Grassroots International partner La Via Campesina, a global network of peasant, family farmer and small producer movements more than 100 million strong, and with members in Haiti issued this call for solidarity with Haitians including the peasant population.
Bill Quigley of our ally the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote recently on what he thought the US can and should do for Haiti in response to the devastating earthquake.
Recently, Grassroots International received an email from our partner Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA). It is translated below.
PAPDA is a coalition of nine Haitian popular and non-governmental organizations which work with the Haitian popular movement to develop alternatives to the neo-liberal model of economic globalization, and has been a leading advocate of debt cancellation, food sovereignty and sustainable development. When the Haitian government moved to privatize certain industries, PAPDA worked with the unions and the business community to create strategies that would improve production and minimize cost without privatization.Nitin Sawhney, a friend of Grassroots International and long time activist for Palestinian rights, was one of the 100 delegates, from the over 1300 international delegate-members of the Gaza Freedom March, chosen to go into Gaza through a last minute intervention by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Nitin, and many of his colleagues including the American activist and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein decided at the last minute to not go.
As the Climate Summit in Copenhagen plods onward, various so-called solutions to global warming are being tossed around: Alternative energy, Cap and Trade, adaptation and mitigation, and many more. It can be hard to make sense of them, and even more difficult to unpack the myths from the realities. Fortunately, Annie Leonard, who brought us “The Story of Stuff” offers a new video to explain the Story of Cap & Trade.
As dignitaries and politicians meet in Copenhagen to discuss ways to curtail climate change, some of the people most affected by the crisis are also present, including the Via Campesina. One of Grassroots International’s partners, the Via represents more than 150 million small farmers, fishers and producers worldwide. As Henry Saragih, General Coordinator of Via Campesina, notes in the speech below, small farmers are cooling down the earth, while big industrial farms pose grave risks.
Why We Left Our Farms to Come to Copenhagen
As one of the articles today in the German newspaper In Spiegel points out, the conference in Copenhagen around climate change is largely defined by wish-washy intentions and the introduction (or redefinition) new words: Green, Bio, Organic, Renewable and…Development. On one side of the Development debate are those who advocate for economic growth, while on the other side are the farmers, indigenous people and urban workers who claim that Development has contributed to their social and economic plight.
Paraphrasing Lisa Sullivan, School of the Americas Watch Latin America coordinator, the Honduran election last Sunday is another case of political ‘whitewash’ in the American continent.
GONAIVES, Haiti - Most of us would agree that there is a serious problem vis-a-vis access to food in the developing world. According to the UN food agency, there are now more than one billion undernourished people worldwide. The need to do something about the broken food system is especially apparent in Haiti, where I have been on a working assignment with Grassroots International for the past few weeks.
In 1996 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) organized the first World Food Summit in Rome to, in their own words, “renew global commitment to the fight against hunger. The FAO called the Summit in response to widespread under nutrition and growing concern about the capacity of agriculture to meet future food needs.”
On the campaign trail, President Obama vowed to “stand up to corporate mega-farm lobbyists who have long had too much influence over rural and agriculture policies.” But now he’s nominated to two key posts the same ‘Big Ag’ industry insiders he previously promised to oppose: Islam Siddiqui and Roger Beachy.
Take action now to tell President Obama to keep his campaign promise to stand up to corporate agriculture and withdraw his support for Siddiqui and Beachy.
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), an independent international research and development organization, recently published a book that should be of interest to Grassroots International's supporters. Available free online, Towards Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming Autonomous Food Systems offers great analysis and links to video and audio files that show farmers, indigenous peoples and consumers all working to promote food sovereignty.
Throughout the world, social movements are the driving force behind a new food sovereignty policy framework, which aims to guarantee and protect people's space, ability and right to define their own models of production, food distribution and consumption patterns.
At a gathering of food and trade activists from around the United States and Canada, Grassroots International's partner, the Via Campesina, receieved the 2009 Food Sovereignty Prize for its relentless struggle for the rights of peasants and small producers of the world and against the disastrous neoliberal system of industrial agriculture. The award was received during the annual conference of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) held in Des Moines, Iowa, October 10-13.
October 17th is marked as by the United Nations as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. At Grassroots International, we have been working with our partners for over 25 years towards achieving that goal. Clearly, a lot needs to be done to get us there.
October 17th is marked as by the United Nations as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. At Grassroots International, we have been working with our partners for over 25 years towards achieving that goal. Clearly, a lot needs to be done to get us there.
Today is World Food Day!
World Food Day is celebrated every year on October 16 – the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. World Food Day raises awareness of the issues behind poverty and hunger. This year's theme for World Food Day is "Achieving food security in times of crisis."
A critical issue related to food and agriculture that is finally gaining more attention is climate change. Industrial agriculture contributes significantly to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) recently published a report on the country’s agricultural sector. The last report had been published in 1996. The new document supports several points raised by peasant organizations, such as our partner the Via Campesina International, around the critical role of the small scale agriculture to climate justice and hunger. The main points are outlined below.
1.For some, October 12th is commemorated as the day that Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Americas. For many more, it marked the beginning of over 500 years of foreign domination, cultural destruction and systematic exploitation. Over the last 15 years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has perpetuated that tragic history.
Join with other justice-minded people to use this October 12th to push for the renegotiation and replacement of NAFTA and forge a new history based on mutual respect, human rights, and dignity.
