August 2011

Top 5 Powerful Moments of the Food and Freedom Ride

, August 30, 2011

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By Roy Frias; photos by Siena Chrisman

In California this week, the second of the Live Real Food and Freedom Rides is making its way up the coast. You can follow the ride here and by liking Live Real on Facebook. Back in New York, WhyHunger intern Roy Frias is back in Albany starting his senior year of college after being on the first ride along with WhyHunger’s Siena Chrisman. Before Roy left, he reflected on the most powerful moments from the first ride.

5.     Food and Farm Bill Workshop, Shelby, MS * Day 3

Youth Food and Farm Bill workshop participant declares what she wants in her community.

On our third day on the road, we visited Shelby, Mississippi, to give a workshop about the 2012 Food and Farm Bill.  The workshop covered the basics of what our food system is and what we want it to be.  The room was filled with about fifty or so people, all wanting to contribute.  There were families, elders, and students from local groups.  We read the Youth Food Bill of Rights and invited additions from the students. They suggested ways to get healthier foods into their diets and talked about some of the issues that Congress should be addressing to help.  They spoke about how they wanted to eat fresh produce and have more recreation centers in their neighborhood.

At the end of the presentation, Margaret Black, a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in the Civil Rights Era, led the group in a Freedom Song.  We sang and enjoyed the time we spent with each other.  This kind of moment of connection and solidarity is what building the movement is all about.

4.    White Cloud Reservation, KS * Day 6
Native Americans in the United States have a shared history: that of the legacy of a once proud people being lost to colonialism.  Now on reservations they deal with new problems one of the most pervasive being high-rates of diet-related illnesses such as diabetes. Keeping true to their traditions is a core strategy for dealing with the epidemic of diabetes ravaging the reservations, but it’s a challenge when competing with modern American ways of life, such as fast food. [read entire article…]

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NYC Food Justice Activist Stands Up for Climate Change Justice in Washington, DC

, August 25, 2011

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Over the next two weeks approximately 2,000 people are expected to participate in sit-ins and other acts of civil disobedience outside of the White House.

On the morning of August 20th, I spent 53 hours locked up in Washington, DC after being arrested for participating in a non-violent civil disobedience action at the White House. Along with 65 other protesters, I sat in front of the White House protesting the climate changing Keystone XL Pipeline that President Obama is deciding upon right now. Unlike other decisions that must go through a contentious Congress, the decision to allow the building of this pipeline is President Obama’s alone. The Keystone XL Pipeline will bring an intensely carbon-producing oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada through the US to the Gulf of Mexico, destroying farmlands, watersheds, indigenous lands and adding dramatically to climate change. Read all about the issue, the demonstration and watch a video produced by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

My Personal Experience:

After being arrested (at 11:30 am on Saturday), hand-cuffed, put into a paddy wagon, brought to the US Park Service jail, processed and fingerprinted, I was put into a tiny cell with about 20 other women. Shortly thereafter 6 of the women, all from the DC area, were sent home; the rest of us were considered a “flee risk”, detained, hand-cuffed again, shipped in another paddy wagon and were sent to the DC women’s lock up a short trip away. There we 14 women protesters, all white women ranging in age from 19 to 65 from 14 different states.  We were put into a cell with 6 women of color, one Latina and 5 Black women, held on a range of domestic violence violations. We 20 women stayed in that 15’ x 35” cell until 7 am on Monday morning. The cell had no bedding or beds whatsoever, just a cement floor, a toilet, florescent lights permanently on, and bone-chilling air-conditioned temperatures. We were mostly dressed in sun dresses or shorts from the hot-weather sit-in and slept on the floor shivering until exhaustion took over. I don’t think I got more than 2-3 hours of sleep over the 53 hours of incarceration. [read entire article…]

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Food Voices: The Plight of Southern Farmers

, August 22, 2011

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WhyHunger is pleased to be partnering with Andrianna Natsoulas, long-time food sovereignty activist and author of the forthcoming book Food Voices: Stories of the Food Sovereignty Movement.  For the past year, Andrianna has been on a journey across the Americas to capture the stories of people working towards and living a just and sustainable food system. Below is the latest highlight of her work.

Ben Burkett’s family has been farming in Petal, Mississippi since 1889. Over the years, each generation has bought more land and he now runs B&B Farm on 296 acres and about 15 different varieties of vegetables and timber. Ben is focusing on local markets, but there may not be enough young farmers to fill the demand. He is an active member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, President of National Family Farm Coalition and member of La Via Campesina.

“We are working to get our product into the school – farm to school. That’s a big policy issue in Mississippi. We’ve got folks in schools in New Orleans already. But, we’ve been trying for at least four, five years in Mississippi. Last year I spoke to them about changing their policy work on local school districts can buy from us. They said it wasn’t no problem and the school can do whatever they want to do. But, you go to the school district and they say, no. [read entire article…]

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WhyHunger at Nyéléni 2011 European Food Sovereignty Forum, Krems, Austria

, August 19, 2011

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Five years ago, a historic event took place in the West African country of Mali.  Social movements from around the world gathered together to develop a common framework and action plan for the global movement for food sovereignty, the right of people to define their own food and agriculture policies. Known as the Nyéléni 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty, this gathering was a definitive moment for a burgeoning global movement and provided a springboard for many of the food sovereignty efforts currently underway in the different regions of the world, including the US. (Read WhyHunger’s reports from Nyéléni 2007 here and here).

2011 Nyeleni participants

Today, movements across Europe are taking a major leap forward in the commitments made in Nyéléni by holding the first-ever Europe-wide food sovereignty forum in Krems, Austria, aptly named Nyéléni 2011.  I have the honor of being here at this forum in Krems as part of an international delegation from Mali, Nigeria, Mozambique, India, Peru, Guatemala, Canada, and the US. My main reason for being here is to glean as much from this process as possible in order to inform our own movement-building efforts back home in the US.  Also, people here are genuinely interested in what we’re up to in the United States, such as the recent formation of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, and want to learn from our experiences as well.  So I did my best in the few short minutes allotted to me during this morning’s plenary to share what I could of the US context—the fact that there are many pockets of resistance in the US, both in urban and rural communities and across all sectors of the food system, and how our challenge right now is to join together these efforts and grow them into the strong, unified movement that it will take to bring about the change that is necessary.

Three small farms are better than one big one.

I was touched to find that these words were received with the most heartwarming outpouring of solidarity and support.  People here are acutely aware of the global impacts of US policies and institutions, and they appreciate the resistance of US-based movements and realize what we are up against.  They are very much with us in our struggles.

 

To provide a quick glimpse of what it’s like here, there are 400 people from over 35 countries, and the atmosphere is colorful, lively, and energizing.  Similar to the original Nyéléni, the organizers here have gone to great lengths to have this forum embody the spirit of food sovereignty in every way possible, from the fresh, local food served at mealtimes, to the highly participatory and action-oriented design of the sessions.  Also similar to the first Nyéléni, this gathering is truly a labor of love, with a cohort of one hundred volunteers doing everything from simultaneous translation to the maintenance of compost toilets.

WhyHunger

Of course, being here and thinking back to the first Nyéléni has led me to reflect on the trajectory of the food sovereignty movement in the US since.  How has the movement has grown and evolved?  What new challenges and opportunities might lie on the horizon?  And in the midst of great urgency and crisis, how might we too pave a new way forward for a stronger and more unified movement?  Hm…Nyéléni USA, anyone?

 

Read opening remarks from WhyHunger’s Director of the Global Movements program, Christina Schiavoni:

Thank you!  My name is Christina and I am here from the United States as part of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance. And I send you warm greetings and heartfelt solidarity, not only from myself and my organization, but from the many diverse movements in the United States, who, just like all of you, are struggling for food sovereignty.  This includes dairy farmers from the state of Wisconsin who are fighting price fixing and corruption at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which has ripple effects around the world. Although they couldn’t be here, they send you their solidarity in the struggle and they have also sent you materials that are on the tables outside.

On the one hand, coming to a food sovereignty forum as the only delegate from the US doesn’t exactly make me feel like the most popular person in the room.  I know what the institutions and policies of the US represent to the global food sovereignty movement. The commodity speculation in Chicago and on Wall Street that is driving extreme food price volatility with deadly consequences.  Our agrofuels and carbon trading policies. Our free trade agreements. And worst of all, many of the corporations that are driving the destruction of this planet—Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, etc.

But the fact is that these very same policies and institutions that are wreaking havoc around the world are wreaking havoc at home as well. They are doing so at a time in which hunger is at a record high in the US, and very basic protections are being cut.  And some of the very worst paid and most exploited of all people in the US are the workers across the food system.

But the good news is that there are many pockets of resistance in the US, both in urban and rural communities and across all sectors of the food system.  Our challenge right now is to join together these efforts and grow them into the strong, unified movement that it will take to bring about the change that is necessary.  That’s why it is so important and such an honor for me to be here at this historic event—to draw inspiration and guidance to bring back home to inform our own movement-building efforts in the US.  It’s also important for me to let my comrades back home know that all of you are paying attention and counting on us to do our part.

So we commit to you that we will grow and strengthen our movement and we will join together with all of you and with all of our other brothers and sisters across the world in the global struggle for food sovereignty.

Thank you.

 

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