From 19 to 23 October, FAO headquarters in Rome will host the 54th session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), one of the leading multilateral forums on food security and nutrition. The CFS brings together governments, UN agencies, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, researchers and the private sector to tackle the root causes of hunger and malnutrition, advance the right to food, and build sustainable, resilient food systems. High on this year’s agenda are food system resilience and critical and emerging issues for food security.

The meeting opens just over two months after the release of a FAO–UNOSAT report that shows starkly what it means, in wartime, to lose not only access to food but the very ability to produce it. In the Gaza Strip, just 3% of cropland is both accessible and undamaged.

As of 24 June 2026, 4,091 hectares were accessible, 27% of the total agricultural area. Yet only 448 hectares were intact and could be farmed without first being restored, while the remaining 3,643 accessible hectares had been damaged. Since October 2025, the area of accessible, undamaged farmland has shrunk by a further 25.5%. In Rafah, 97.2% of agricultural land and 98.4% of greenhouses are out of reach. Across Gaza, just 224 hectares of greenhouses, 16.6% of the total, remain both accessible and intact.

According to FAO, the main reason less land has been available in recent months is not further physical damage but loss of access to the fields. Land can still be fit for farming and yet produce nothing, because farmers simply cannot reach it. Even where access is still possible, production is held back by shortages of seeds, fertilisers, irrigation equipment, fuel and other essential inputs. Livestock farmers are struggling to find animal feed and veterinary medicines.

Before October 2023, agriculture accounted for around 10% of Gaza’s economy and supported the livelihoods of more than 560,000 people through farming, livestock and fishing. The hostilities have struck not only crops and infrastructure but an entire food ecosystem: soil, water, seeds, farming knowledge, labour, local trade and the ability of people to keep producing their own food over time. This is where the question of seeds becomes crucial. A seed is not just another input to be imported. It is the first link in a community’s food autonomy, because it holds the possibility of saving, reproducing and adapting crops. The freedom to save and exchange seeds and the protection of biodiversity are fundamental to food sovereignty. When land, water, seeds and local productive capacity are lost, dependence on outside sources grows instead. FAO itself lists among its priorities safe access to land, the entry of agricultural inputs, and investment to rehabilitate fields and rebuild local agriculture.

As the CFS meets in Rome, Gaza raises a question that reaches far beyond the Strip: can we talk about food security in terms of food availability alone, without also considering whether communities are able to produce it? For Navdanya, this is exactly where food sovereignty begins: with the freedom to safeguard seeds, regenerate the land and keep the power to feed themselves in the hands of communities.

Ruchi Shroff 

Navdanya International

Thumbnail: “Palestinians commemorate Land Day in the ‘buffer zone’ of the eastern Gaza Strip” by Joe Catron, CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr. No changes made.