"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.
March 28th, 2006 —On March 8th, International Women's Day, a group of more than 1,200 women from the Via Campesina took action to denounce the environmental and social injustice committed by corporations and a global agrarian policy that puts the needs of the market ahead of the needs of people. These corporations use vast tracts of land in Brazil for plantations of eucalyptus and pine to produce paper and lumber for export. The Movement of Women Peasants in Brazil points out that this monoculture creates "green deserts" that actually increase poverty instead of reducing it. As the members of the women's movement say, "We want land to grow food. We don't eat eucalyptus."
"Dead people live here" said my niece Anisha matter of factly, as only a 6-7 year old would, while we drove by a cemetery near her home in Erie, Pennsylvania some years ago.
And on my first full day in Jerusalem Anisha's voice rang in my ears. That innocent remark carries a lot more weight here in Jerusalem.
Everyday more than 800 million people go hungry. Many of the hungry are family farmers or landless farm workers in the Global South. In the U.S., family farmers are struggling to stay in business and fighting for a cleaner environment and for a food system that will protect rural livelihoods and provide consumers with safe, delicious, local food. To face these daunting challenges, family farmers from around the world are organizing themselves into a global movement for social justice.
In Washington D.C., Grassroots and the National Family Farm Coalition organized a public forum for farmers movements, academics and activists from around the nation and around the world to share theirglobal vision for food and farming.
By dispelling the myth that "under development" causes poverty, Vandana Shiva, a member of Grassroots International's Resource Rights Advisory Group, provides a dose of reality as the World Trade Organization (WTO) prepares for its ministerial meeting in Hong Kong (December 13-18th).
Pascal Lamy, WTO Director General, claims that the outcome of the negotiations will determine the development fate of the world's poorest countries (WTO Committee on Trade and Development, 11/28/05). He says, "What is already on the table can translate into a good result for development...it would certainly be disastrous if what we have disappears because we fail to move the negotiations forward."
Vandana Shiva, a longtime activist and researcher from India who has been involved with women's, ecological, peasants and anti-globalization movements has joined Grassroots' Resource Rights Advisory Group.
Shiva was recently in Cambrdige to give a talk at MIT organized by the Technology and Culture Forum. It was a packed auditorium with students as well as members of the community present. Grassroots International was proud to co-sponor the event.
Shiva is excited to be taking part in Grassroots' Resource Rights for All initiative. She has worked with many of the Advisory Group's members in various capacities over the years.
Yesterday, the US released its trade position for the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December. The US plan calls for deep subsidy cuts for the US and the European Union. Yet, the cuts rest on the promise that developing countries will significantly reduce industrial tariffs--a compromise that the world's least developed countries say threaten their development and livelihood security rights.
The majority of Grassroots International's partners rely on agriculture for income, food security and sustaining healthy communities. The US's trade position is intricately linked to the parameters of the US Farm Bill, the major legislation that ultimately controls US and global agricultural markets. Our partners' livelihoods are affected by a US agricultural policy process that they have no control over. Their greatest hope is through social movements like the Via Campesina, an international movement of small farmers, indigenous communities, community fisher people, agricultural workers and rural women working to stop global agriculture from being regulated through the WTO.
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
Thousands of supporters turned out to celebrate Dom Luiz's birthday with him yesterday, as he continues his hunger strike against the re-routing of the São Francisco River.
Here's an AP story on the demonstrations. It's good that the reporter focuses on the environmental damage that re-routing the river will cause (which will likely include increased deforestation, sedimentation and habitat loss for wildlife and fisheries stock) but it's disappointing that he takes at face value the government's claims that 18 million people will benefit from the project.
Independent experts who have analyzed the plan suggest that the number who actually receive water from the project will be much smaller than that, and experience with similar projects around the world suggest that the long term consequences of mega-projects like this can be catastrophic not only for the environment in some abstract sense, but for the livelihoods and lives of the people who live in the area. Not exactly what I would call a benefit.
It is the seventh day of Dom Luiz's hunger strike to protect the São Francisco River from a potentially catastrophic "Watershed Transposition" project that the Brazilian government wants to implement in the country's arid northeast. He is growing weak, but is determined to continue his hunger strike.
Dom Luiz is a Franciscan Bishop who lives at the margin of the São Francisco river in a town called Cabrobo (ca-bro-boh), in the northeastern state of Pernambuco. He has been a strong advocate of the revitalization of the river and a strong voice during the public hearings about the plan to re-distribute the water of the river using a series of dams and canals. In a letter to the people of the northeast, he stated the problems of the project and appealed to the families from the four states that are supposed to benefit from this mega project: "If the São Francisco river was not dying and the watershed transposition were the best solution to end your thirst, I would not be in disagreement and would fight with you for it."
It is the seventh day of Dom Luiz's hunger strike to protect the S Francisco River from a potentially catastrophic "Watershed Transposition" project that the Brazilian government wants to implement in the country's arid northeast. He is growing weak, but is determined to continue his hunger strike.
Dom Luiz is a Franciscan Bishop who lives at the margin of the S Francisco river in a town called Cabrobo (ca-bro-boh), in the northeastern state of Pernambuco. He has been a strong advocate of the revitalization of the river and a strong voice during the public hearings about the plan to re-distribute the water of the river using a series of dams and canals. In a letter to the people of the northeast, he stated the problems of the project and appealed to the families from the four states that are supposed to benefit from this mega project: "If the S Francisco river was not dying and the watershed transposition were the best solution to end your thirst, I would not be in disagreement and would fight with you for it."
Grassroots International and the Circle of Women/Círculo de Mujeres were honored to welcome acclaimed singer Lila Downs for a special benefit concert. Lila Downs's deep commitment to indigneous and women’s rights is woven throughout her music.
With much of the World's attention focused on the Gaza Strip and the impending Israeli disengagement, slated to begin Monday, Israel is quietly continuing its occupation of the West Bank.
Most of our partners, while not unhappy to see the settlers go, question how "disengaged" Israel can really be when they will continue to control all of their borders, land and sea, and even the airspace around Gaza. Most also fear that the disengagement from Gaza will be at the expense of the West Bank.
I recently traveled to the Northeast of Brazil to visit Grassroots International's partners with our Executive Director, Nikhil Aziz, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of Resist,Inc.
When an activist is murdered for organizing resistance to powerful interests, it can be much easier to simply think about the crime as a human rights crime in the narrowest sense of the term. It's easy to forget that what the activist was fighting for in many cases wasn't political freedom per se, but for those other categories of rights that sometimes seem hard to understand: social and economic rights like the right to define a culture of one's own, and to have enough food and water and land to support a dignified living.
A few weeks ago, this news alert came through my inbox from International Rivers Network:
Imagine that your family, descended from freed slaves, has been working the same plot of land where your ancestors once toiled in bondage for generations. Now imagine waking up one morning to find that your government has sold the land out from under you to foreign speculators. What would you do?
When it happened to Dona Maria de Jesus, or Dona DeJe as she is affectionately called, she knew she had only one choice: fight for her community and for her rights.
Brazilian Bishop on Hunger Strike In Defense of Sao Francisco River
Grassroots International announces the launch of Resource Rights for All, a three-year initiative to support the international movement to protect land and water rights.
PARC is one of the largest NGOs in Palestine concerned with sustainable rural development and social change.
