Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and their property, which escalated this summer, is on the rise again with this October’s olive harvest season in the West Bank. Officials from the United Nations as well as activists in Palestine and Israel are calling on Israeli forces to intervene to stop the violence.
Last Wednesday, October 10th, in New York City, I had the privilege of witnessing the US Food Sovereignty Alliance award the fourth annual Food Sovereignty Prize to the Korean Women Peasant’s Association (KWPA).
On May 1 of this year, my colleague Saulo Araujo (Program Coordinator for Latin America) and I spent the day with Rafael Alegría, a leader of the Vía Campesina based in Honduras. The video below offers some of his reflections.
Rafael’s message is clear:
A recent study by Stanford researchers raised controversy and debate about the comparative health benefits of organic versus conventionally grown food. Bottom line, according to researchers: organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs are comparable in their nutrient content.
Beit Ummar used to be known as the fruit basket of Palestine.
Yesterday, Grassroots International received the alarming news that our partner Rafael Alegria, a leader of La Via Campesina in Honduras, has been moved to a safe house in fear for his life, following the murder of his closest legal advisor, Antonio Trejo Cabrera.
This comes as the violence in Honduras against farmers and Afro-descendent leaders continues to escalate. Politically motivated killings, kidnappings and death threats have increased steadily since the 2009 coup in the country and the installation of a post-coup regime. In the Aguan Region alone, more than 65 landless farmers have been killed.
In the current context in which we see local food economies being encroached by a few corporations, food sovereignty is an ultimate goal for not only farmers, but consumers as well. This battle for the right to decide food and agriculture policies requires different tactics and strategies from the organization of community-led seminars, planting of every inch of vacant space to global actions. One of these local-global actions has been to design of new policy frameworks such as the Right to Food mechanism.
If Walmart really tried, I doubt they could have picked a slogan more completely counter to the wisdom, values and insights of global movements of small farmers and indigenous peoples.
The difference between "Live better" (Walmart's latest slogan) and "living well" (the organizing principle of small farmers around the world) means the difference between personal success and community contentment.
The Farm Bill presented Congress with an opportunity to change some of the fundamental structures of our food system, by creating a farmer-owned reserve and establishing a price floor that reflects farmers’ true cost of production. It may not surprise many of us to know that Congress did not live up to this responsibility.
Today (September 25, 2012), the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch officially release their report: “Who Decides About Global Food and Nutrition? Strategies to regain control.” Below is their press release, as well as a link to the report’s Executive Summary.
U.N. agencies, such as the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), are locked in the past. They resist accepting that the current food and agriculture policies have failed and will continue inflicting damage to thousands of families who face hunger....
The United States is facing its worst drought in nearly 50 years. Not alone in its extreme weather, parts of Africa, Australia, Europe, Asia (especially India) and South America are in the same boat. And while the drought certainly affects people in these nations directly, the impact may be felt as much – if not more – in the small Caribbean nation of Haiti, for reasons as complex and numerous as import-dependent food systems, lack of agricultural investment, and just plain bad luck and timing (from earthquakes to floods to global climate disruption).
During a visit of a delegation of US and Central American activists to Nicaragua this week, the Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega announced that his country will not send any Army personnel to Fort Benning, Georgia to be trained in combat,...
Before I arrived at Grassroots International (nearly a year ago), I thought I understood the hardships imposed on Gaza. I knew about the imposed siege, had read and heard of the Turkish flotilla of 2010 and other humanitarian attempts to reach Gaza. I even knew about loss of acres of farmland, inadequate access to potable water, shortage of medicines, shortage of building materials, and periodic bombardment by the Israeli Defense Forces.
They left San Vicente searching for a peaceful place to live, free of the oppressive British colonial powers. Three thousand women, men and children sailing atop the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea were thirsty and hungry. The sun over their heads was abrasive. Many perished before reaching the island of Roatan, Honduras, their new home. Today, many of their Garifuna heirs, an Afro-descendant population in the Caribbean coast of Central America, are still struggling for days of peace, like their ancestors envisioned some 213 years ago.
Today, a civil court in Israel issued a verdict in the 2003 death of Rachel Corrie. Judge Oded Gershon of Haifa District Court concluded that Rachel’s death was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army. Rachel, a nonviolent 23-year-old activist, was killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer while trying to physically protect Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip from destruction by Israeli Defense Forces.
They left San Vicente searching for a peaceful place to live, free of the oppressive British colonial powers. Three thousand women, men and children sailing atop the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea were thirsty and hungry. The sun over their heads was abrasive. Many perished before reaching the island of Roatan, Honduras, their new home. Today, many of their Garifuna heirs, an Afro-descendant population in the Caribbean coast of Central America, are still struggling for days of peace, like their ancestors envisioned some 213 years ago.
Today [August 9] is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. The United Nations pronounced this day to promote and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population. Today also gives us an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the achievements and contributions that indigenous people have made to improve world issues.
Grassroots International proudly supports indigenous organizations from Mexico to Brazil to Mozambique to Indonesia – groups engaged in ongoing organizing to protect their rights and the rights of Mother Earth.
This summer, a group of Grassroots International supporters and allies participated in a delegation to Pernambuco, Brazil. There they saw first-hand the resilient and powerful work of the Landless Workers Movement, the Movement of People Affected by Dams, and the Via Campesina. Along the way, delegates talked with with small farmers, families living in encampments waiting for land, and indigenous communities working to protect their ancestral lands from the incursion of impending dams.
Below is a blog from Peggy Newell, one of the delegates and a Grassroots International supporter, offering her reflections on the journey.
Traveling to Not That Brazil, by Peggy Newell
Article 22 of Haiti’s 1987 Constitution guarantees adequate housing to all Haitians, yet hundreds of thousands of Haitians are languishing in makeshift tents two and a half years after the January 2010 earthquake.
