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Food Sovereignty

Impressions from the Middle East: Updates from Our Partners in Palestine: Part III

By: Marie Kennedy | March 25, 2009

Grassroots International Board Member Marie Kennedy and staff member Salena Tramel visited partners and allies in the West Bank and Israel prior to joining a delegation to Gaza, co-sponsored by Code Pink. This entry is from Marie's notes from her meetings in the West Bank.

March 1, 2009 – A Conversation with Rula Al-Khateeb of the Palestinian Farmer's Union (PFU)

Rula Al-Khateeb, delegate at Via Campesina's 5^th International Conference in Maputo, Mozambique last October, and Public Relations Coordinator of the Palestinian Farmer's Union met with us to discuss the PFU and its progress in becoming a Via Campesina member organization.
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Food Sovereignty

Food Speculation Coalition Letter to President Obama

By: Carol Schachet | March 25, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

Lessons from Northeast Brazil: “You can’t fight the environment”

By: Saulo Araujo | March 2, 2009

I believe peasants from Northeast Brazil have a few important things to tell us about climate justice. For starters, the majority of the Northeastern region is dry. And it has been dry since the last glacial period. Also, the Northeast region where I come from is the largest and most populated semi-arid region on the planet, home to 20.5 million people mostly of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian descent.

Because of droughts and lack of water in the past, masses of hungry peasants were forced to migrate to other regions in Brazil.
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Food Sovereignty

Voices From Africa

By: Carol Schachet | March 2, 2009

Funded in part by Grassroots International, the Oakland Institute announces a new report: Voices from Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak Out Against a New Green Revolution in Africa. This report issues a direct challenge to Western-led plans for a genetically engineered revolution in African agriculture, and presents African perspectives and solutions rooted in first-hand knowledge of what Africans need.
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Food Sovereignty

Via Campesina calls for Peasant Rights

By: Saulo Araujo | March 2, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

Interview with Paul Nicholson of the Basque Country’s EHNE

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2009

While attending the Via Campesina's Vth International Conference, publisher and author Nic Paget-Clarke caught up with Paul Nicholson.

Nicholson is a member of EHNE (Euskal Herriko Nekazarien Elkartasuna), the Basque Farmers Union in the Basque Country, and a member of the International Coordinating Committee in Via Campesina. EHNE is part of the Spanish COAG (Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos), which is part of the European Coordination-Via Campesina, a Via Campesina organization in Europe.
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Food Sovereignty

A Glimpse of the Peasant and Small Farmer Association Movement in Mozambique

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2009

While attending the Via Campesina's Vth International Conference, publisher and author Nic Paget-Clarke sat down with members of a peasant and small farmers' association in Mozambique in an attempt to learn more about the reality of their situation.

Paget-Clarke's piece was published In Motion Magazine. We are also providing a PDF version of the article, which has been formatted for printing.
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Food Sovereignty

Interview with Diamantino Nhampossa of UNAC

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2009

While attending the Via Campesina's Vth International Conference, publisher and author Nic Paget-Clarke caught up with Diamantino Nhampossa. Nhampossa is executive director of the União Nacional de Camponeses (UNAC) / National Peasants' Union of Mozambique and a member for Africa of the International Coordinating Committee of La Via Campesina.

Paget-Clarke's interview with Nhampossa was published In Motion Magazine. We are also providing a PDF version of their conversation, which has been formatted for printing.
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Food Sovereignty

Interview with Julio dos Santos Pessego of UNAC and UCASN

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2009

While attending the Via Campesina's Vth International Conference, publisher and author Nic Paget-Clarke caught up with Julio dos Santos Pessego. Pessego is a member of UCASN (União dos Camponeses Sul de Niassa / South Niassa Peasants’ Union) and advocacy project director for UNAC (União Nacional de Camponeses / National Peasants' Union) in Niassa province, Mozambique.

Paget-Clarke's interview with Pessego was published In Motion Magazine. We are also providing a PDF version of their conversation, which has been formatted for printing.
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Food Sovereignty

Interview with Kalissa Regier of NFU of Canada

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2009

While attending the Via Campesina's Vth International Conference, publisher and author Nic Paget-Clarke caught up with Kalissa Regier. Regier is Youth Vice-President of the National Farmers Union (NFU) of Canada.

Paget-Clarke's interview with Regier was published In Motion Magazine. We are also providing a PDF version of their conversation, which has been formatted for printing.
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Food Sovereignty

Haitians Organize to Cancel Debt

By: Carol Schachet | February 23, 2009

Grassroots International's partners in Haiti have joined with their Global South counterparts to demand an end to forcing countries to pay exorbitant debt to Northern countries whose failed economic policies helped cause the crisis in the first place.
The following is a summary of the Declaration of the Assembly of Movements struggling to overcome Debt domination put forth in Belem, Brazil:
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Food Sovereignty

Via Campesina in Haiti: Brazilian Delegation Brings Solidarity and Seeds to the Haitian People

By: Saulo Araujo | February 17, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

In a World of Crises, Disastrous Governance

By: Saulo Araujo | January 30, 2009

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.
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Food Sovereignty

PARC Reports: People Killed, Life Shattered, and Land Occupied

By: Carol Schachet | January 29, 2009

Grassroots International's partner, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) has long played a crucial role in defending the Palestinian people's human right to land, water and food. One of their goals is to contribute to the achievment of sustainable and integrated rural development in Palestine, and they have been a key actor in building a secular and democratic civil society. Since 1983, they have worked tirelessly with rural and refugee (from the war of 1948) farmers.

Grassroots currently funds PARC's innovative Urban Agriculture program in Gaza, which encourages food sovereignty and security by establishing networks of rooftop and backyard gardens.
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Food Sovereignty

Haitians Organize for Political Action

By: Carol Schachet | January 23, 2009

Peasant organizers in Haiti - including Grassroots International's partners and allies - are uniting their efforts to collaborate in rebuilding their country. These organizers plan and mobilize across the island, linking issues such as environmental degradation and food scarcity to failed agricultural and economic policy and demand political action. Their advocacy and education activities are centered on reducing prices of food by increasing natural production and warning that the international financial crisis could have a deadly impact on Haiti if economic and agricultural policies fail to change.
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Food Sovereignty

Will the New “Green Economy” be Fueled by Unsustainable Agrofuels?

By: Maria Aguiar | January 16, 2009

In 2006 Grassroots International received a report from the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social), one of our Brazilian partners, about rapid expansion of agrofuels production based on large scale plantation-style cultivation of sugar cane for ethanol. We also heard from them about massive expansion of soy plantations and U.S.
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Food Sovereignty

Haitians Deserve Nutritious Rice

By: Carol Schachet | December 15, 2008

Last August, just before Hurricane Fay smashed into Haiti, I spent the day with MOREPLA (Mouvman Revandikatif Peyizan Latibonit-Peasant Movement for Justice in the Artibonite), a local movement of rice producers that works with the coalition of Grassroots International's partner PAPDA (The Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development). Leaders from MOREPLA explained to me that rice producers in the Artibonite potentially could have the capacity to provide livelihoods for more than 200,000 people in a department (state) that suffers a 78% unemployment rate.
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Food Sovereignty

Confronting the Global Food Challenge

By: Carol Schachet | November 20, 2008

A group of civil society organizations, including Grassroots International, will participate in a conference in Geneva, Switzerland, entitled "Confronting the Global Food Challenge: Finding New Approaches to Trade and Investment that Support the Right to Food." The conference-convened by Grassroots' allies the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance and FoodFirst Information & Action Network-will meet November 24-26 to explore the impact of trade and investment on the right to food and to develop new approaches that have human rights at the core.
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Food Sovereignty

New Report on Agro-fuels from Grassroots’ Brazilian Partners

By: Saulo Araujo | November 18, 2008

Rede Social, a Grassroots International partner, and longtime ally the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) released an 80-page report on the expansion of sugar cane plantations for agro-fuels in the Amazon and Central Plateau region of Brazil.
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Food Sovereignty

Will Jatropha Invade Mozambique: Via Campesina Confronts The Global Agrofuel Industrial Complex

By: Maria Aguiar | November 12, 2008

Recently I returned from the Via Campeisna's Vth International Conference in Mozambique, followed by brief visit with social justice organizations in South Africa. Also in Mozambique, as delegate to the Via Campesina Conference, was Grassroots International colleague John Peck of the Family Farm Defenders and the National Family Farm Coalition. John wrote the article below just days after hearing the President of Mozambique, Armando Emilio Guebuza, address the Via Campesina Assembly. In his address, Guebuza unfortunately noted that his government would be supporting the expansion of jatropha plantations for agrofuels production.
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