This is the time of year when gardeners start to reap their rewards—fruits and vegetables that make for a healthy feast. But for the people of Gaza, gardens produce a serving of self-sufficiency, too.
Urban gardens usually bring to mind savvy urbanites indulging in an organic lifestyle—witness Michelle Obama and her model urban garden at the White House. Although urban gardens in the West may not be a total indulgence—Ms.
After four years of hard work, peasant organizations and allies in Nicaragua are now celebrating the approval of a new Food Sovereignty, Food Security and Nutrition Law.
Ahmed Sourani is the Director of Projects & Cooperation for the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC). PARC is a longtime partner of Grassroots International and perhaps the most important player in the Palestinian agricultural sector. PARC focuses its work in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on rural development including food security, income generation, water rights and protecting against land confiscation by Israel; environmental protection; and strengthening women's position in society.
Grassroots International ally, Food & Water Watch (FWW) issued a statement questioning the Obama Administration's "new" approach to addressing global hunger and poverty announced at the G8 Summit in Italy. Is this really new, or old wine in new bottles? FWW argues that more free trade and biotechnology (or reinventing the Green Revolution) are not new ideas and only end up supporting agribusiness and other corporations.
Social movement leaders in Honduras, including members of Grassroots International's partner, La Via Campesina, fear for their lives, as tens of thousands have gathered to protest Sunday's coup d'etat against President Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales.
Please call on the Honduran Embassy to demand that the congress and military respect and guarantee the human rights of all Hondurans and reinstate the democratically elected president, Mel Zelaya.
Ben F. Burkett is president of the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) in the U.S., and a cooperative-marketing-specialist member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund. He was in Mozambique attending the 5th International Conference of La Via Campesina as a delegate of the NFFC. La Via Campesina is an organization of organizations, part of a global movement of peasants, family farmers, indigenous and landless people. The interview was conducted (and later edited) by Nic Paget-Clarke for In Motion Magazine on October 22, 2008 during the Via Campesina conference. The conference was held at the FRELIMO Party School in Matola, Mozambique.
Last month, Grassroots International, along with a few other U.S. food justice organizations, collaborated with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter to organize his U.S. visit. Among his most important stops, de Schutter spoke at the United Nations on May 4, 2009, presenting a report on the right to food in the context of the global food crisis.
"The cascading series of events now known as the world food crisis started in Mexico as the 'tortilla war' in January 2007. It then flared up in Italy as the 'spaghetti strike' nine months later. Later it became an unstoppable avalanche ... La Vía Campesina believes that this crisis is the result of decades of destructive policies: pressure from international institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to decrease investment in small-scale food production through structural adjustment programs; increasing the power of transnational corporations; financial speculation; and more recently, governments' support for the frantic escalation in the production of agro-fuels."
The Food Sovereignty movement in the United States is well and alive. And thanks to the work of food cooperatives, community supported agriculture (CSA) and local farmers, little by little more neighborhoods and cities are joining this social movement that is reclaiming the right to quality food.
This past weekend, the movement's strengthen was displayed in Brooklyn, NY, where over 2,000 people met in one of the largest U.S. events for Food Sovereignty this year.
Participants in the Brooklyn Food Conference represented different places and backgrounds in the U.S. food movement. Event speakers included some of the leading voices in the United States, such as social activist Malik Yakini from Detroit, and Raj Patel, the author of Stuffed and Starved.
Family farmers and other food justice activists will mark April 17, the International Day of Peasant's Struggle, with a protest against corporate speculation on agricultural commodities which is behind the global food crisis now threatening the livelihoods of millions of farmers. This action is in solidarity with La Via Campesina, the world's largest umbrella movement of family farmers, Grassroots International's ally the National Family Farm Coalition, rural workers and indigenous peoples.
Specific demands include:
When it rains, it pours. This week has seen a deluge of global food and trade strategies, all of which may deeply impact food and agriculture policies for Grassroots International, our partners and our allies.
Since 1996 April 17 has been declared by La Via Campesina "International Day of Peasants' Struggles." This day commemorates the slaughter by the Brazilian police of 19 peasants of the landless movement (MST) while they mobilized to get access to some land. Thirteen years later, the struggle for recognition of peasant rights remains a priority of the Via Campesina, one of Grassroots International's partners.
According to the Via Campesina's press release,
The Oaxaca State Coffee Producers Network (CEPCO), one of Grassroots International's partners in Mexico, works with largely indigenous coffee-growing families to fortify their economic wellbeing. CEPCO has been instrumental in strengthening organic coffee production among members and in diversifying the local economic base in an effort to ensure that local indigenous communities can stay on their traditional collectively owned land.
Since late spring of 2008 I have been playing an active role in the work of the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis. This broad network of farmer, fisher, farmworker, labor, faith, food and hunger and policy advocacy organizations has echoed the call of global social movements and civil society to implement a clear and simple set of principles included in the findings of the 2008 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) and join the community of nations supporting the right to food.
Today, a coalition of faith, hunger, international development, farm and food organizations – including Grassroots International – sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting decisive support for efforts to wring out excess speculation in agricultural futures markets that threatens the food security of hundreds of millions of people. The letter notes that "A significant part of last year's food price fluctuations were the result of excessive speculation in the commodities markets by the very hedge funds and investment banks that helped create the current economic meltdown."
The Honorable Barack Obama President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. 20500
March 24, 2009
Dear Mr. President:
In 2008, the price of basic food staples rose by incredible proportions. Between May 2007 and March 2008, hard red winter wheat rose 137 percent, from July 2007 to June 2008 corn prices rose 98 percent. Other food commodities rose in a similar fashion putting daily sustenance out of reach for 200 million more people in the developing world.
With thanks in part to $80,000 dollars in generous donations made to Grassroots International in response to the Gaza Crisis, our partners in Palestine have begun the process of rebuilding their communities.
On February 23, Grassroots International partner, the Via Campesina met with representatives of the United Nations in New York City to discuss ways to address the chronic problems faced by peasant communities around the globe.
The growing violation of resources rights of peasants by development policies - especially mega-projects whose main goal is to speed up the extraction and export of resources for corporate profits - is an issue that demands immediate attention.
We will be posting updates from the Dessalines Brigade in Haiti. Stay tuned.
Last month, a small delegation of four representatives of Via Campesina-Brazil arrived in Haiti. Their mission is to help the Haitian peasant movement in their efforts to build local sustainable agriculture practices and a popular education curriculum on food sovereignty. Besides solidarity and technical expertise, the delegation also brings agro-ecological seeds produced in agrarian reform settlements in Brazil to share with local families.
It has become clear that the numerous crises we face today are a result of disastrous global governance formulas that try to accommodate powerful interests, instead of addressing the real issues.
And these formulas are getting old. Discredited in the public eye, global institutions led by a handful of nations, and dominated by corporate agendas, are losing ground.
