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Food Sovereignty

Peasants Cannot Do it Alone, Need Strong Alliances with Consumers, Environmentalists, Indigenous Peoples and Others

By: Nikhil Aziz | February 28, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Joao Pedro Stedile (MST) Says International Financial Institutions Do Not Represent People

By: Nikhil Aziz | February 28, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Environmental Food Sovereignty

By: Carol Schachet | February 27, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty: A Vision of Inclusion

By: Jake Miller | February 26, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Borders, Walls and Other Barriers: Farmers and Farmworkers from Palestine and North America Meet

By: Carol Schachet | February 26, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Technology and Knowledge

By: Jake Miller | February 26, 2007

Dena Hoff of the National Family Farm Coalition continues her report from Mali:
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Food Sovereignty

North and South Come Together in Sélingué

By: Corrina Steward | February 25, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Mr. President…

By: Jake Miller | February 25, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

International Food Forum in Africa Launches

By: Nikhil Aziz | February 24, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

Nyeleni’s Spirit Comes Through Strong on Opening Day of Forum

By: Carol Schachet | February 23, 2007

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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Food Sovereignty

I ni sógóma from Sélingué, Mali

By: Corrina Steward | February 22, 2007

[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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Food Sovereignty

Coming Soon: On the Ground Reports from Nyéléni 2007 – Forum for Food Sovereignty

By: Jake Miller | February 20, 2007

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.
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Food Sovereignty

“Policy Space for Mexican Maize”

By: Nikhil Aziz | February 15, 2007

The recent news about rising corn prices in Mexico (and here in the US), in part a result of growing demand for "clean biofuels" such as ethanol, warrants focusing on a variety of act
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Food Sovereignty

New Paper Looks at Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts of Soy Production in Brazil

By: Carol Schachet | February 9, 2007

The Journal of Agriculture and Human Values has published the paper "From colonization to “environmental soy”: A case study of environmental and socio-economic valuation in the Amaz
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Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty is a Solution to Rising Food Prices in Mexico

By: Nikhil Aziz | February 5, 2007

Peter Rosset, a member of Grassroots International's Resource Rights Advisory Group based at CECCAM (Center for the Study of Rural Change in Mexico) in Mexico City, recently wrote this l
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Food Sovereignty

Supply and Demand in Mexico: Rises in Staple Prices Rile the Population

By: Chris Tilly and Marie Kennedy | February 1, 2007

Editor's note: As debate over Mexico’s economic policies is happening at the highest levels of the government, peasants took to the streets over the price of tortillas. Even the New York Times is taking notice. Today, the Times reported:“Tens of thousands of workers and farmers filled this city’s central square on Wednesday to protest spiraling food prices, ratcheting up the volume over a problem that has dogged President Felipe Calderón in his first weeks in office.”And for what might be the first time ever, the NYT explained that what protesters are asking for is food sovereignty. We are thrilled that a national newspaper is taking notice of this growing fight for policies that do not undermine local, national and global food systems.Two close Grassroots International advisors, Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly, are on the ground in Mexico. They have sent us this first of many reports to come, and we are excited to be able to share them with you here.
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Food Sovereignty

Peoples Movements Building Another Food System

By: Carol Schachet | January 30, 2007

In less than one month, hundreds of farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers and environmental and indigenous organizations will convene in Mali for Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty.
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Food Sovereignty

Food is …

By: Grassroots International | January 29, 2007

In order to raise awareness about our food and farming system we asked the people in our community to complete the phrase “Food is…” We received responses from all over the United States, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico and Palestine.
Responses ranged from one word to poems and essays and illustrated what Grassroots International has known since we launched our Resource Rights Initiative—people around the world have a lot to say about our food and farming system and recognize that it is more than a simple commodity.
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Food Sovereignty

Preserving Heirloom Crops, Preserving Diversity

By: Grassroots International | January 29, 2007

The legend of the first Thanksgiving is a tale of different worlds coming together in peace to share the bounty of the harvest, of Old World and New World crops and cultures coming together for the
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Food Sovereignty

Quinoa: Mother Grain of the Andes

By: Nikhil Aziz | January 29, 2007

Every year, as Thanksgiving comes round the corner, I think about food—the history of food and the history of the peoples who grow and eat it.
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