Preserving Indigenous Peoples’ Values and Rights in Food Composition Programmes: A call for agreed international guidelines

Preserving Indigenous Peoples’ values, rights, and sovereignty within food composition programmes is both an ethical obligation and a scientific necessity. This paper argues that embedding Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, spirituality, and governance principles across the stages of a food composition programme—designing, sampling, compilation, dissemination and use—ensures ethical research, protects cultural heritage, and prevents exploitation. Anchored in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP); Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC); and Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) frameworks we show how co-designed, participatory approaches strengthen scientific robustness and comply with several Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Case studies are drawn from First Nations in Canada, Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, Sámi in Sápmi, and the Khasi, Jaintia, and Garo Peoples of Northeast India. Ideally, agreed international guidelines will ensure safe participation of Indigenous Peoples in food composition programmes, broaden the currently narrow food base, and reinforce Indigenous Peoples role as active knowledge holders preserving the genetic repository for food biodiversity. We conclude with recommendations and cautionary notes regarding bio-piracy, data sovereignty, and intellectual property concerns, including conflicts over Plant Variety Rights.