Food and Agriculture

As COVID-19 Surges, Farmworkers Are Paying A High Price

July 31, 2020 By Evelyn Nieves, Inside Climate News. Educate! COVID-19, Essential worker, Farm Workers, Food and Agriculture

Every day, California farmworkers worry that the pandemic plowing through agricultural hubs will catch them and kill them. They also worry that not working will kill them. The collapse of food service demands when most businesses and institutions shut down has cut farm jobs statewide by 20 percent, or 100,000. Many farmworkers who are still working have had their hours or days reduced, sometimes without warning. Lockdowns have also cost workers second jobs they needed to make ends meet. They are juggling bills and going hungry. These are some of the findings in a new survey of 900 farmworkers in 21 farm counties, released on Tuesday. The survey was coordinated by the California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS), with a wide group of researchers, farmworker organizations and policy advocates. The Covid-19 Farmworker Study (COFS) reinforces the dire warnings that farmworker advocacy organizations made when the coronavirus lockdowns began: The least protected essential workers in the country

The Gates Foundation’s “Green Revolution” In Africa

July 16, 2020 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Bill Gates, Food and Agriculture, GMOs

Fourteen years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) with the stated goal of doubling productivity and incomes by 2020 for 30 million small-scale farming households while reducing food insecurity by half in 20 countries. AGRA claims success, but a broad-based civil society alliance has just published "False Promises: The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)," in which they conclude that the number of Africans suffering extreme hunger has increased by 30 percent in the 13 countries that AGRA eventually focused on. I spoke to researcher and writer Timothy A. Wise, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and author of the book Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

Manitos Children’s Fund To Support Venezuelan Children Despite Sanctions

July 1, 2020 Manitos Children's Fund. Organize! Children, Food and Agriculture, Sanctions, Venezuela

Manitos Children’s Fund grows out of the decades old Latin America solidarity movement which has worked to change US policies toward Latin America for over 60 years. Because of our history we are most focused on the effects of sanctions on the children of Latin America, with Venezuela being the most targeted by illegal sanctions currently. Democratic and Republican administrations have both issued sanctions against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela, but since taking office in 2017, President Trump has ratcheted up the pain factor with an aggressive attack on the Venezuelan economy. In August 2019, President Trump issued an Executive Order imposing a full economic blockade on Venezuela. It is not government officials who suffer when the US imposes illegal sanctions! It is children.

Feeding The People In Times Of Pandemic

June 23, 2020 Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, Erika Takeo, and Avery Raimondo, COHA. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Nicaragua, Pandemic

In its 2019-2023 Strategic Plan for Nicaragua, the United Nations World Food Program said that “In the last decade… Nicaragua is one of the countries that has reduced hunger the most in the region,” while the government reports that chronic child malnutrition dropped from 21.7 percent in 2006 to 11.1 percent in 2019 for children under 5 years of age. Nicaragua was also one of the first countries to achieve Millennium Development Goal Number 1 of cutting undernutrition in half from 2.3 million in 1990-1992 to 1 million in 2014-2016, placing it among the countries of the region that had reduced hunger the most in the previous 25 years. Vitamin A deficiency among children under 5 was also eliminated. Nicaragua’s advances are reflected in the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map.

Community-Focused Gardening Takes Root In Alaska

June 18, 2020 Meghan Sullivan, Indian Country Today. Create! Alaska, Communty gardens, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous foods

Alaska is cold. With temperatures below freezing from October to April, it has some of the longest winters in the country. And the terrain can be challenging: rocky islands with scant soil. Tundra — soggy on top and frozen a foot down. On the other hand, summer days are long. In the land of the midnight sun, the sun doesn’t set for weeks, making gardening in Alaska a unique experience. With greenhouses to get an early start and raised beds to warm the soil, Alaskans are able to plant flourishing gardens and raise record-breaking vegetables despite the obstacles. At the start of the growing season in May, the Alaska Native Media Group launched the Garden and Gather initiative, to encourage Alaska Natives to practice local gardening, and to empower them to share their planting stories.

Food Sovereignty Activists See The Pandemic Crisis As Pivotal For Change

June 16, 2020 David Bacon, Food First. Create! COVID-19, Farmers, Food and Agriculture

Disaster brings change, however. Many grassroots organizations and movements are trying to seize the moment to propose alternatives, and in some cases, to begin implementing them. Some are breathing new life into proposals made before the COVID-19 crisis began. It has been a chance for this alternative system to prove its value. “Conventional farmers lost their crop because they lost their market when restaurants closed and the distribution chains broke down,” Garcia explains. “Puerto Rico still gets most of its food from outside, so the supply problems meant the supermarkets didn’t have food on the shelves. Prices went up for what they did have. Plus, who knows who’s been touching that product or where it comes from. People are wary of it. “The small agroecological farmers had new costs, but they could function when the other system couldn’t. Now even conventional farmers are starting to copy this new system. In the middle of this crisis we’ve seen an answer we didn’t expect. We thought we would be losing a crop, and instead, we grew.”

Chicago Freedom School Offered Food, Water And Rest To Weary Protesters Trapped Downtown

June 9, 2020 Justin Laurence, Chicago Book Club. Educate! Chicago, Food and Agriculture, Police abuse, Protest support, Rebellion2020

Last weekend, as thousands of protesters gathered Downtown, the Chicago Freedom School sprung into action, working to feed and transport those stuck in the Loop — but a surprise inspection by the city has the nonprofit worried about its future. The Chicago Freedom School, 719 S. State St., provides training to primarily Black and Brown youth to learn the fundamentals of community organizing. School leaders knew their members were out on the front lines, confronted with pepper spray and potentially trapped Downtown as curfew approached, bridges were lifted and CTA service halted May 30. The school offered a refuge.

Solidarity Gardens Launched To Address Food Disruption And Insecurity

June 6, 2020 By Solidarity Gardens CU. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Gardening, New Economy

Champaign-Urbana, IL - Individuals and organizations are encouraged and empowered to plant gardens throughout the Champaign-Urbana area and donate use of land, garden supplies, and expertise through a newly launched initiative, Solidarity Gardens CU, in order to address food disruptions and insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Modeled after the WWII-era Victory Gardens, Solidarity Gardens is being launched on June 3, 2020 by a network of area organizations and individuals throughout the Champaign-Urbana area. With help from the broader community, Solidarity Gardens CU will be offering free seeds, seedlings, tools, soil, containers, miscellaneous supplies, gardening expertise, and educational resources to any interested party in the Champaign-Urbana area, and will then collect, process, and redistribute...

Schools Are Feeding Millions Of Children

May 27, 2020 By Chuck Abbott, The Fern. Educate! Austerity, COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Public schools

Public schools served tens of millions of emergency meals in April to low-income children after coronavirus closures ended cafeteria service, said a survey released on Monday. But with roughly half of the 1,894 districts taking part in the School Nutrition Association survey reporting a drop-off of at least 50 percent in meals served, losses are expected to balloon this year. School food directors put the median loss at $200,000, meaning half of all schools will lose more money, and half less. Among large districts, the median loss could be $2.5 million. SNA president Gay Anderson said schools would be hobbled in feeding students in the new school year if they lose large amounts of money during this school year, which ends in a few weeks.

A History Of Mutual Aid Has Prepared POC For This Moment

May 26, 2020 By Myriam Gurba, Remmexcla. Create! Black Panthers, Food and Agriculture, Mutual Aid, Racism

Southern Solidarity has gone from 24 daily meal distributions to 250. “We’re doing this because capitalism is making survival impossible,” Araujo says. She plans to meet with researchers and academics to develop a guidebook on how to create a mutual aid project during a pandemic but, in the meantime, she has advice for those of us interested in lending a hand: “Assess and observe,” she says. “Do not mimic colonizer actions. Connect to existing institutions. And, most of all, insert your radical imagination.”

Colombian Social Leaders Protest For Access To Health Care And Food

May 26, 2020 By Telesur English. Resist! Colombia, COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Healthcare

The difficult situation Colombia is facing due to the pandemic prompted the 48 leaders of Sierra Nevada, in the Santa Marta District, to protest to demand decent health services and food aid. In the middle of the road that communicates with the territory of La Guajira, the demonstrators placed a coffin and performed the dance of the African morticians that have been virtualized in the social networks in recent months. With this representation, the social leaders denounced the abandonment by the District and Departmental Government. Those who become ill for the COVID-19 has a high risk of dying, they denounced.

Thousands Of Essential Workers Are At Risk of Deportation

May 25, 2020 Maurizio Guerrero, In These Times. Educate! Deportation, Essential worker, Food and Agriculture, Immigration

Legions of undocumented immigrants in the United States carry letters signed by their employers stating that President Donald Trump's administration considers them essential workers amid the pandemic. While these letters exempt them from being arrested by local agents for violating stay-at-home orders, these workers could still be detained and deported by federal authorities. Although deemed “essential,” they are not entitled to protective gear, compensation, federal financial aid or safeguards from immigration agents. Undocumented essential workers were not even considered in the $2.5 trillion relief package approved by Congress and, except in California, have not received financial aid from state or local governments. Additionally, they are being detained and deported.

COVID-19 Sparks A Rebirth Of The Local Farm Movement

May 25, 2020 By Stephanie Hiller, YES Magazine. Create! Food and Agriculture, New Economy, Urban Farms

Family farms in California and across the country have been hit hard by the impact of the coronavirus on their markets. But in the health-conscious Bay Area, where celery was already one of the first groceries to disappear from the produce rack, demand for fresh local produce has shot up. The challenge is in redirecting food from farms to new customers. Food is fundamental. While farmers have yet to face the full economic impact of this pandemic, their collaborative efforts, along with local grassroots networks, could mark the beginning of a new economy laboring to be born.

USDA COVID-19 Farmer Relief Will Leave Out Farmers Most Impacted

May 25, 2020 By Eric Deeble, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. Educate! COVID-19, Farmers, Food and Agriculture

The Trump Administration announced the impending opening of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) farmer aid payments to be delivered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). CFAP will make $16 billion in aid available to farmers who suffered economic losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it fails to meet its Congressional mandate to compensate all farmers fairly and represents a missed opportunity to help build more resilient food systems and markets that benefit both farmers and consumers. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition conducted an initial review of CFAP details released today and found several deficiencies that will limit the effectiveness of the program and the opportunity for many farmers to be compensated fairly for their losses.

A New Model For Community-Owned Farmland

May 24, 2020 Agrarian Trust. Create! Commons, Food and Agriculture, Land Reform, New Economy

Today Agrarian Trust announces the launch of a transformative new model for community-based farm and ranch ownership and tenure, the Agrarian Commons. After several years of development and collaborative input, the Agrarian Commons launches in 10 states across the country. Co-founded with 12 farms representing 2,400 acres of diversified agriculture serving local foodsheds and communities, the Agrarian Commons is a profoundly collaborative endeavor and central to Agrarian Trust’s mission to support land access for the next generation of farmers. Agrarian Trust was founded in 2013 to address the staggering loss of farmland and the extreme challenges facing farmland seekers. Initially launched as a project of the Schumacher Center for New Economics, Agrarian Trust was established by a diverse group of stakeholders from across the United States, many of them farm service providers and beginning farmers who have witnessed firsthand the formidable obstacles facing agriculture’s next generation.

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