The Benefits of Local Food
This morning I got an e-newsletter from the Worldwatch Institute featuring a video on the joys of eating local food, something we've been talking a lot about here at Grassroots.
Food Sovereignty | Page 26 of 28
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International Peasants’ Struggle Day – April 17
The 17th of April is International Peasants' Struggle Day, established after the massacre of 19 landless peasants belonging to the Landless Movement (MST) in Brazil on the 17th of April 1996 which occurred during the second conference of the Via Campesina in Tlaxcala Mexico. Many of Grassroots International's partners, including the MST are members of the Via Campesina, and Grassroots directly works with the Via as well.
In commemoration of International Peasants' Struggle Day, the Via Campesina and its allies are organizing activities and actions all over the world. Peasants and friends will rally around the demands that the Via posted on its website.
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Harvest of Shame: Bush’s Guatemala Visit Masks CAFTA’s Rotten Produce
In the wake of President Bush's visit to Guatemala as part of his 5 nation Latin America tour, the National Labor Committee (NLC, New York) and the Center for Studies and Support for Local Development (CEADEL, Guatemala) just released a joint report "Harvest of Shame" that details the exploitation and human rights violations of children in Guatemala.
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Free Trade in Agriculture: A Debate
Foreign Policy in Focus (a joint project of the Institute for Policy Studies and the International Relations Center) recently invited Anuradha Mittal (of the Oakland Institute) and Gawain Kripke (of Oxfam America) to debate free trade. Anuradha was also on a recent panel with Colin Rajah (of the National Netowrk on Immigrant and Refugee Rights) titled, "A Perfect Storm: U.S. Trade, Agriculture and Immigration Policies Undermining Human Rights" that Grassroots International organized at the International Human Rights Funders Group conference in January 2007.
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Women of Via Campesina Brazil in Honor of International Women’s Day Occupy a Cargill-owned Sugar Mill in Sao Paulo
Grassroots International has received this report from our partners in Brazil. Part of a week-long series of actions honoring International Women's Day and protesting the upcoming visit of President Bush, the women of Via Campesina Brazil and the MST have occupied a sugar mill in the state of Sao Paulo that was recently purchased by Cargill - one of the five largest agricultural transational corporations in the world.
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Via Campesina Brazil’s Women Are for Food Sovereignty and against Agribusiness
Today, March 6th, Grassroots International received an announcement from the Via Campesina Brazil. The women of the Via Campesina Brazil are honoring International Women's Day by organizing land occupations and protests against large Brazilian and transnational corporations who own and exploit huge tracts of Brazilian land and labor for monocultured cultivation of trees for cellulose for export. The women refer to these huge tracts of land planted only with such trees as the "green deserts" of Brazil - green deserts because they produce no food and very little employment, and are also environmentally damaging. Please read the announcement of our partners below:
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DECLARATION OF NYÉLÉNI
Nyéléni Village, Selingue, Mali
We, more than 500 representatives from more than 80 countries, of organizations of peasants/family farmers, artisanal fisher-folk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, consumers, environmental and urban movements have gathered together in the village of Nyéléni in Selingue, Mali to strengthen a global movement for food sovereignty. We are doing this, brick by brick, have been living in huts constructed by hand in the local tradition, and eating food that is being produced and prepared by the Selingue community. We give our collective endeavor the name “Nyéléni” as a tribute to and inspiration from a legendary Malian peasant woman who farmed and fed her peoples well.
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Peasants Cannot Do it Alone, Need Strong Alliances with Consumers, Environmentalists, Indigenous Peoples and Others
Peter Rossett, from the Center for the Study of Rural Change in Mexico (CECCAM), is a member of Grassroots International's Resource Rights Advisory Group. He was in Mali for the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum this month and in a piece that was first posted on the Nyeleni website, he stressed the need for different sectors to collaborate, pointing out that "It is clear that the peasant sector cannot change the food system alone; it needs strong alliances with consumers, environmentalists, indigenous peoples, women, fishermen and even herders."
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Joao Pedro Stedile (MST) Says International Financial Institutions Do Not Represent People
Joao Pedro Stedile, an MST leader and member of Grassroots International's Resource Rights Advisory Group participated along with his colleagues at the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum. While there he spoke with Radio Mundo Real about how the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank do not represent the interests of ordinary people and argued that international trade must first and foremost meet the needs of people not corporations. The interview originally appeared on the Nyeleni website.
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Environmental Food Sovereignty
Today I facilitated a sub-work group of the Access and Control of Natural Resources thematic working group focused on the environmental aspects of the struggle for food sovereignty. It gave me a great opportunity to hear experiences and learn about the values that different cultures place on natural resources.
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Technology and Knowledge
Dena Hoff of the National Family Farm Coalition continues her report from Mali:
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Food Sovereignty: A Vision of Inclusion
Christina Schiavoni, International Coordinator of World Hunger Year reports from Nyéléni 2007
Greetings from Sélingué, Mali, where the Forum on Food Sovereignty, Nyéléni 2007, is going strong. As I write, djembe music is pulsing through the air, and I catch fragments of conversations interspersed with French, English, Spanish, and the local Bambara, among other languages unfamiliar to my ears. The energy here is palpable, and well it should be. Today has been intense yet energizing, as each of the 500+ participants worked by thematic group (seven in total--mine was "Trade and Local Markets") on the drafting of an action agenda for achieving food sovereignty.
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Borders, Walls and Other Barriers: Farmers and Farmworkers from Palestine and North America Meet
I had the incredible opportunity to coordinate a meeting between the Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC) and the U.S. farmers and farm worker delegates to Nyeleni.
Present at the meeting were Omar Doanna, UAWC and Stop the Wall, Fuad Abu Sail, UAWC, Khalid Hedmi, UAWC, Zakaraya, a Palestinian farmer, Dena Hoff, NFFC, John Kinsman and John Peck, Family Farm Defenders, Carlos Marentes, Border Agricultural Workers.
The meeting was a rare chance for farmer-activists from very different places to share farming experiences, compare notes on movement-building strategy and show that human connection can conquer political divides.
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North and South Come Together in Sélingué
Margaret Curole, North America Co-coodinatorWorld Forum of Fish harvesters and Fish workers (WFFF) writes from Nyeleni:
Today was a perfect day. I started it by just trying to organize a meeting between fisherfolk.
Sometimes it feels like a lesson in futility but then when success comes by way of chance encounter with people willing to help, it’s all worth it.
As an American, in meetings like this, I can feel very unwanted and insignificant. I usually try to blend into the background.
Today I found my voice. I told the trade working group that trade agreements hurt not just developing countries, but developed ones as well. It is not a North v. South issue.
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Mr. President…
Dena Hoff, a farmer and rancher from Montana, United States is a member of the Northern Plains Resource Council, the National Family Farm Coalition and the Via Campesina. Dena addressed President Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali at the World Forum on Food Sovereignty:
"Welcome, Mr. President.
Nyeleni inspires us because she saw what needed to be done, and she did it.
We are all people of conscience, and we are people of action.
We know that our governments are not responsive to the needs of their people. They choose to ally themselves with those who would take the bread from our mouths,take our land, our liberty and our lives.
Like Nyeleni, as people of action, we see what needs to be done, and we will do it.
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International Food Forum in Africa Launches
Grassroots International friend Anna Lappé is currently in Mali for the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum along with Grassroots' Resource Rights Specialist Corrina Steward and over 500 other delegates from around the world. She just sent us a blog on the Forum that she posted on the Guerilla News Network Post, which was founded by her broher Anthony.
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Nyeleni’s Spirit Comes Through Strong on Opening Day of Forum
Nyeleni’s persistent spirit is coming through.
We now have electricity and running water. Getting internet is unlikely. These blogs are traveling from Sélingué (via portable USB flash drive) 2.5 hours to Bamako where there is one internet café. An organizer sits there waiting for material to upload on the Nyeleni website.
Today was the opening, inaugural ceremony.
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I ni sógóma from Sélingué, Mali
[Editor's note: Grassroots International's Resource Rights Specialist Corrina Steward is in Sélingué, Mali, West Africa for the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum with hundreds of women, peasants, fishers, indigenous peoples, environmentalists, and other activists from 80 countries around the world. She sent over this first of many blogs that will provide a daily glimpse of the proceedings as participants deliberate about food sovereignty and how to achieve it. Check in for Corrina's reports as well as from others from the Middle East to Latin America and elsewhere.]
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Coming Soon: On the Ground Reports from Nyéléni 2007 – Forum for Food Sovereignty
As I write, Corrina Steward, Grassroots' Resource Rights Specialist, is en route to Mali for Nyéléni 2007, the Forum on Food Sovereignty where hundreds of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and environmental and indigenous organizations will convene to share ideas and develop an action plan for building a food system that is equitable, healthy and sustainable.