Jake Miller, Author at Grassroots International

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Food Sovereignty: A Vision of Inclusion

By: Jake Miller | February 26, 2007

Christina Schiavoni, International Coordinator of World Hunger Year reports from Nyéléni 2007
Greetings from Sélingué, Mali, where the Forum on Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni 2007, is going strong. As I write, djembe music is pulsing through the air, and I catch fragments of conversations interspersed with French, English, Spanish, and the local Bambara, among other languages unfamiliar to my ears. The energy here is palpable, and well it should be. Today has been intense yet energizing, as each of the 500+ participants worked by thematic group (seven in total--mine was "Trade and Local Markets") on the drafting of an action agenda for achieving food sovereignty.
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Mr. President…

By: Jake Miller | February 25, 2007

Dena Hoff, a farmer and rancher from Montana, United States is a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Via Campesina. Dena addressed President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali at the World Forum on Food Sovereignty:

"Welcome, Mr. President.

Nyeleni inspires us because she saw what needed to be done, and she did it.

We are all people of conscience, and we are people of action.

We know that our governments are not responsive to the needs of their people. They choose to ally themselves with those who would take the bread from our mouths,take our land, our liberty and our lives.

Like Nyeleni, as people of action, we see what needs to be done, and we will do it.
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Coming Soon: On the Ground Reports from Nyéléni 2007 – Forum for Food Sovereignty

By: Jake Miller | February 20, 2007

As I write, Corrina Steward, Grassroots' Resource Rights Specialist, is en route to Mali for Nyéléni 2007, the Forum on Food Sovereignty where hundreds of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and environmental and indigenous organizations will convene to share ideas and develop an action plan for building a food system that is equitable, healthy and sustainable.
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Fixing the Broken Food System

By: Jake Miller | October 13, 2006

Building local, national and international solutions for hunger and the crisis in the global rural economy
Earlier ths week at the Community Food Security Coalition conference in Vancouver, BC, Grassroots and the National Family Farm Coalition debuted a new booklet that we created this summer on food sovereignty.

In the simplest terms, food sovereignty is the belief that communities should have plenty of food that's not only healthy for the bodies, healthy for their way of life and that the communities themselves have control over.
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Social Movement Faces Violent Repression in Brazil

By: Jake Miller | August 24, 2006

This morning I accompanied Fernando Prioste, an attorney for the Brazilian human rights organization Terra de Direitos (Land of Rights), to visit Jaime Amorim at the Centro de Triagem pre-trial detention center in Abreu e Lima on the outskirts of Recife, in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
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Leaders of the MST Assassinated, Jailed in Pernambuco

By: Jake Miller | August 24, 2006

Earlier this week, while Saulo Araujo and I were visiting our partners at Polo Sindical in the interior of Bahia and Pernambuco, Brazil, hearing about the long history of violent struggles there to re-settle families displaced by a series of large hydro-electric dam projects (including some families that still have not been resettled 20 years later) we received news that two leaders of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) were assassinated at an encampment in greater Recife, Pernambuco.
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Greetings from the Sertão in Bahia, Brazil

By: Jake Miller | August 20, 2006

On our way back from a tour of the enormous hydro-electric dam here in Paulo Alfonso this afternoon, Saulo Araujo and I stopped at a small pond covered with water lilies and what looked to my North-American eyes like duckweed. I was delighted to see dozens of Jacanas and gallinules feeding in the weeds and just as we were about to leave an Amazon Kingfisher flew out from the trees on the edge and dove into the pond for a fish.
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Our Food, Our Communities

By: Jake Miller | June 28, 2006

A few years ago I was driving around lost on the Olympic Peninsula. I was in a hurry, trying to make my way to Hurricane Ridge overlook in the Olympic Mountains in time to see the sunset. When I figured out where I'd gone wrong, I made a u-turn and I almost didn't stop at the little farm stand that caught my eyes both times I drove by it, but I decided that maybe the forces of serendipity had sent me on that detour just so that I could try the local fruit.
I bought a few peaches--individually nestled in extra-large egg carton type material--and a pint of cherries, and chatted with the folks on the other side of the table for a few moments, about the growing season (it seemed late for peaches to me), about the other crops they grow, what a lovely day it was, that kind of thing.
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Family Farm to School Cafeteria

By: Jake Miller | March 30, 2006

"Farm to Cafeteria" is a wonderful idea being promoted by a large number of organizations representing family farmers, farm workers, children's and youth advocates, environmental, health and hunger activists, organic consumers, faith-based groups and others, including Grassroots International, the National Family Farm Coalition, the Rural Coalition, the Organic Consumers Association and the Community Food Security Coalition.
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Unity: A Vision for the Future of Food and Family Farming

By: Jake Miller | February 15, 2006

This week, Grassroots is participating in a series of events that we helped the National Family Farm Coalition organize in Washington, D.C..
I was in D.C. on Monday for an exciting public forum (you can see a PDF of the program here), hosted by the NFFC and featuring speakers from many other members of the Via Capesina, including Pedro Christoffoli, a representative of Grassroots' partner, the MST.
Leaders of the movement of family farmers and farm workers from all over the United States met with leaders of farmer and peasant movements from Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Mali to talk about the right of people everywhere to have enough food, to be able to choose how and where that food is produced and to have a dignified livelihood.
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Anti-Globalization Activist Jose Bove Denied Entry to Speak in U.S.

By: Jake Miller | February 9, 2006

Jose Bove, who spoke here at Grassroots International about the campaign to protect the European food system and environment from the dangers of genetically modified crops, has been denied entry to the United States as he was en route to speak at a meeting with farmers, labor activists, students and others in Ithaca, New York.
Immigration authorities accused Bove of lying on his entry form about a history of prosecution for "moral crimes." Bove admitted he had been jailed in France for "political crimes," including protests against Monsanto and McDonald's.
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After the WTO Compromise: Keep Hoping for a More Just World and Keep Organizing to Make it Happen

By: Jake Miller | December 21, 2005

In spite of the WTO's announcement of new compromises and "progress" on the agreement on agriculture (which would deepen the damage done to agricultural systems, food sovereignty and rural economies around the world by years of neo-liberal policies), many observers doubt that negotiators will be able to meet the deadlines and goals of the proposed deal.
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Pictures from Hong Kong: Peaceful Protests, Plenty of Riot Police

By: Jake Miller | December 16, 2005

Grassroots supporter Andy Lin has traveled to Hong Kong with United Students Against Sweatshops and the Worker's Rights Consortium, and has sent us a few photographs of the scene there.

Above and to the left is a shot of a group of Hong Kong Police in full riot gear, waiting for a clash that never happened. Below, a shot of a peaceful group of women marching to the convention center on Thursday, Dec 15.

Many thanks to Andy for sending these photos and to all the people who've traveled to Hong Kong to struggle for a more just world.

Stay tuned for further updates.
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NGOs urge WTO reps: “Stand up for your people”

By: Jake Miller | December 14, 2005

Our latest dispatch from Hong Kong: The NFFC's Dena Hoff gives us an inside look at how the WTO tries to keep popular voices as far from the treaty deliberations--and from the press--as they can.
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Confronting the Fantasy of the WTO with the Stories of Real Farmers

By: Jake Miller | December 13, 2005

Our latest dispatch from Hong Kong comes from George Naylor, who farms near Churdan, Iowa, is a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and is President of the National Family Farm Coalition:
Hong Kong.
I'm afraid it's lost it's exotic quality. Now almost everything is name brand. At least there's good public transportation, so traffic jams wouldn't be one reason to leave the city for the family farm like I left California 30 years ago.
Shopping for a cell phone the other night, a young salesperson wanted to know why anyone would oppose the WTO. "It does so many good things," he said.
Hmmm....
I wish I'd had the time to find out what he saw as a future for a young Hong Kong resident like himself. To what would one advance?
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Greetings from Hong Kong–Monday, December 12, 2005

By: Jake Miller | December 12, 2005

The following post is by Dena Hoff, farmer from Montana, Secretary of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), former chair of the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. She is part of a delegation of U.S. farmers and farmworkers protesting against the WTO in Hong Kong with the Via Campesina this week. Grassroots Journal is very excited to be hosting these reports from inside the protest.
We are gearing up for our first major Via Campesina rally tomorrow. The largest farmers' delegations are arriving and settling in today, getting oriented and meeting each other, many of us for the first time.
Hong Kong is a giant shopper's paradise. Shopping seems to be a major recreational hobby with streets packed late into the night. Bling everywhere among the Christmas decorations.
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Deputy Commander of the United Nations Military Force in Haiti Accused of Committing Human Rights Violations under Pinochet

By: Jake Miller | November 11, 2005

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), its Chilean member Human Rights Defense Committee (CODEPU) and its partner organization in Haiti, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) together demand the immediate suspension of General Eduardo Aldunate from his post as Deputy Commander in the military force of the United Nations Stabilizing Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).
General Aldunate belonged to the National Intelligence Agency (DINA), the political police force during Pinochet's regime (1973-1990). The DINA was responsible for 3,000 extrajudicial executions, 1,200 disappearances and the torture of 30,000 political prisoners. General Aldunate is also suspected of having been a member of the "Mulchen Brigade", which was responsible for the illegal confinement and assassination of Mr. Carmelo Soria in July 1976. Mr. Carmelo Soria was a Spanish diplomat then in charge of the United Nations Economic Commission in Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) in the Santiago headquarters.
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Democracy and Human Rights in Eritrea

By: Jake Miller | November 8, 2005

Grassroots International founder and current board member Dan Connell teaches journalism and African politics at Simmons College, Boston.
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Grassroots International Backs Human Rights for Eritrea

By: Jake Miller | November 3, 2005

For more than 20 years following its founding in 1983, Grassroots International worked with both Eritrean government ministries and nongovernmental organizations, supporting alternative development, health-care initiatives and empowerment projects for women and youth. That program was closed in January 2005 to protest the suppression of democracy in Eritrea under its current president, Isaias Afwerki.
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Hunger Stike Wins Promise of Delay, More Discussion on “Water Redistribution” Plan in Brazil

By: Jake Miller | October 11, 2005

Following an eleven-day hunger strike, Brazilian bishop Dom Luiz Cappio called an end to his protest, having won key concessions from the government to postpone the planned re-routing of the Rio S
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