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.
Two weeks ago, Haitian President Michel Martelly toured Caracol Industrial Park in the Northeast Department with stops at the Park’s power plant and future employee housing site. He also used his visit as an opportunity to urge the project’s construction workers to “give the best of themselves in building this new Haiti.”
Women in indigenous communities in Sololá, Guatemala and, for that matter, throughout the Mesoamerica region as whole rely on each other for everything. They work collectively to plant their crops and perform other tasks. They depend on each other to...
For Haitian peasants July 23, 1986, will always be remembered with sadness and renewed conviction. On that day at least 139 peasants were killed in Jean-Rabel, located in the Northwest of the country, by Tonton Macoutes following orders from local landowners. Most of the peasants killed were advocating for land reform by contesting local landowners’ claims to State-owned land. The massacre took place at a turbulent time in Haitian history, a mere few months after a popular struggle led to Jean-Claude Duvalier’s ouster, which in turn led to a power vacuum immediately filled by a bloody military junta. The junta remained in place until the democratic election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.
The women in Sololá, Guatemala keep a very neat garden. The plumb straight fence protects the garden from chickens and other intruders. The seedlings pop out in straight lines, as the gardeners had used a GPS to plant them. In...
Things are not going well for Caterpillar or Elbit Systems’ stocks.
Two excellent pieces written recently about the intersection of the June 22 coup d’état in Paraguay and land issues offer a clear analysis of the core issues behind the power struggle in the South American nation.
The Palestinian situation is complex, but underlying that complexity is a basic struggle for land and water. No one knows that more intimately than Palestinian farmers and the people who work with them. In a recent interview while attending Rio...
The Palestinian situation is complex, but underlying that complexity is a basic struggle for land and water. No one knows that more intimately than Palestinian farmers and the people who work with them. In a recent interview while attending Rio...
