Food and Agriculture

Fifteen Things Biodiversity Protectors Are Watching Out For In 2022

January 2, 2022 Mary Hoff, Truthout. Educate! Biodiversity, climate crisis, Environment, Food and Agriculture

It’s no secret that the diversity of life around us is plummeting fast. In 2020 alone, scientists declared more than 100 species to be extinct. And that’s bad news not only for the creatures themselves, but for those of us (that would be all of us) who rely on them for food, to produce oxygen, to hold soil in place, to cleanse water, to beautify our world and so much more. According to the World Economic Forum, nature plays a key role in generating more than half of global GDP. So, what can we do to reduce future harm? One big thing is to identify emerging threats and opportunities to protect biodiversity and proactively shape policies and actions to prevent harm early on.

Not Everyone Is Feasting

November 30, 2021 Sasha Abramsky, Truthout. Educate! COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Food Insecurity, Pandemic

As the COVID pandemic upended the economy in the spring and summer of 2020, tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and became ever more vulnerable to hunger. In consequence, the country’s network of food banks saw a sudden spike in usage. Just prior to, and at the start of the pandemic, food banks distributed 1.1 billion pounds of food in the first quarter of 2020. By the fall of that year, they were handing out 1.7 billion pounds. Since then, that dizzying increase has leveled off or fallen somewhat in many places, but that doesn’t mean the country’s no longer suffering an epidemic of food insecurity. To the contrary: Large food banks around the country are still reporting far higher levels of need — and of food distribution to attempt to meet that need — than was the case prior to COVID.

These Tortilla Workers Walked Out And Won A Day Off Work

November 30, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Resist! Food and Agriculture, Walkout, Worker Rights and Jobs, Workplace Safety

Chicago — Food production workers at El Milagro, one of Chicago’s most popular tortilla companies, join with community allies for a Day of the Dead vigil Nov. 2, 2021, in honor of five coworkers who died after contracting Covid-19 on the job. With candles and sugar skulls outside the company’s flagship taqueria in the Little Village neighborhood on the city’s Southwest Side, workers and supporters spoke about their ongoing standoff with management — and their demands for justice on the job. “We’re here to remember our coworkers, friends and loved ones who have passed on from Covid-19,” Guillermo Romero said at the vigil. “We’ll never forget them. But we continue in this fight, for ourselves, for our dignity and to get respect.” Romero has worked at the company for 16 years.

Indian Farmers Defend The Rights Of Farmers Everywhere

November 25, 2021 Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Resist! Corporatization, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, India

On November 19, 2021, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said, “[W]e have decided to repeal all three agricultural laws.” The prime minister was referring to the three agriculture laws that were rushed through the parliament in 2020. During his speech to announce the rollback, Modi told the farmers that they “should return to [their] homes, fields and to [their] families. Let’s make a fresh start.” At no point did Modi admit that his government had passed laws that would negatively impact the farmers, who have spent a year protesting the laws thrust upon them.

On Contact: Struggle Against Industrial Agriculture

November 21, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. Uncategorized Big Ag, Chris Hedges, Farming, Food and Agriculture

The San Joaquin Valley in California is the most agriculturally productive farmland in the United States, but it is also plagued by high levels of poverty and water pollution, as well as the serious health risks that come with constant exposure to pesticides. These huge corporate farms in California, established over the last century, became the model for modern agrobusiness designed to exploit a transient labor force, bankrupt, and seize small family farms, exhaust the soil, and drain the aquifers and reservoirs. These agrobusinesses use their economic might to buy elected officials, deform the court system to legalize their assault on the land, and silence criticism in academia and the press.

Why Seed Companies Fear México

November 20, 2021 Ernesto Hernández-lópez , Inter Press Service News Agency. Create! Farming, Food and Agriculture, GMOs, Mexico, Seeds

Orange, California - Last month México’s Supreme Court provided hope for biodiversity, especially in the Global South, while flaming fear for seed companies. In a historic step, it ruled for corn advocates and against genetically modified (GMO) corn. The decision was a momentous act in country where maíz (corn) carries daily and sacred significance. This promises a way out of stale GMO debates that plague us. One side argues that genetic changes to seeds increase harvests. Seed companies and industrial agriculture make up this side. Another side says GMOs damage plant DNA. Small-scale farmers and environmentalists stand on this side. Neither addresses the other. This standstill keeps GMO policies ineffective. The court’s decision offers a path out of this by cutting at seed company positions.

Bridging Cultural And Political Gaps Through Indigenous First Foods

November 13, 2021 Brian Oaster, Indian Country Today. Create! climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous culture, Oregon

A city isn’t the most likely place for an Indigenous crop revival. But across the greater Portland area in Oregon, municipalities like Metro and the City of Portland have been partnering with organizations and tribes to promote Native American land access and cultivation of first foods, the term used for traditional local foods that have nourished Indigenous people for centuries. In a city park, a drained lakebed, an old grazing lot, and along an urban creek, first foods are returning to areas where they once flourished before the land was covered by farms and urban sprawl. The partnerships are historically significant, considering Portland didn’t even allow Native Americans to live within city limits until 1920.

Food Sovereignty, A Manifesto For The Future Of Our Planet

October 16, 2021 La Via Campesina. Create! Collective Liberation, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, La Via Campesina

It offers a vision for our collective future, and defines the principles around which we organize our daily living and co-exist with Mother Earth. It is a celebration of life and all the diversity around us. It embraces every element of our cosmos; the sky above our heads, the land beneath our feet, the air we breathe, the forests, the mountains, valleys, farms, oceans, rivers and ponds. It recognizes and protects the inter-dependency between eight million species that share this home with us. We inherited this collective wisdom from our ancestors, who ploughed the land and waded the waters for 10,000 years, a period in which we evolved into an agrarian society. Food Sovereignty promotes justice, equality, dignity, fraternity and solidarity.

Women Hold Up More Than Half The Sky

October 15, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Farmers, Food and Agriculture, India, Women

The farmers’ protests, which began in October 2020, are a sign of the clarity with which farmers have reacted to the agrarian crisis and to the three laws that will only deepen the crisis. No attempt by the government – including trying to incite farmers along religious lines – has succeeded in breaking the farmers’ unity. There is a new generation that has learned to resist, and they are prepared to take their fight across India.

Cutting Food Waste: A Lesson In Climate Awareness And Environmental Literacy

October 5, 2021 Agya K. Aning, Inside Climate News. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Waste, Maryland, Public schools

Baltimore, MD - As a “farm to school specialist” in the Baltimore City public schools, Anne Rosenthal splits her time between an office and Great Kids Farm in Catonsville, a 33-acre plot of land, complete with forests, a stream, greenhouses and a barn with animals, owned and operated by the school district. “A lot of students have never had the opportunity to plant a seed or a small plant, or harvest straight from plants and taste farm-fresh produce,” Rosenthal said. When kids have that first experience of “picking a cherry tomato off the plant and putting it in their mouths,” she said, “they’re much more apt to be excited to see that cherry tomato on their school lunch tray.”

Regenerative Food And Farming: Survival And Revival

October 2, 2021 Ronnie Cummins, Regeneration International. Create! climate crisis, Food and Agriculture, Organic Farming, Regenerative Farming

Regenerative agriculture and holistic livestock management represent the next, crucial stage of organic food and farming, not only avoiding toxic pesticides, fertilizers, sewage sludge, GMO seeds, and excessive greenhouse gas emissions, but regenerating soil fertility, water retention, carbon sequestration, and rural livelihoods as well.

How Big Corporations And Bill Gates Took Over The UN Food Summit

September 24, 2021 Camila Escalante, The Grayzone. Resistance Report Big Ag, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, United Nations

This September 23, the United Nations holds its Food Systems Summit in New York. Under the guise of the UN system, and despite sleight-of-hand language about “equal opportunities,” this summit represents a hostile takeover of world governance by corporate forces and the billionaire elite. Today, social movements are standing up for democracy and against big capital’s devastation of their lands, farms, and communities. The United Nations is based on the idea of multilateralism, where states seek peaceful solutions on the basis of equality and respect, replacing the colonialist institutions that preceded it. That’s why for decades, the United States government has instead pushed for things like G-7, NATO, and other forms of control over geopolitics.

Farmers And Civil Society Reject Corporate UN Food Systems Summit

September 13, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Corporatism, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, United Nations

The World Economic Forum and Gates Foundation are convening a food summit through the United Nations on September 23. Global farmer, peasant and fishing coalitions have called a boycott of the summit for its pro-corporate agenda, refusal to include the human right to food and exclusion of the intergovernmental body, the Committee on World Food Security, that has created an inclusive and democratized international structure. Clearing the FOG speaks with Patti Naylor, a family farmer in Iowa who works on agroecology and food sovereignty. She is on the board of Family Farm Defenders and a member of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance. Naylor describes the failures of the current global food system, how it is unprepared for the crises we are experiencing and that will occur and why it is headed in a dangerous direction. She talks about the global fight to change the food system to one that is flexible enough to respond to crises and that protects and restores the environment.

Local Market Shows The Strength Of The Nicaraguan People

August 16, 2021 Yorlis Luna, Popular Resistance. Resist! Food and Agriculture, Local Economy, Nicaragua, US Imperialism

Going to the popular market in one of Nicaragua’s Pacific towns is to feel the immense strength of the Nicaraguan people and to discover the real lives that exist behind the lies that the mass media tell about our country. I go to the market and see the stalls full of fresh vegetables and local fruits, I ask for some pieces of ginger and the young woman tells me proudly: “they are today’s, they were cut today… smell them, they are fresh!”. What pride, when in a world where it is a luxury to consume fresh, local products, Nicaragua is full of healthy food for local people to enjoy. I carry on walking and a vegetable seller very kindly says to me “how beautiful your child is, children are so beautiful, you have to take care of them… you must have realised, things are different, …where haven’t I been?

2021 Climate Disasters Raise Alarm Over Food Security

August 9, 2021 Sue Branford and Glenn Scherer, Mongabay. Educate! climate crisis, Extreme weather, Food and Agriculture, Food Security

In July, A Video Went Viral On Social Media In Argentina Showing People Walking Across What Looks Like A Desert. But It Isn’t A Desert. This Is The Bed Of The Paraná River, Part Of The Second-Largest River System In South America. Normally The Stream Rises In Brazil And Reaches The Sea Via The River Plate, Draining A Vast Watershed Covering All Of Paraguay, Southern Brazil And Northern Argentina. Normally The Water Volume Flowing To The Atlantic Roughly Equals That Of The Mississippi River. What’s Happening Now Is Not Normal. The Drying Up Of Large Stretches Of River Comes As The Most Severe Drought Since 1944 Afflicts The Region. No Relief Is Expected In The Short Term. According To Forecasts From Argentina’s Ministry Of Public Works, The Lack Of Rain Will Last For At Least Another Three Months.

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