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Food Sovereignty

From Seed Sovereignty to Food Sovereignty: The MCP’s Creole Seeds Project

By: Carol Schachet | July 14, 2009

A partner of Grassroots International, the Popular Peasant Movement (MCP) has been conducting trials to identify and produce the best local seeds. The Creole Seeds Project, as it is known, plays a vital role in reaching out to farmers who are being lured in by the promises of agrobusiness.

“The Creole Seeds Project is a great project because the community wants to see it to believe it. They can see the results for themselves—that our local seeds are more productive, insect resistant and produce better tasting crops than hybrids or other seeds,” said Elias Freitas Mesquita, MCP’s regional coordinator.

He added, “The seed project is like a magnet that attracts the farmers, who then build more alliances.”
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Food Sovereignty

Sugar Cane Invades the Brazilian Central Plateau

By: Carol Schachet | July 14, 2009

When plans for a Grassroots International site visit to Brazil suddenly included my name last winter, I was thrilled. Oh boy! I could visit with our partners in country and learn directly from them their struggles, their hopes. I told Saulo Araujo, Grassroots’ Coordinator for Mesoamerica and Brazil (and my to-be traveling companion) that I wanted to talk to the people who ultimately benefit from Grassroots’ funding.

Saulo listened well, I realized the first time I saw the itinerary he pulled together—no office visits to be found. Instead, we were scheduled to visit encampments, settlements, and various on-the-ground projects.
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Food Sovereignty

Food & Water Watch Disputes Obama Administration’s Reliance on Trade, Biotechnology to Combat Global Hunger and Poverty

By: Nikhil Aziz | July 12, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

Dairy Farmers Host Emergency Rally in Iowa

By: Carol Schachet | June 4, 2009

Even though I grew up in Missouri, my first introduction to agriculture did not occur until my college days in Northfield, Minnesota, in the early 1980s. Depending on which way the wind blew, my college (Carleton) was filled either with the toasted grain aroma from the Malt-o-Meal factory or the smell of the surrounding dairy farms. Sadly, the dairy farms began to lose out in more than just the scent in the air. I remember clearly my sophomore year when a big stoic man stood up at church and, with tears in his eyes, told us that the last of his dairy cows were sold in an attempt to pay off farm creditors. Thus began my awareness of corporate farming, agricultural and trade policy and their devastating impact on families and communities.
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Food Sovereignty

Civil Rights, Market Cooperatives, Buying Networks

By: Carol Schachet | May 27, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty: A New Model for a Human Right

By: Carol Schachet | May 20, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

Legislative activity heats up

By: Carol Schachet | May 20, 2009

Both the House and Senate are considering legislation with tremendous implications for farmers and agriculture across the globe. On the Senate side, the Global Food Security Bill, S.384 (also known as the Casey-Lugar Bill), calls for the United States to play a leadership role in implementing questionable food production strategies in developing countries. The bill mandates that massive investments in foreign assistance for agriculture shall include genetically engineered (GE) technologies. However, numerous studies and reports tell otherwise and warn of the dangers posed by GE technolgies, including soil erosion, cross-breeding, lower long-term yields and other environmental hazards.
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Food Sovereignty

Building Indigenous Women’s Leadership – One, two, five women at a time

By: Nikhil Aziz | May 11, 2009

My colleague Saulo Araujo and I were recently in Guatemala visiting our partner CONIC (National Coordination of Indigenous Peoples & Campesinos). CONIC's staff took us to visit a local community they have been working with in the village of Cocorval, in the Department of Chimaltenango, over an hour's drive from Guatemala City on a "chicken bus."
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Food Sovereignty

Feeding the world and cooling the planet

By: Carol Schachet | May 11, 2009

"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."
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Food Sovereignty

Liberation: Of Land & Women

By: Nikhil Aziz | May 11, 2009

Saulo and I traveled with our partner Rafael Alegria of the Via Campesina and COCOCH (Honduran Coordinating Council of Campesino Organizations), about an hour northeast of Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa, near the town of Comayagua, to meet Analina Claros, one of the leaders of the Nueve Noviembre (November 9^th) settlement, and her neighbors. This is what she shared with us over a wonderful homecooked stew of chicken and vegetables and freshly made corn tortillas, all grown and raised in their settlement:
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Food Sovereignty

Brazilian Activist from MST Participates in the Brooklyn Food Conference

By: Grassroots International | May 7, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

The People at the People’s Summit

By: Nikhil Aziz | May 5, 2009

Many social movements from across the Americas were in Trinidad for the 4th People’s Summit to articulate their demands for moving the hemisphere towards economic (including trade) and climate justice, food sovereignty, human rights, and an end to militarization. They represented movements of women, peasants, indigenous peoples, labor and those struggling for environmental justice.
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Food Sovereignty

Swine Flu Déjà Vu?

By: Carol Schachet | May 1, 2009

As more cases of Swine Flu are reported across the globe, two kinds of opportunism seem to be spreading as well. First, non-profits spin the story to seek funding or media coverage for whatever portion of their work might overlap with the rising pandemic. Some are more relevant-and actually engaged-than others. Second, businesses might use the health scare for their own purposes.
In Egypt, pigs are being slaughtered to "prevent" the spread of swine flu in a country where even a single case of the illness has not yet been confirmed.
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Food Sovereignty

Women’s Rights Are A Precondition to Food Sovereignty

By: Nic Paget-Clarke | April 23, 2009

Matola, Mozambique
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Food Sovereignty

Business as Usual Will Not Solve Global Hunger Crisis

By: Carol Schachet | April 17, 2009

Washington D.C. (April 16, 2009) - The U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis, a group representing anti-hunger, family farm, community food security, environmental, international aid, labor, food justice, consumers and other food system actors, urges the G8 at the upcoming Agricultural Ministerial in Treviso, Italy to reject the failed policies of the Green Revolution. A recent landmark report backed by the UN and World Bank argues for agroecological and sustainable agriculture, rather than reliance on chemical-intensive practices and genetic engineering.
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Food Sovereignty

Failure to Yield: Evaluating the Performance of Genetically Engineered Crops

By: Carol Schachet | April 17, 2009

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) found that genetic engineering has not significantly increased crop yields in relation to other agricultural technologies.

In an April 14th, 2009 press release, Doug Sherman, author of the report and biologist in the UCS Food and Environment Program, commented "The biotech industry has spent billions on research and public relations hype, but genetically engineered food and feed crops haven't enabled American farmers to grow significantly more crops per acre of land ... In comparison, traditional breeding continues to deliver better results."

Read the full report here.
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Food Sovereignty

U.S. Family Farmers Mark April 17th With A Protest Against Commodity Speculation

By: Carol Schachet | April 16, 2009

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:
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Food Sovereignty

Why the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act will Fail to Curb Hunger

By: Carol Schachet | April 16, 2009

"A new bill before the U.S. Senate stands to completely overhaul the way the U.S. offers agricultural development and food aid to the developing world. This bill, the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act, aims to reform aid programs to include a stronger focus on long-term agricultural development and the restructuring of aid agencies to better respond to crises. While this renewed focus is commendable, the Lugar-Casey bill also mandates funding for genetically modified crop research as a major underpinning of its food security strategy. Just as food aid expands markets for U.S. grain even as it destroys markets and farm livelihoods abroad, the agricultural development aid in the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act will open markets in Africa and elsewhere to the U.S.
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Food Sovereignty

April Showers with Significant Trade, Food and Agricultural Policy Debates

By: Maria Aguiar | April 16, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

April 17 – International Day of Peasants’ Struggle

By: Carol Schachet | April 14, 2009

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,
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