Food Sovereignty

Call For The International Day Of Action For Peoples’ Food Sovereignty

September 26, 2023 La Via Campesina. Resist! Big Ag, Food Sovereignty, Global Day of Action, Hunger, La Via Campesina

This October 16, 2023, we, the peasants of the world, once again call to commemorate the International Day of Action for Peoples’ Food Sovereignty against Transnational Corporations. On this day, the global movement for Food Sovereignty denounces the control of food systems in the hands of agribusiness transnationals, a global corporate network that is intensifying the hunger of millions of people in the world, as well as the massification of malnutrition as a chronic disease of the new generations. It is unacceptable that more and more people in the world are going hungry and that food insecurity is intensifying, affecting one third of the world’s population.

Nicaragua’s School For Food Sovereignty

July 21, 2023 Teri Mattson, WtF is Going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. Podcast – WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean Agroecology, Education, Food Sovereignty, Nicaragua

Friday, June 30, WTF returned to Managua, Nicaragua to do follow-up study of Caribbean Coast government funded infrastructure projects and to celebrate the 44th Anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution on July 19. While on assignment, each week we will share with you segments of the documentary Nicaragua Against Empire. The film journals our March 2021 Sanctions Kill / Friends of the ATC, Nicaragua delegation. This episode is an inside look at the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA) Ixim Ulew in Chontales, Nicaragua. Ixim Ulew means "Land of Corn" in Maya K’iche’, paying homage to the Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica.

Lessons In Freedom: Agroecology, Localisation And Food Sovereignty

July 1, 2023 Colin Todhunter, Dissident Voice. Create! Agroecology, Cuba, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty

Industry figures and scientists claim pesticide use and GMOs are necessary in ‘modern agriculture’. But this is not the case: there is now sufficient evidence to suggest otherwise. It is simply not necessary to have our bodies contaminated with toxic agrochemicals, regardless of how much global agribusiness firms try to reassure us that they are present in ‘safe’ levels. There is also the industry-promoted narrative that if you question the need for synthetic pesticides or GMOs in ‘modern agriculture’, you are somehow ignorant or even ‘anti-science’. This is again not true. What does ‘modern agriculture’ even mean?

California’s ‘Local Food Producers’ Hope New Label Will Boost Support

June 13, 2023 Naoki Nitta, Modern Farmer. Create! California, Farming, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Local Economy

Despite offices being closed, Sundays are the busiest day of the week at the Marin County Civic Center. Located half an hour north of San Francisco—and within a couple of hundred miles of California’s many agricultural regions, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and the North and Central coasts—the Sunday Marin Farmers Market is the third largest among the state’s 655 open-air greenmarkets. On busy weekends, crowds of locavores routinely swell to 15,000. “Customers come from all over,” says Gha Xiong, owner of Xiong Farm. He’s one of nearly 150 regional farmers, ranchers and food purveyors who set up Sunday shop in the sprawling parking lot, in clear view of the Prairie-style dome and spire designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Circumventing The Blockade: Pueblo A Pueblo Builds Food Sovereignty

May 19, 2023 Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, Venezuelanalysis.com. Create! Economic Blockade, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Venezuela

Pueblo a Pueblo [People to People] is a grassroots plan for organizing the production, distribution, and consumption of food, which connects agricultural producers with urban dwellers. In so doing, the project breaks with the despotic dictates of the capitalist market. In Part I of this three-part piece in the Communal Resistance Series, Pueblo a Pueblo’s spokespeople talk about their organization’s history and its objectives. Here, in Part II, associate producers and spokespeople talk about the “Double Participation Ladder” method and about the impact of the US blockade. Double Participation Ladder The ladder image reflects Pueblo a Pueblo’s method for ensuring that rural producers and urban consumers are linked, thus breaking away from the centrifugal forces of the market.

The Rebirth Of Campesinado In Mexico

May 10, 2023 Victor M. Toledo, Resilience. Create! Campesino, Food Sovereignty, Land Reform, Mexico

I discovered the campesino world in the years 1970-71, while in charge of the Tropical Biology Station of the UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico], in Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz. At the age of 25, I organized two field courses in the surrounding ejidos. It was an act of academic transgression in which we analyzed the role played by campesino communities engaged with their jungle environment. Our first course was about traditional knowledge of jungle plants and animals. That experience was the ignition point for the development, decades later, of the new fields of rural metabolism and ethnoecology, now recognized worldwide.

Former Dumping Ground Became A Flourishing Food Ecosystem

May 8, 2023 Emily Nonko, Next City. Create! Circular Economy, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio - On a dead-end street in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood, on 18 acres of land that previously served as an illegal dumping ground, an entire food ecosystem has emerged and thrived under the leadership of local residents. Rid-All Green Partnership started with a single hoop house erected in February of 2011; now acres of farmland support a community kitchen and farmer’s market. All food waste is turned into compost, which supports the farm and is sold across Cleveland. A training program and paid apprenticeships bring community members in, while an aquaponics and hydroponics system generates local jobs. Specialized programs emerged to serve veterans and youth.

The Revelations Of ‘Black Earth Wisdom’

May 3, 2023 David Bollier. Create! Black Farmers, Book Review, Capitalism, Food Sovereignty

The book showcases the history of African-American farming, including struggles for land tenure in the face of land theft, and the distinctive wisdom of Black agricultural science, spiritual traditions, folk practices, art, and culture. The overarching point is that our spiritual lives and the fate of the earth are intertwined. Sections of the book deal with our "ecological crisis as a spiritual plight"; the relationship between Black people and open space; the importance of and tenure and agrarianism; the pain of environmental racism and capitalism's assault on our land and waters; and the role of artists, writers and storytellers in bringing ecological truth to light.

NFFC’s Progressive Farm Bill Platform – Placing Family Farmers First

April 18, 2023 Jordan Treakle and Antonio Tovar, National Family Farm Coalition. Educate! Congress, Farm Bill, Farmers, Food Sovereignty, Worker Rights and Jobs

The National Family Farm Coalition released its 2023 Farm Bill Platform urging lawmakers to pass a suite of policy proposals that prioritize consumers, family farmers and ranchers, and rural communities over the profits of corporate agribusinesses. Big Ag and structurally problematic farm policy continue to undermine family farms and ranches, leading to the drastic loss of generational wealth, depressed rural communities, and a highly concentrated food and farm system vulnerable to disruption—problems largely ignored by Congress and government agencies. The Farm Bill opens an important opportunity to reverse these trends and ensure good food for all, prosperous local economies, and healthy ecosystems.

We Can Move Beyond Food Access To Food Sovereignty

April 2, 2023 Rae Gomes and Tim Duschenes, Next City. Create! Cities, COVID-19, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Mutual Aid

Baker Yolfer Pabade arrived at the Hot Bread Kitchen Incubator each day at 4 p.m. He had already worked a nine-hour shift in another bakery, but would work on testing and improving his recipes for another six hours. He was dreaming of launching his own bakery business based on his Colombian-Venezuelan roots and worked this schedule—with no days off—to make it a reality. After three years, he was finally ready to leave his day job and focus on his own business. One month later, in March 2020, all of New York’s food businesses ground to a halt. Yolfer took a week to make a plan of action.

How Nicaragua Tackles Climate Change And Hunger

February 19, 2023 Katya Beltran, Friends of the ATC. Create! climate crisis, Food Sovereignty, Latin America, Nicaragua

Managua - A group of ten students and two faculty members from the University of Maryland met with the Marlen Sanchez, Director of the Latin American Institute of Agroecology (IALA Ixim Ulew), and Erika Takeo, Coordinator of the Friends of ATC in a conference room at the Francisco Morazán School in Managua. Sanchez spoke about climate change and its impact on Nicaragua. There have been more droughts, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes damaging Nicaragua making it 1 of the 10 countries of the world most affected by climate change.

Free Summit Explores The Latest In Seed Sharing, Libraries And More

January 23, 2023 Seed Library Network, Resilience. Create! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Seed Library

Are you new to seeding and interested in establishing a seed bank in your neighborhood? Immersed in the seeding world and looking to connect with other folks and deepen your networks? Perhaps you’re an agriculturist interested in the intersection of seed lending and food sovereignty. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, you won’t want to miss Seeding the Future: The 11th Annual Seed Library Summit. If you’re new to seeding, you’re in luck! Seeding the Future will host a variety of sessions to get you acquainted with the basics. Our “How to Start a Seed Library” session is a great introductory conversation that will map out the time, resources, and people-power needed to start your own seed library. “Ask a Seed Librarian” is an expert-hosted panel that can act as a great follow-up. If you’re more acquainted with seeding, other sessions that might pique your interest include “Seed Saving Basics”, “School Seed Libraries”, and “Seed Exchanges”.

In Indianapolis, Building A Community Food Ecosystem In An ‘Apartheid Zone’

January 11, 2023 Frances Nguyen, Next City. Create! Food and Agriculture, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Indianapolis

In Indianapolis’ Northeast Corridor, a predominantly Black area with a growing Latinx population, more than half of residents live in a food desert. One community-led initiative seeks to build a local food ecosystem, one that will not only feed them in times of crisis but will sustain their health, wealth and wellbeing for generations to come. In 2021, in the climate of the ongoing pandemic, the Equitable Food Access Initiative (EFAI) was created to address these dueling public health crises, in one of the top five cities in the country with the most people living in “food deserts,” or areas where low-income people don’t have ready access to fresh food retailers within reasonable traveling distance from their homes.

Sri Lanka’s Untold Story Of Resilience

October 16, 2022 Richard Flyer, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Community organizing, Food and Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, Sri Lanka

Over the past six months, Sri Lanka has been in the news. You have likely read accounts or seen videos of a civil revolution sparked by government corruption and shortages of both food and fuel. Amidst this uprising — involving all religions, ethnicities, and classes of the population with a call for systems change — thousands of protestors stormed and occupied the presidential palace, forcing the president to flee in July. In a world beset by supply chain issues, where the war in Ukraine is one of the multiple factors compromising the world’s food supply, it seems that Sri Lanka is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.” It’s the first domino to fall, as a worldwide globalized economy based on large-scale, corporate monoculture and shipping food halfway across the planet wobbles toward collapse.

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.

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