on protecting water as a community resource by defending water rights and farmland from development pressures, by revitalizing small-scale farming and ranching through training and youth engagement, and by working to recover and adapt to climate disruptions such as the intense wildfires and flooding that are increasingly common in the Southwest.

Paula Garcia, Executive Director of NMAA, will accept the award during the prize ceremony. She stated:

“It is an honor to accept the 2025 Domestic Food Sovereignty Award on behalf of the New Mexico Acequia Association and to be included in the company of so many amazing awardees. We stand in solidarity with people around the world working to protect sacred lands and waters and to build community self-determination through food sovereignty. Land-based and Indigenous Peoples continue to be the caretakers for some of the most vibrant and biodiverse places in the world. This award uplifts the people and communities who are leading the way for a more just, equitable, and resilient future. El Agua es Vida! Que Vivan las Acequias!”(Water is Life, Long Live Acequias).

Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD), whose name translates to ‘Nourish without Destroying Association,’ is a non-profit organization created in 2011 in the West African country of Burkina Faso. It works to combat poverty, hunger, and social injustice by promoting agroecology and other sustainable means of subsistence, both agricultural and non-agricultural. ANSD’s main objective is to strengthen the capacities of small-scale farmers and their organizations so that they can contribute to food security and improve their incomes, while protecting natural resources. ANSD carries out its activities in 126 villages spread across eight municipalities through five main program areas: agroecological transition; empowerment of women and access to resources; access of agroecological products to the local market; nutrition and community health; and creating an environment conducive to agroecological health. A recent impact study calculated that close to a quarter of the farmland in Eastern Burkina Faso is now farmed using agroecological practices, in large part thanks to ANSD’s organizing.

ANSD’s award will be accepted on behalf of the organization by Board Chairman, Tsuamba Bourgou, who declared:

“This award highlights and recognizes the efforts of so many men, women, and young people who have worked tirelessly for more than ten years now to push back the boundaries of hunger, poverty, and ignorance for the good of their households and their communities. Refusing to accept their fate as inevitable, these people have stood up, fought, and continue to fight, resisting headwinds, confident in themselves to contribute to the construction of an effective and resilient food system, rooted in their specific context and promising a better tomorrow for themselves and for future generations. This award reinforces ANSD’s conviction that by trusting communities, working with them in a spirit of co-creation of knowledge, synergy in resource mobilization, and shared responsibility, tangible and sustainable results in terms of food security and sovereignty can be achieved quickly.”

The Food Sovereignty Prize serves as a counterweight to the World Food Prize, created by Norman Borlaug, the controversial ‘father of the Green Revolution,’ whose initiatives have led to devastating environmental and social impacts worldwide. Typically, the World Food Prize rewards the expansion in production of single crops through expensive, large-scale technology. In contrast, the Food Sovereignty Prize champions grassroots, agroecological solutions from the people most harmed by the injustices of the global food system. This is the 17th year that the Food Sovereignty Prize has been awarded. Honorees from previous years are listed on USFSA’s website.

The two honorees will be recognized at a virtual prize ceremony on Wednesday, December 3rd, at 11:00am PST (UTC -8) / 2:00pm EST (UTC -5). The ceremony is free and open to the public; register online here. Spanish and French interpretation will be available.

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The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is composed of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups that work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty. The Alliance strives to end poverty, rebuild local food economies and assert democratic control over the food system, believing that all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced in an ecologically sound manner.

Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) is a growing member alliance of close to 100 urban and rural frontline communities, organizations and supporting networks in the climate justice movement. Member organizations lead CJA by anchoring major Just Transition projects focused on the social, racial, economic and environmental justice issues of climate change.