Food systems encompass all the activities, resources, and people within a community or region involved in bringing food from the lands and waters to our plates. These are the multiple activities and relationships that go into producing, harvesting, processing, preparing, distributing, sharing, and consuming food. It includes traditional food practices like hunting, gathering, and cultivation, as well as commercial operations like farming, grocery stores, restaurants, and waste management. A community's food system is deeply connected to its governance, economy, culture, and most fundamentally, the land and ecosystems that sustain it.

Food security means having reliable access to enough nutritious, safe, and appropriate food for an active and healthy life. It involves ensuring all community members can stably access, afford, and utilize food that aligns with their dietary needs, preferences, and traditions.

Food security is widely used from local to global scales, defined as the ability of people to access and afford sufficient food supplies to meet nutritional needs. Food security is linked with and shaped by factors such as socioeconomic equality, environmental conditions, and physical health.

Food sovereignty is the ability of communities to govern and make decisions about their own food systems to meet holistic well-being. It involves peoples' right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food systems. Food sovereignty is tied to NND's self-determination and stewardship over traditional lands, waters, and resources, as well as political, economic, and cultural practices and responsibilities.

It empowers people to control how food is produced, distributed, and consumed according to their values, cultures, and local environments. Food sovereignty advocates for the prioritization of local food practices, traditional knowledge, and self-determination over outside corporate control.