The Food Sovereignty Fund of the Panta Rhea Foundation supports food system transformation that fosters thriving communities and human dignity, promotes biodiversity and climate stability, and reflects the planet’s rich cultural diversity.

The Panta Rhea Foundation’s Food Sovereignty Fund addresses the need to spark powerful, radical change by supporting groups that build strong and diverse social movements, challenge corporate power, and give people a sense of possibility for food systems transformation. We support initiatives that bring a racial justice lens to their work and are addressing the root causes of our environmentally destructive and socially unjust food system.

Our grantees include organizations and movement leaders who are catalyzing the bold change needed to transform the food system from a culprit of interlocking crises—from the climate crisis to environmental degradation, from chronic disease to growing corporate power and racial injustice—to a key part of the solution.

Our vision is a future where all people have access to healthy, life-serving food, where food producers and workers are valued, and where our food system is a source of equity, environmental sustainability, and health.

Since our inception, the Fund has worked closely with movement allies and funder partners to help develop initiatives in the field, including strengthening and emboldening funder collaboration through the Food and Farm Communications Fund, helping support the emergent the Castanea Fellowship, and working closely with the Agroecology Fund on strategic planning, communications, and COVID-19 emergency response.

We are also active members of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders Network and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food.

Food and Climate Change

We work to advance policies and narrative change to expose industrial agriculture’s impact on climate and agroecology and sustainable food systems as key climate solutions strategies. Through funding advocacy, campaigns, and research, we support work that is connecting the dots between the climate and fossil-fuel dependent agriculture and strategies for promoting agroecology as a climate, health, and biodiversity solution;

Food Sovereignty Campaigns

We fund a range of campaigns and policy efforts, including  tapping the power of public food procurement through the Good Food Purchasing Program, supporting food worker power building (Food Chain Workers Alliance), providing network support to Black and Indigenous organizations (Black Farmer Fund, SAAFON, National Black Food & Justice Alliance, Cultural Conservancy), supporting place-based work on the Hawaiian islands (Protect Our Keiki Coalition), fighting health inequities driven by the sugary drinks industry (Praxis Project, Healthy Food America), and more;

Movement Building

We fund long-term movement building, helping to grow and strengthen key food movement alliances and coalitions, including advocacy organizations in California and nationally. As part of this work, we also focus on leadership development through the Castanea Fellowship, Kuleana Academy in Hawaii, and the HEAL Food Alliance’s School of Political Leadership;

Communications Strategy

We invest in communications—from investigative journalism to narrative building initiatives—to increase public awareness about the impacts of industrial agriculture and the proven potential of agroecology and sustainable agriculture solutions. We are also a key funder member of the Food and Farm Communications Fund, a pooled fund to support communications initiatives of frontline organizations across the United States;

Policy Advocacy

We work to advance systems change through funding a range of local, state, and federal policy organizations and work closely with funder partners, including the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation. In particular, we support a network of organizations tapping into the power of procurement and the billions of dollars spent by public institutions annually to shift supply chains toward alignment with values of racial equity, worker wellbeing, nutrition, animal welfare, community economic development, and the environment.