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Food Sovereignty

Mexico Scores Major Victory Against Bayer-Owned Monsanto

July 11, 2024 Nick Corbishly, Naked Capitalism. , , , , , , , ,
After a four-year legal battle on multiple fronts with Mexico’s AMLO government, Monsanto has finally thrown in the towel. Last Tuesday, Mexico’s National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt) announced that two Mexican divisions of Monsanto — now subsidiaries of German chemicals giant, Bayer, which in 2018 acquired Monsanto in arguably the worst ever corporate merger — had dropped their law suits against the Mexican government over its intention to ban genetically modified corn. As readers may recall, Mexico’s outgoing President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador signed a presidential decree in 2020 seeking to ban all use and importation of GMO corn and the toxic weedkiller, glyphosate.

During Red April, MST Restates The Importance Of Agrarian Reform

April 17, 2024 Mariana Castro, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Under the slogan “Occupy to feed Brazil,” the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), is organizing across the country for the National Day of Struggle in Defense of Agrarian Reform, which takes place during what organizers call Red April, a month which includes marches, occupations, training activities, solidarity activities, and opposition to land concentration in Brazil. The month marks April 17, when the International Day of Peasant Struggle is celebrated to remember the 21 rural workers murdered by the military police in the 1996 Eldorado dos Carajás massacre in Pará.

Venezuela Produces 97% Of The Food It Consumes

February 27, 2024 Mision Verdad, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , , ,
The gradual recovery observed in Venezuela’s economy can be seen in the increase in agricultural production, which has recorded 14 consecutive quarters of growth despite the blockade and unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro explained this last Wednesday, February 21, during a work day dedicated to national production. He highlighted that this progress towards a productive and independent economy has been carried out through Venezuela’s own efforts amid the difficulties caused by illegal US sanctions.

Food Sovereignty Guarantees A Future: La Via Campesina Conference

December 5, 2023 Lucas Estanislau, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Another model of production in the countryside is possible. This was the affirmation that was present in several speeches by representatives of more than 180 peasant organizations from different regions of the world during the opening acts of the 8th International Conference of La Via Campesina, which took place this Sunday in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. The Conference which began in the Colombian capital on December 1 will go until December 8, with the participation of more than 500 representatives of rural and peasant movements from more than 82 countries. The aim is to discuss experiences in building food sovereignty, fighting hunger, and creating alternative projects to agribusiness.

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

September 26, 2023 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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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.
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