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In the News

Bill Clinton: Brazilian Landowner

By: Grassroots International | May 6, 2008

A rich, influential citizen of the United States or Europe—say, Bill Clinton or Bill Gates—buys land in Brazil, either as an individual or a partner in a company. They want to invest in agrofuels, and figure that crops can be grown on their new land for fuel (and profit). But as a result, the price of land rises in Brazil; peasants and other low-income workers can no longer afford to buy land. And they have no say in how the land purchased by foreigners is used.
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In the News

Praise in Oaxaca

By: Grassroots International | May 2, 2008

Grassroots International would like to salute Jesus León Santos, the leader of a democratic, farmer-to-farmer network in Oaxaca, Mexico, for winning the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize – one of the most esteemed awards in the global environmental movement.
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In the News

Is There Child Labor in Your Meal?

By: Grassroots International | May 1, 2008

Every person who consumes food in America has a right to know if child or slave labor was used to farm or process the food they eat. But agribusinesses don't seem to agree.
Our friends at the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) are lobbying for a provision in the pending U.S. Farm Bill that establishes a voluntary certification system in which companies can verify that their products are not made with child and slave labor. But Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are lobbying intensely to kill the provision. Why? As the ILRF points out, this is a purely voluntary system, and a corporation that is following international law should have nothing to fear.
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In the News

Dangerous Liaisons

By: The Oakland Institute | April 29, 2008

"Burning food today so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries is a crime against humanity" said Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food criticizing the growing push for using food crops as fuel crops and diverting land use from food cultivation to fuel cultivation. In the face of the growing global crisis that he said could lead to "widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale" United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened a global task force to respond, and called for closing the $755 million funding gap in the UN's World Food Programme.
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In the News

An Open Letter To Congress on the Need for Strategic Grain Reserves

By: Grassroots International | April 28, 2008

Dear Member of Congress:
All around the globe, food riots have shaken countries from Haiti to Egypt to India to Uzebekistan while rising rice prices cause grief in many Asian countries. A global food crisis threatens to impoverish millions around the world. Here at home, livestock and dairy producers, bakers and food processors have expressed their fears over skyrocketing commodity prices while higher food prices are eating into many family budgets. News reports nervously highlight that U.S. and world grain stocks are at all-time lows since World War II.
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Press Releases

Agribusiness Transnational Corporations (TNCs) Create World Food Crisis; Peasants Seize Back Their Rights

By: Via Campesina | April 14, 2008

The world food crisis is starting to appear in its real picture this year. During the last decades hunger was "hiding" in rural or slump areas. Now the number is increasing and many more people cannot stand it anymore. Food riots appear and queues of hungry people are back in many part of the world.
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In the News

Food Price Crisis

By: The Oakland Institute | April 14, 2008

Food prices have been increasing sharply. According to the World Bank, global food prices have climbed by 83% over the last three years. The real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March 2008, an increase of 50% in two weeks alone while the real price of wheat hit a 28-year high, triggering an international crisis.
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In the News

Expansion of Biotechnology in Brazil Augments Rural Conflicts

By: Isabella Kenfield | March 27, 2008

On March 7 several hundred people occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and destroyed the greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn. Participants in the act, members of the international farmers' organization La Vía Campesina, stated in a note that the act was to protest the Brazilian government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian® corn, which was recently banned in France, Austria, and Hungary due to risks to the environment and human health.
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In the News

One-State or Two-State?

By: Assaf Kfoury | March 24, 2008

This week Palestinians around the world are commemorating Land Day (begun in 1976) to mark their attachment to, and dispossession from land -- the fundamental issue of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Former Grassroots International Board chair Assaf Kfoury reflects on the re-emergence of the one versus two states debate.
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In the News

What Does Heating Homes in New York City with Biodiesel Have to do with Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?

By: Michael Heimbinder of Habitatmap | March 12, 2008

Many of us think we’re doing the climate and the environment a big favor when we consider meeting our liquid fuel needs through biodiesel. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s time to think again.

Agribusiness is seeing dollar signs as cities and states across the country consider using biodiesel to fuel municipal vehicle fleets and heat homes and businesses. In New York City, over a million households depend on petroleum heating oil to stay warm every winter. Legislation currently wending its way through City Council proposes adding biodiesel to future supplies.

But where does this biodiesel come from and at what environmental cost?
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In the News

Personal Stories of the Gaza Siege

By: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights | February 20, 2008

In order to highlight the impact of the siege and closure of the Gaza Strip on the civilian population, PCHR is publishing a series of "Narratives Under Siege" on our website. These short articles are based on personal testimonies and experiences of life in the Gaza Strip, and we hope they will highlight the restrictions, and violations, being imposed on the civilians of Gaza.
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/campaigns/english/gaza_closure/Narratives.html
Please circulate these narratives as widely as you can.
Many thanks from PCHR.
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Blog

Why “Local” and “Fair Trade” are Two Sides of the Same Coin

By: Phyllis Robinson of Equal Exchange | February 13, 2008

How free trade destroys local economies, hurts small farmers and causes massive waves of migration
“There used to be one bus a day leaving this area (Esquintla, Chiapas) heading north. Now, four buses a day go to the border…. And each is packed with our young boys. Today, with the conditions the way they are, youth have become our biggest export.” Miguel Angel Barrios Bravo, president of a coffee co-operative affiliated with FIECH, the Indigenous Ecological Federation of Chiapas, one of Equal Exchange’s trading partners.
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In the News

Why Local and Fair Trade are Two Sides of the Same Coin

By: Phyllis Robinson of Equal Exchange | February 13, 2008

Suddenly everyones talking about local: Local is the new organic, were told. Farmers markets are springing up in food co-operative and church parking lots and on Main Streets throughout the country. More people are joining CSAs (community supported agriculture) and choosing locally grown products in their grocery stores. And as this trend continues, more and more consumers are starting to ask hard questions about where their food comes from and how its grown, who are the people growing it and under what conditions, and equally important of course, whos making the decisions that control our food choices and whos making the profits from those purchases?
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In the News

Human Rights in Eritrea: Why Do They Matter

By: Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR) | February 12, 2008

A public lecture on “Human rights in Eritrea: why do they matter” was held at the University of Pretoria on the 15th of January 2008. The lecture was organized by Eritrean Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (EMDHR) and the Center for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria. It aimed at raising the awareness of international actors in general and African youth in particular about the growing human rights violations in Eritrea.
The guest speaker was Dan Connell, a lecturer in Journalism and African Politics at Simmons College, Boston, USA [and founder of Grassroots International].
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In the News

UN adopts historic Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

By: International Forum on Globalization | September 14, 2007

In an historic session of the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted. This Declaration, which outlines the basic rights and fundamental freedoms of the world’s Indigenous Peoples, has been in the making for nearly 25 years.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, indigenous Igarot activist from the Philippines and Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, stated: “The 13th of September 2007 will be remembered as an international human rights day for the Indigenous Peoples of the world, a day that the United Nations and its Member States, together with Indigenous Peoples, reconciled with past painful histories and decided to march into the future on the path of human rights.”
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In the News

A Liberation Theology Perspective from Jerusalem:

By: Grassroots International | May 31, 2007

Dear Friends and Family:

We regret our long silence! As Bob is now on the staff at St. George's Cathedral in addition to being Acting Director of Sabeel, life has been busy! Maurine continues to work primarily on editing projects and hopes that the book of papers presented at last fall's Sabeel conference on The Forgotten Faithful, the Palestinian Christian community, will soon be ready for publication. We also continue to meet with various groups visiting Sabeel and to guide those interested in seeing the "facts on the ground."
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Blog

Jewish Doctor Speaks on Palestinian Human Rights Marking 40 Years of Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, & East Jerusalem

By: Grassroots International | May 31, 2007

Grassroots International and Spontaneous Celebrations invite you to an evening with physician, author, and activist Alice Rothchild, author of "Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish
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In the News

MEDAN DECLARATION

By: Grassroots International | April 13, 2007

Organisations of peasants, fisher peoples and victims of the earthquake and tsunami of 26 December 2004 as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that work with and support peasants
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In the News

Support for Progressive Organizations in Region Affected by South Asia Earthquake

By: Grassroots International | April 13, 2007

The recent South Asia earthquake had its epicenter just northwest of Pakistan's capital Islamabad.
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In the News

Food is …

By: Grassroots International | January 29, 2007

In order to raise awareness about our food and farming system we asked the people in our community to complete the phrase “Food is…” We received responses from all over the United States, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico and Palestine.
Responses ranged from one word to poems and essays and illustrated what Grassroots International has known since we launched our Resource Rights Initiative—people around the world have a lot to say about our food and farming system and recognize that it is more than a simple commodity.
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