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A Path toward Better Agricultural Investment

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2014

The food crisis of 2008 led to a broad agreement in the agricultural development community that the lack of appropriate investment in agriculture had been a key contributing factor to unstable prices and food insecurity. The crisis coincided with an increase in land grabbing in many parts of the world, but especially in Africa. It is in response to these events that the idea of developing some criteria on agricultural investments came up in international policy and governance arenas.
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Celebrating 20 years of the Zapatista Uprising for autonomy and self-determination!

By: Jovanna Garcia Soto | December 31, 2013

On New Year’s Day, 20 years ago, a group of indigenous peoples, known as the Zapatistas, occupied several municipalities of the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Not coincidentally, that same day the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The Zapatistas considered the free trade agreement and the neoliberal political system that spawned it to be a death sentence for indigenous peoples in Mexico. The magnitude of the Zapatista uprising was due to the participation of different indigenous groups which joined forces to change a system that was marginalizing and exploiting them.
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If Farming Is Hard, Free Trade Makes It Harder

By: Claire Gilbert | December 2, 2013

Being a farmer is hard. This is true no matter what policies exist. The work itself is difficult, and making money from farming requires many, many factors to line up just right. Get too much rain, too dry a season, too many bugs and the crop can be destroyed. Prices might be higher, but there’s just not that much to sell. Even a big harvest when everything goes well doesn’t guarantee success. A bumper crop means that there are a whole lot of tomatoes, corn, peaches, or eggplants at the market, so prices go down.
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Scaling up Agroecology: A new report from IATP offers a tool for policy

By: Nikhil Aziz | November 22, 2013

Agroecology is not just a way of doing agriculture but, equally importantly, a way of thinking about agriculture holistically, systemically, and ecologically. Along with respect for nature -- the soil, water, seeds, etc. -- there is equally respect for the people (especially women) engaged in agriculture, including their knowledge, experience, leadership and rights. It is a way of thinking about and doing agriculture that is fundamental to addressing pressing global problems like hunger and climate change.
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Dismantling the Free Trade Regime

By: Grassroots International | November 8, 2013

In January 1994, the Zapatistas - autonomous indigenous communities who organized themselves in a system of liberated zones within Chiapas, Mexico – emerged out of the jungles with a clear and unified voice in opposition to the system of neoliberalism being imposed upon their lives through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). A trade deal between Canada, the US, and Mexico, NAFTA instituted a set of regulations that made it easier for transnational corporations to make profits across borders, no matter what the costs or consequences to people and the environment. As a result, thousands of workers in the US lost their jobs as companies moved their operations to Mexico where the costs of production were cheaper.
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Mexican Tribunal Suspends All Genetically Modified Corn Plantations

By: Carol Schachet | October 24, 2013

In an unprecedented move last week, a Federal Mexican Tribunal suspended authorization for the planting of all genetically modified corn by transnational corporations such as Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta. The Tribunal recognized the legal interests of 53 individuals and 20 civil associations that filed a class action lawsuit against the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, the federal government and the transnational corporations that applied for permits to plant transgenic corn. While this decision is not a permanent one, it is a groundbreaking victory in preventing commercial GMO plantations until the collective action lawsuit is resolved.
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New UN Report says: It’s Time for Action on Peasant Farming and Agroecology

By: Jonathan Leaning | September 26, 2013

A new UN report brings urgency and insights into the current food system – and touches upon the hot button question that is increasingly on people’s minds around the world: Is industrial food safe – either for people or for the planet?
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Defending Indigenous Territories and Waters in Honduras

By: Nikhil Aziz | September 16, 2013

Whether it’s life imitating art or the other way around, the assault so dramatically captured in the Hollywood blockbuster film Avatar (2009) is not pure fiction. The reality is that countries and corporations that are hell-bent on extracting every last resource from the earth continue their relentless assaults on indigenous people, their land and waters, their cultures and ways of life, Whether it’s Afro-Brazilians on the Sao Francisco river in Brazil, Dongria Kondhs on Niyamgiri mountain in India, or Lencas in Honduras’ Rio Blanco territory, they all are facing not only the threat of displacement and devastation but violence, intimidation and even, in some instances, assassination.
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No to the WTO and Free Trade Agreements

By: Grassroots International | September 10, 2013

Launched in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) completed the Bretton Woods trio with the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund in promoting neoliberalism and corporate globalization. The WTO was particularly special in its power to legally enforce and penalize countries, taking away the policy space of governments, and on several occasions, forcing them to change their national laws in order to implement global free trade rules.
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The Mystique of Las Misticas

By: Nikhil Aziz | June 17, 2013

Ingredients: 183 member organizations. 88 countries. 5 continents. 500 representatives of 200-plus million women and men. Numerous allies from movements of women, indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists, environmental/climate justice activists and more. One global peasant movement. All with fearless commitment to social, economic and gender justice.
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In the Crosshairs

By: Carol Schachet | April 22, 2013

Cicero Guedes, a former sugar cane cutter turned land rights activist, worked in Campo dos Goytacazes, a settlement in Brazil. There he organized with the Landless Workers Movement (MST) to help families achieve what he had received: legal claim to land as part of Brazil’s agrarian reform movement.

For his tireless work, Cicero was murdered, shot more than a dozen times while he rode his bicycle to the fields. His assassination seemed intended to send a message to other would-be land rights activists: organize and you will pay the ultimate price.
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Korean Women Peasant’s Association Awarded the Food Sovereignty Prize

By: Nikhil Aziz | October 15, 2012

Last Wednesday, October 10^th, in New York City, I had the privilege of witnessing the US Food Sovereignty Alliance award the fourth annual Food Sovereignty Prize to the Korean Women Peasant’s Association (KWPA).
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The Elephant in Rio: The Corporate-Driven “Green Economy”

By: Carol Schachet | June 19, 2012

A close friend of mine in Fairfax, Virginia, is expecting her first child. By the time this baby girl turns 60, she’ll live in a world that’s warmer than it’s ever been since humans began walking the Earth 2.5 million...
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Support for Haiti that never trickled down

By: Carol Schachet | January 4, 2012

As we approach the second anniversary of Haiti's devastating earthquake, millions of "relief dollars" have yet to reach the people still affected by its aftermath. In fact, as Bill Quigley and Amber Ramanauskas explain, the recipients of aid have largely been big businesses and international NGOs.
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Haitian Movements Branch Out

By: Carol Schachet | October 13, 2011

Away from the televised and broken streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti hosts some scenic worlds. Down south, there are remnants of cloud forests that fade into blue skies, and in the north cacti twist out of rust desert soil. The eye takes in lime green rice fields in the central valleys that give way to steep rings of mountains. Most of the people who live there are counting on humble rural livelihoods. They find an enormous source of dignity in their peasant identities. Little by little, their work breathes life back into a country that they vow to make self-sustaining once more.
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Free – but not for you and me: Winners and Losers in proposed Free Trade Agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama

By: Grassroots International | August 22, 2011

With the political extravaganza of the debt ceiling debate now in their rear view mirror, the U.S. Congress will soon vote on “free” trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Despite major concerns raised by legislators and advocacy groups in the US (and in those countries), the majority in the US Congress are expected to approve the three agreements as a means to strengthen a debilitated US economy.
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G20-Agriculture: Hundreds of organizations say STOP farm land grabbing

By: Carol Schachet | June 22, 2011

Grassroots International joined nearly 500 other organizations around the world in signing the “Dakar Appeal Against Land Grabbing.” The appeal, originally drafted at the World Social Forum in Dakar in February 2011, calls upon governments to immediately cease all massive land grabs and return the plundered land to communities.
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UNOSJO and Indigenous Rights Featured in The Nation

By: Grassroots International | July 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.
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Grassroots International and Partners at the USSF in Detroit

By: Alisa Pimentel | June 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.
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Haiti: Roots of Liberty — Roots of Disaster

By: Nikhil Aziz | January 21, 2010

Grassroots International ally Food First's executive director Eric Holt-Jimenez wrote recently -- on HuffPost -- on the long roots of the disaster in Haiti. His point about the "historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions" being at the root of the disaster as much as the "tectonics that leveled Port-au-Prince" is right on the mark. Grassroots' partners and allies in Haiti have long struggled against that bleeding and undermining, and fought for better Haitian and international policies on agriculture, trade, and food that would sustain their people, and their land.
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