Grassroots International friend Anna Lappé is currently in Mali for the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum along with Grassroots' Resource Rights Specialist Corrina Steward and over 500 other delegates from around the world. She just sent us a blog on the Forum that she posted on the Guerilla News Network Post, which was founded by her broher Anthony.
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.
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.
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.
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.
