Food Sovereignty | Página 18 de 28 | Grassroots International

Home » What We Do » The Issues » Página 18

Food Sovereignty | Página 18 de 28

Food Sovereignty

Manifest Haiti: U.S. Food Aid and Monsanto

By: Carol Schachet | Janeiro 27, 2011

Make no mistake: Haiti needs seeds and food. Following last January’s devastating earthquake, it’s been all hands on deck in the small island nation—but decision-making on rebuilding is very often in all hands but Haitian hands.

Since long before the earthquake, Haiti has been known as the Republic of NGOs and is bound by more free trade agreements than any other country in the hemisphere. And this kind of outside intervention has failed Haiti time and again—especially since last year’s unprecedented disaster.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

One Year on in Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | Janeiro 12, 2011

Sheer numbers never convey the magnitude of a disaster because they leave out the human stories. News reports offer constant access to images and analysis, but the suffering can just seem too distant at times. And then there are those other times when it hits personally, all in one dreaded moment.

For me, that moment came when I got word that Flo McGarrell, a friend and fellow student of Haitian Creole died in last year’s earthquake when a hotel collapsed on him in Jacmel. As survivors began a weeklong search for Flo’s body, everything about what was going on in Haiti felt painfully close to home—even from half a world away (I was in Jerusalem at the time). Each story became Flo’s story.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Gaza: Stories of Strength amid Assault and Siege

By: Carol Schachet | Dezembro 29, 2010

Year before last, I was sitting in the living room of my childhood home sharing a cup of morning coffee with my mother and musing over the holidays. We laughed over kitschy Christmas gifts from well-meaning relatives before deciding to turn on the news for five minutes on the brink of another vacation day. Those five minutes would turn out to be one of those times like 9/11—when you never forget exactly where you were when you found out. "Oh no," gasped my mother, tears welling up immediately in her eyes. "Gaza Explodes..." scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and plumes of smoke hung on the living room wall in high definition.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Building food sovereignty and economic justice

By: Grassroots International | Dezembro 20, 2010

Gilberto and Natalia Silva are in their mid-thirties. Married and parents of a beautiful little girl, Geovanna, they exude hope for the future. “In life, nothing comes easy,” Natalia says as she works tirelessly in the kitchen. Gilberto nods in agreement from the other corner of the room.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

“Miami Rice”: The Business of Disaster in Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | Dezembro 9, 2010

As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with the smoke of burning tires and with gunfire. Towns throughout the country, along with the national airport, are shut down due to demonstrations. Many are angry over the government's announcement on Tuesday night of which two presidential candidates made the run-offs: Jude Célestin from the widely hated ruling party of President René Préval and the far-right Mirlande Manigat. This is another obvious manipulation of what had already been a brazenly fraudulent election. A democratic vote is one more thing that has been taken from the marginalized Haitian majority, compounding their many losses since the earthquake of January 12.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

New Map Shows Concentration of Factory Farms

By: Carol Schachet | Dezembro 1, 2010

Food & Water Watch today unveiled the newest version of its pioneering Factory Farm Map (www.factoryfarmmap.org) that charts the concentration of factory farms across the country and the impacts these massive operations have on human health, communities, and the environment. The interactive map illustrates the geographic shift in where and how food is raised in the U.S. and allows anyone to quickly search for the highest concentration of animals by region, state and county.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Rural Women (and Men) Lead the Way in Ending Violence against Women

By: Nikhil Aziz | Novembro 25, 2010

Today, November 25^th, is observed around the world as the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women. Grassroots International joins women and men everywhere in calling for an end to all violence – interpersonal and structural – against women and girls.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

How peasant farmers feed the planet

By: Grassroots International | Novembro 15, 2010

In the northeast of Brazil, the landscape changes from dry, spiny vegetation to humid, verdant scenery dominated by sugar cane plantations. Driving through villages inhabited mostly by sugar-cane cutters is like winding through a slum in a big city. Barefoot children sell candy beneath the traffic lights, Coca-Cola signs light up bars and open-air sewage gives an indication of the pervasive poverty. In the middle of a “green desert” of sugar cane (grown mostly for export), from the road I saw two adults and a young boy working in what appeared to be a tiny oasis teeming with lush fresh vegetables that shined from afar.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

US Food Sovereignty Alliance Launches in New Orleans

By: Nikhil Aziz | Outubro 19, 2010

Grassroots International’s global partners like the Via Campesina have frequently told us: “You have to work hard to change things in the U.S. for our hard work to bear real fruit.” In other words, for another world to be possible, another U.S. is necessary.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Via Campesina Denounces Gates Foundation, Monsanto Connection

By: Carol Schachet | Setembro 28, 2010

La Via Campesina, a global peasant movement representing small farmers, landless workers, fisherfolk, rural women, youth and indigenous peoples, with 150 member organizations from 70 countries on five continents, has denounced the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s recent acquisition of Monsanto Company shares. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was founded in 1994 by Microsoft founder William H. Gates, and today exerts a hegemonic influence on global agricultural development policy. The Foundation channels hundreds of millions of dollars into projects that encourage peasants and farmers to use Monsanto’s genetically-engineered (GE) seed and agrochemicals.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Ending Poverty by Rebuilding Local Food Economies–Celebrate the Launch of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance!

By: Shannon Duncan Bodwell | Setembro 15, 2010

Emerging out of the US Working Group on the Food Crisis, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance will be the first of its kind in the United States. Grassroots International is a member of this new alliance. To celebrate its launch, we encourage people fighting for food justice and sovereignty to take actions during the week of October 10-17.
In solidarity with people all over the world, we call on food justice groups to hold community events that educate, celebrate, and create affordable access to safe, healthy, and culturally appropriate food while turning our food systems into engines for local economic development. We call for actions to build food sovereignty in the US.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

UNOSJO and Indigenous Rights Featured in The Nation

By: Grassroots International | Julho 26, 2010

In a recent article in The Nation (“Retreat to Subsistence,” July 5, 2010), Peter Canby describes the seminal work of one of Grassroots International’s partners in Mexico, the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO). Using UNOSJO's work as an example, he explores the larger issue of of indigenous rights in Mesoamerica.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Working to Keep Hope Alive in Haiti’s Forgotten Frontiers

By: Grassroots International | Julho 12, 2010

Nestled between Haiti’s turquoise Caribbean waters and the foothills of the northern mountains, is a large plot of land close to the town of Limonade. Here at the height of planting season a group of peasants is hard at work. Claudelle Sensmyr, 36, quietly sprinkles handfuls of seeds down row after row of prepped soil. "I just started farming a few months ago," she told me, brushing off her hands and looking up. "I’m from Port-au-Prince," she added shyly and then motioned to the other farmers, "Many of us are."
In the wake of the earthquake that left most of urban Haiti in shambles six months ago, more than 500,000 survivors fled cities like Port-au-Prince and Jacmel to rural areas like Limonade.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Produce More Food, Naturally

By: Grassroots International | Julho 10, 2010

The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter is interviewed on agro-ecology and other important food-related issues. Results of a recent Essex University study on yield and agro-ecology are highlighted.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Brazilian Land Rights Activist in Boston

By: Grassroots International | Julho 7, 2010

Grassroots International and U.S. Friends of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (FMST) are delighted to host Ana Justo, from the Florestan Fernandes National School of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), a Grassroots International partner and a member of the Via Campesina. She will be speaking Thursday, July 8 at Encuentro 5 in Boston at 6 p.m. Click here for more information.
Ana Justo has been a lead organizer of Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST) for 23 of its 25 years. The largest social movement in Latin America, the MST has 1.5 million members in 23 out 27 Brazilian states.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

The Popular Struggle at the Heart of the Capitalist Crisis

By: Carol Schachet | Julho 6, 2010

The former capital of capitalism lies in ruins. The fourth richest city in the world in the 1940s, Detroit, East-Central U.S.A., has become a graveyard of buildings and factories. The Michigan Central Train Station symbolizes the city's crisis: inaugurated in 1913 and abandoned since 1988, the eighteen-story train station with hundreds of broken windows dominates the skyline and continually reminds one that of the devastation that is Detroit.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Using your vote – not just your wallet – to change the food system

By: Grassroots International | Julho 2, 2010

In another great piece in GRIST, author Tom Philpott stresses that we can’t change the broken food system only through changing what food we consume and how, important thought it may be. This echoes what progressive U.S. food system advocates have been saying for some time: to fix the current food system we need structural change. “We also have to get out there and organize for policy reform: to become, in short, a countervailing force that challenges the power of the food lobby”, Philpott contends.
The U.S.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

Grassroots International and Partners at the USSF in Detroit

By: Alisa Pimentel | Junho 25, 2010

By Alisa Pimentel

Among the almost 20,000 activists gathered in Detroit for the US Social Forum this week are several Grassroots International partners and allies. Grassroots International regularly provides funding to our partners and allies to participate in movement-building and leadership development gatherings.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

You Are What You Eat

By: Carol Schachet | Junho 21, 2010

I have a button on my backpack that says: “If You Are What You Eat, Then I’m Fast, Cheap, and Easy.” Thankfully, this quip is sarcastic in my case, but for many people, including many of those working for global justice, it is all too true. Whether due to marketing hype or sheer convenience, usually smart folks can fall down when it comes to what they put in their mouths. The personal is political, and this is reflected each time someone votes for “business as usual” by giving their money to a fast-food chain or big box retailer. The result is a broken food/farm system that is systematically abusing animals, exploiting workers, perverting biodiversity, undermining democracy, jeopardizing health, and destroying the planet.
Learn More
Food Sovereignty

‘So That Everyone Can Eat, Produce It Here’

By: Carol Schachet | Junho 11, 2010

Doudou Pierre is a Grassroots International partner and a member of the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress and the Peasant Movement for Acul du Nord. He.is also on the coordinating committee of the National Haitian Network for Food Sovereignty and Food Security (RENHASSA .and a member of the International Coordinating Committee for Food Sovereignty, organized by Vía Campesina, the worldwide coalition of small farmer organizations. This week he will be heading to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.
Learn More