Today I facilitated a sub-work group of the Access and Control of Natural Resources thematic working group focused on the environmental aspects of the struggle for food sovereignty. It gave me a great opportunity to hear experiences and learn about the values that different cultures place on natural resources.
I had the incredible opportunity to coordinate a meeting between the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC) and the U.S. farmers and farm worker delegates to Nyeleni.
Present at the meeting were Omar Doanna, UAWC and Stop the Wall, Fuad Abu Sail, UAWC, Khalid Hedmi, UAWC, Zakaraya, a Palestinian farmer, Dena Hoff, NFFC, John Kinsman and John Peck, Family Farm Defenders, Carlos Marentes, Border Agricultural Workers.
The meeting was a rare chance for farmer-activists from very different places to share farming experiences, compare notes on movement-building strategy and show that human connection can conquer political divides.
Nyeleni’s persistent spirit is coming through.
We now have electricity and running water. Getting internet is unlikely. These blogs are traveling from Sélingué (via portable USB flash drive) 2.5 hours to Bamako where there is one internet café. An organizer sits there waiting for material to upload on the Nyeleni website.
Today was the opening, inaugural ceremony.
The Journal of Agriculture and Human Values has published the paper "From colonization to “environmental soy”: A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amaz
In less than one month, hundreds of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and environmental and indigenous organizations will convene in Mali for Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty.
My mother has a book of hand written recipes that provide a map to my childhood. It's as old as I am, 29 years old.
When I was seven, the owners of my dad's workplace shut down production and locked the workers out.
Many developing countries and civil society organizations welcomed with great excitement and relief the once-again-collapsed World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in July 2006. However, the suspension of the global trade organization’s authority on agriculture has not resulted in a sea change in global agricultural policy.
Grassroots movements have made great strides towards putting the power of the food system in citizens’ hands, but ongoing bi-lateral and regional trade negotiations threaten to curtail these advances.
Grassroots International is pleased to announce a new book co-edited by our Resource Rights Specialist, Corrina Steward, "Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Americas" (International Institute for Environment and Development, IUCN Commission on Environmental Economic and Social Policy, and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, 2006). The publication explores the emerging alliances among small farmer organizations, environmentalists and scholars to promote ecologically sound and economically just food and agriculture systems across the Americas.
Where I come from, we are born farmers. Our entire life, our entire livelihood and our entire economy depend upon agriculture.
--Mariam Sissoko, CNOP, Mali
The Via Campesina and the Landless Workers Movement (MST) have successfully advocated for removing the global agribusiness Syngenta from a national park in Santa Teresa do Oeste, Paraná, in the south of Brazil.
What better place to talk about the right to food, land and water than in one of the US's great food capitals, New Orleans? I've just returned from Share our Strength's (http://www.strength.org) annual Conference of Leaders - a remarkable network of restaurateurs and chefs seeking to end childhood hunger, a network with which Grassroots International is honored to collaborate.
The Nation ran a special "food issue" that addressed America's values with respect to food, farming and policy. The main tenet of the issue is that the U.S. food system is broken. At Grassroots we believe this is true. We take the notion even further: the global food system is broken.
U.S. food and farm policy is foreign policy that shapes agricultural conditions globally. The results are devastating for millions around the world: hunger, environmental degradation and human rights violations.
In New Orleans, today, farmers, fishers, shrimpers and chefs will join the community in a Thanksgiving dinner at the Crescent City Farmers Market. They will give thanks and "celebrate surviving, reinventing and rediscovering the power of community." On our recent trip to the South, Azalia and I had the privilege to experience the power and strength of the Crescent City Farmers Market. We witnessed the endurance of the producers to continue with a long tradition of going to the market, and the customers' relief that they continue to be there.
Corrina and I just returned from a whirlwind three-state tour of the South. Our trip began in Alabama, took us to Mississippi and ended in New Orleans, Louisiana. The landscape was beautiful, the heat and humidity bordering on oppressive, the vowels pronounced long and slowly, the people welcoming and the food delicious.
I am in pain. Some of that is from having recently walked from Boston to Provincetown, about 120 miles, in 37 hours — my left thigh is numb, my left calf is strained and my feet are blistered and sore. The physical pain that I am feeling now is nothing compared to the pain that was there before I even took a step. Actually, that pain is why I walked.
Although I have long been troubled by violence in general, the situation in the Middle East has been a focus of my attention. I yearn for the day when the people of Palestine, Israel and Lebanon can live their lives with access to water, land and food and without a constant fear of being attacked.
The Via Campesina, a global movement of family farmers, agricultural workers, landless, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples, brought their message of food sovereignty to Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization. The very fact that Lamy agreed to meet with them demonstrates that their members have hugely affected the outcome of the WTO negotiations. Among social movements, including labor and environmental circles, there is a growing sentiment that the global food system should serve the needs of the producers, workers and communities most connected to it.
While the Via Campesina is making global leaders hear this message of food sovereignty, Grassroots International is bringing this message, in conjunction with the National Family Farm Coalition, to the U.S. where movement building for rights to land, water, food and seeds are sorely needed. Today, we are lifted by this new global political opportunity.
I decided that I should do some training walks before I walk from Boston to Provincetown for Palestine on August 4th. I walked 16 miles in just under 4 hours on Friday and it wasn't a piece of cake. I am going to suffer walking 123 miles in 36 hours straight. There's no question about that, the only question is how much?
On Wedneday July 12, Grassroots International joined a group of demonstrators in front of the Israeli Consulate at Park Place Plaza to protest the Israeli government's collective punishment of the
Not a day goes by when I don't think about Palestine and the desperate situation there. Both the Israeli and Palestinian populations live in fear of attacks but the Palestinians are suffering a humanitarian crisis of horrid proportions.
I can't just sit by and watch the suffering continue so on August 4th I'm walking--in 36 hours straight, from Boston to Provincetown (123 miles). I've never done anything like this before but if a long walk, stopping to talk to people and reporters helps raise awareness of and money for Palestine, then it will be worth it.
