Food and Agriculture

UFCW Decries Kroger-Albertsons Merger

October 14, 2022 The Stand. Resist! Antitrust, Food and Agriculture, Krogers, Unions

Seattle, Washington - Unions representing grocery store workers — UFCW 7 in Colorado, UFCW 324 and UFCW 770 in California, UFCW 367 in Tacoma, UFCW 3000 across Washington state, and Teamsters 38 in Everett — issued the following joint statement on Thursday decrying the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons. (In Washington state, Kroger operates as Fred Meyer and QFC, and Albertsons also operates as Safeway.) Today it was reported that grocery store giant Kroger could announce a deal this week to buy rival grocery store company Albertsons, resulting in a potential merger that would significantly harm local grocery store industries, essential grocery store workers, and customers across the western US from Southern California to the Canadian border to Colorado.

Cecosesola Of Venezuela Wins Right Livelihood Award!

October 13, 2022 David Bollier. Create! Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, New Economy, Venezuela

What a thrill to learn that Cecosesola (Central de Cooperativas de Lara) -- the Venezuelan network of community organizations from low-income areas – has won the 2022 Right Livelihood Award! Cecosesola is a federation of co-operatives and other groups that has created its own distinct social and economic ecosystem. Since 1967, the group has relied on commoning to develop a humane provisioning system that meets the needs of more than 100,000 families across seven Venezuelan states. The Right Livelihood Award cites Cecosesola for "establishing an equitable and cooperative economic model as a robust alternative to profit-driven economies." It has achieved this in the face of serious problems in Venezuela – a financial crisis, food shortages, hyper-inflation, and a massive out-migration of 7 million people.

Animal Rights Whistleblowers Stand Trial

October 6, 2022 Zane McNeill, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Animal Rights, Food and Agriculture, Legal System

More than 70 animal rights activists stood outside a courtroom in St. George, Utah on Tuesday holding up a giant image of Utah Attorney Gen. Sean Reyes. A word bubble hovered above his head saying “I cover up animal cruelty.” The group had gathered in support of whistleblowers Wayne Hsiung and Paul Darwin Picklesimer of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE, a global network of activists working to achieve revolutionary social and political change for animals in one generation. Both currently face felony burglary and theft charges that could amount to over 10 years in prison. In March 2017 Hsiung, Picklesimer and three other DxE investigators infiltrated Smithfield-owned Circle Four Farms in Utah to document the conditions of its pregnant pigs.

US Court Rules QR Codes In Lieu Of GMO Labeling Are Unlawful

September 26, 2022 Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America. Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Health Care, USDA

A U.S. District Court has held that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s decision to allow genetically engineered (GMO) foods to only be labeled with a “QR” code was unlawful and that USDA must instead add additional disclosure options to those foods under USDA’s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard. The Court sent back to the agency the QR code portions of the 2018 Trump administration rules for GMO labeling that went into effect on January 1, 2022, which hindered consumer access with burdensome electronic or digital disclosures. “This is a victory for all Americans,” said Meredith Stevenson, Center for Food Safety (CFS) staff attorney and counsel in the case. “Today’s decision marks a key step toward ending the food industry’s deceptive and discriminatory GMO food labeling practices, which have kept consumers in the dark by concealing what’s in their products.”

Oil Palm Plantations And Water Grabbing: Ivory Coast And Gabon

September 22, 2022 World Rainforest Movement, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Food and Agriculture, Palm Oil, Water

Industrial palm oil production in West and Central Africa is mainly controlled by five companies: Socfin, Wilmar, Olam, Siat, and Straight KKM (former Feronia). These multinationals control an estimated 67 per cent of the industrial oil palm planted area with foreign investment and may drive continuous expansion. (1) Their established industrial plantations have been linked to numerous impacts on the populations and territories. The impact on water availability for communities that live in and around industrial oil palm plantations is systematic and dramatic. This is becoming increasingly evident with the many community reports of water scarcity and water pollution. Industrial plantations often lead to loss of lakes, springs or streams, directly affecting the livelihoods and wellbeing of communities.

Fighting Food Insecurity Through Urban Farming

September 18, 2022 Richard Bednarski, The New Lede. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Insecurity, Nevada, Urban Farming

Reno, Nevada - On a recent sunny morning in Reno, Nevada, volunteers worked diligently to harvest fresh vegetables from plots of rich soil, collecting tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers while a few farm goats bleated behind them. The freshly harvested produce would be washed, sorted, and stored in a solar-powered refrigerator until ending up on the dinner plates of local families. But this is no typical farm. The five-acre plot of land is situated in the middle of a busy suburban neighborhood, juxtaposed near a Reno intersection where cars almost constantly whiz by. Dubbed the “Park Farm,” the operation is run by the non-profit Reno Food Systems (RFS) as a demonstration farm to train others in organic farming practices and as a means to provide local restaurants and community groups with fresh organic produce.

African Heritage Food Co-Op

September 5, 2022 Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, New York (NY), Racial Justice

The African Heritage Food Co-op(AHFC) was formed so that Black communities in Western New York State, including Niagara Falls and Buffalo, can take ownership of their food system, create jobs and use resources to improve the health and well-being of residents. For too long, the economic and political structures have failed Black residents creating little or no access to supermarkets, banks and political representation. AHFC is working to change that by overcoming systemic obstacles, empowering inner city neighbourhoods and reversing systems of oppression and discrimination. Founder Alex Wright explains how this community-owned, community-operated co-op began and how it works to build a local economy that includes everyone!

Konda Mason On Land, Race, Money, And Spirit

September 5, 2022 David Bollier. Create! Black Farmers, Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, Land trusts, The Commons

For African-American farmers -- afflicted by the legacy of slavery, racism, and land theft -- the struggle for emancipation has not been easy. I was therefore excited to learn about Jubilee Justice, a fledgling project that is trying to reclaim farmland for BIPOC farmers and secure their economic livelihoods. Besides embracing cooperatives and community land trusts, Jubilee Justice is dedicated to an open-source, climate-friendly type of rice farming and to courageous "transformational learning journeys" for racial healing. You can learn more about these experiments in commoning in my interview with Konda Mason on the latest episode of my podcast Frontiers of Commoning models of restorative economics and finance.

How Zoomers Organized The First Chipotle Union

September 1, 2022 Jonah Furman, Labor Notes. Organize! Chipotle, Fast Food, Food and Agriculture, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Chipotle workers in Lansing, Michigan, formed the fast food chain’s first recognized union in the U.S., voting 11-3 on August 25 to join Teamsters Local 243. It’s the latest in a string of new organizing breakthroughs at prominent national brands, from Starbucks to Apple to Trader Joe’s to REI. Of all the employers that have seen union drives over the past year, Chipotle—with 100,000 employees across 3,000 stores, and long-term plans to double its footprint in North America—is the most similar to Starbucks. They’re both outliers in fast food: their stores are primarily corporate-owned, rather than franchised out to smaller operators.

The Twin City Co-op Wars: An Interview With Erik Esse

August 28, 2022 Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, History, Minneapolis, Minnesota, St. Paul

In this episode of All Things Co-op, Cinar and Kevin talk with Erik Esse, the producer of the new documentary The Co-op Wars. The Co-op Wars traces the history of the food cooperative movement in the mid to late 1970s in Minnesota's Twin Cities. The rapid development of the food co-op network in the area prompted a split between anarchist "hippies" and Bolsheviks who styled themselves as the “Cooperative Organization” and set about taking over the People's Warehouse by force. The film provides powerful lessons for cooperative organizations and activists today. As Erik and the ATC guys dissect the film and its implications, they touch on the role of traditional politics, the limits of "third-worldism" in the first world, the mainstreaming of co-ops, the potential influence of COINTELPRO, and much more.

The Terrifying Research Nuclear Powers Don’t Want You To See

August 27, 2022 Robert Scheer, Scheer Post. Educate! Climate Change, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Nuclear, Podcast

Humanity is, according to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.” The warning , made at the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, arrives at a time of alarmingly heightened tensions around the world. Just a few days after Guterres made that statement, Nature Food published a harrowing scientific paper that drove home the UN Secretary General’s message: “Global food insecurity and famine from the reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection.” The paper (which you can read in full here) was written by a handful of leading experts who have spent years studying the potential impact of nuclear war on food supplies. The results are stark.

The System Is Causing Food Crisis, Not The War

August 19, 2022 Adele, Consortium News. Educate! Farming, Food and Agriculture, Structural Violence, Zambia

Worsening harvests, infertile soil and increasing food poverty are affecting the majority of small farmers across the globe, especially in the Global South. But the climate and food crises are not isolated phenomena. They are the result of a global capitalist system – and a neoliberal agenda – that has prioritised big corporate agricultural profits over people and the planet. “Most farmers can no longer produce adequate food for their families,” says Vladimir Chilinya. “Profit-making entities control our food systems… including the production and distribution of seed.” Chilinya is a Zambian coordinator for FIAN International, an organisation that campaigns for the democratisation of food and nutrition.

Urban Farms, Community Gardens And Local Produce At Your Doorstep

August 19, 2022 Michelle Gamage, Resilience. Create! Community-Supported Agriculture, Food and Agriculture, Urban Farms

It’s the first day of the beet harvest and volunteers are stooped low, hoisting the bright red tubers out of the ground, shaking off dirt and placing them neatly in rubber bins. Other volunteers are picking kohlrabi and Swiss chard or weighing the heaping tubs of fresh vegetables and preparing to bunch them. A bee drifts by in the early July heat, sampling bergamot and kale flowers as it goes. It’s a typical idyllic pastoral farm scene except for one small detail: we’re not in a rural landscape, we’re in the middle of a city in the courtyard of a Vancouver hospital. This is Farmers on 57th, an urban farm at the George Pearson Centre, an assisted living facility in Vancouver’s Marpole neighbourhood.

New Report: The Attraction Of Agroecology

August 19, 2022 Land Workers' Alliance. Create! Agroecology, Food and Agriculture, Supply Chain, United Kingdom (UK)

Based on findings from transdisciplinary research and drawing on interviews with eleven different new entrant case studies, this report encourages the governments of UK nations to recognise and act upon the urgent need to focus their support for new entrants into farming on breakingfood down the real barriers to entry for agroecological, short supply chain land-based enterprises. The report shows that agroecological farming and land work is an attractive sector, and investing in routes into agroecology for new entrants has the potential to both rejuvenate and diversify the farming and food production sector, while also helping governments to meet their food, climate and green recovery commitments.

Nicaragua: Tomabu Community Builds Agroecology And Food Sovereignty

August 18, 2022 Friends of the ATC. Create! Agroecology, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Nicaragua

This past week, I visited the community of Tomabu in the department of Estelí. It is a small campo community with an incredibly curvy and uneven dirt road that leads to the top. Upon arrival, we were warmly greeted by Dolores and Bernardino in their home, where they shared with us that Dolores was born in the community and they have been campesinos/campesinas their entire lives, currently working with 4 manzanas of land, and that the community’s main crops are corn and beans Dolores and Bernardino have one of the ATC’s projects behind their home – cama profundas, as they are called in Spanish – a deep bed system for reproducing pigs that will either be sold within the community or consumed by community members. During our visit, we got to see the first piglets from the mother pig in the deep bed system.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources