Food is a basic need, but seldom a basic policy area. Drawing on agroecology for cohesive national food strategies can provide benefits across all these sectors: supporting public health, environmental sustainability, economic stability, social cohesion, and national security and sovereignty. Local farmers and communities are demonstrating the viability of nature- and climate-friendly small-scale production and supply chains and the positive impact of building relationships back into the food system. At the national scale, this agroecological approach can contribute to national security by establishing food sovereignty, which emphasises ecologically appropriate and socially equitable production, distribution, and consumption as ways to sustainably and independently meet all citizens’ basic need for nutritious food.