Food and Faith

The Right to Food: Security vs. Solidarity

Democracy Now! brings us this report on food security and land grabs, with Olivier De Schutter , United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School.  

The current practice of foreign governments and private investors of buying agricultural land in order to "secure assets" contrasts with the "Reigndom" practice of solidarity.

Land is the ultimate investment, the perfect product to accumulate, as private investors (read: Wall Street and transnational corporations) attempt to "hedge" their risk.

Of course, those really at risk are not given any voice. Local communities are not consulted about their land rights or use, as shown in the above interview and corresponding report by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice on Foreign Land Deals and Human Rights.

I am reminded of the Accra Confession by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) who recognized at its publishing in 2004 the consequences of uncontrolled globalized consumerism. 

The Accra Confession denotes that private property is exempt from social responsibility. And that the global system of neoliberal political economy "defends and protects the interests of the powerful.... Further, in biblical terms such a system of wealth accumulation at the expense of the poor is seen as unfaithful to God and responsible for preventable human suffering and is called Mammon. Jesus has told us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon (Lk 16.13). 

One solution that addresses the reality of resource-rich and income-poor countries is supporting small (1-5 acre) farmers, who work in community tending their land. The land is their livelihood.

The church universal represents wellbeing, abundance, and peace, not fear, security and exploitation. As stated in the Accra Confession, "The church stands in solidarity with people who are suffering and struggling."

The opposite of love is not hate, but fear.  

 

Food Sovereignty movement brings call for solidarity and systemic change to Community Food Security Coalition Conference

The Food Sovereignty track of activities during the 3-day Community Food Security Coalition gathering in New Orleans looked like the program of a gathering of Via Campesina, the worldwide peasant and family farm movement that first popularized this comprehensive and transformative concept decades ago.   

Here is a listing of workshops led by or featuring US Food Sovereignty Alliance participants:

Credit and Capital for a Just and Sustainable Food System, featuring Ben Burkett, Bob St. Peter and Lisa Griffith of the National Family Farm Coalition and Niaz Dorry of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.

Food Movements Unite! Led by Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First and featuring Joann Lo of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development.

Innovative Solutions to Food Deserts in Urban Areas, featuring Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, and others.

Food Justice Forum, with Eric Holt-Gimenez batting clean-up in a panel, calling for transformation as opposed to reforms of the current model.

From Detroit to New Orleans: Building a US Food Sovereignty Movement, led by Stephen Bartlett (AMI) and featuring Ben Yahola of theMvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative, Karen Washington, New York City Urban Farmer, Bob St. Peter (NFFC/ Via Campesina), Joaquin Martinez, Community to Community, and Nefer Ra Barber, Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Confronting Corporate Power in the Food System:  Si se puede!, with Kathy Ozer (NFFC), Joel Greeno (NFFC, Family Farm Defenders),and Karen Washington, Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners, and Niaz Dorry (Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance)

Emerging Technology and the Threat to a Just Food System, with Dave Andrews and Sarah Alexander of Food and Water Watch.

Organizing for Labor, Racial and Immigrant Justice in Community Food Systems, with Derek Robinson, ROC-NOLA and Joann Lo, Food Chain Workers Alliance.

The International Links Committee, with Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), Andrew Kang Bartlett (PHP), Heather Day of Community Alliance for Global Justice-AGRAWatch, Christina Schiavonni of WHY Hunger, Stephen Bartlett, (AMI)

The Annual Food Sovereignty Prize awarded by the International Links committee went to long-time fighters for food justice the Family Farm Defenders!  With honorable mentions to another USFSA member the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, as well as the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty of Canada and the Network of West African Peasant and Agricultural Producers Organizations!

See photos from Brooke of WHY Hunger at:  http://picasaweb.google.com/WHY.GAN/NewOrleans2010#

Excerpted from write-up by Stephen Bartlett

US Food Sovereignty Alliance launched with solidarity action in New Orleans

On World Food Day - Saturday, October 16th - the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Orleans was joined by dozens of grassroots activists from around the country from the US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) in a street protest in front of the well-known Tony Moran’s Restaurant located at 240 Bourbon St. in the French Quarter.

Farmers, fisherfolk, farm workers, urban agriculturalists, restaurant workers, indigenous people, and food justice advocates gathered in New Orleans to launch the US Food Sovereignty Alliance on October 16 in solidarity with restaurant workers at Tony Moran’s. The Alliance seeks to “turn the tables” on the broken food system by restoring power to communities to govern their own food systems, limit and regulate corporate control, and stop damaging US foreign policy that undermines the ability of other countries to provide for themselves.

Jose Oliva, in this piece on the ROC United site, says:

The restaurant industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the New Orleans economy, growing even during the current economic crisis. However, the vast majority of workers in this industry suffer sub-poverty wages and poor working conditions. The USFSA-ROC-NOLA action is intended to highlight the current struggle of fifteen former Tony Moran’s and Jean Lafitte’s servers, food runners, bussers and managers who started a workplace justice campaign and filed a lawsuit in Federal Court in 2009, for wage theft, misappropriation of tips, racial discrimination, being forced to work off the clock and many other egregious acts.

The affected group has tried to resolve the matter amicably, but the company has refused to respond to their request. This action is part of a year-long series of weekly actions held by the workers in hopes that the owner would rectify the wrong-doing. The US Food Sovereignty Alliance is committed to supporting food system worker rights and supports ROC-NOLA’s efforts.

When the dignity of one food worker is harmed, much less fifteen, we stand in solidarity!

Here is a 35 second video at the rally --

monsanto

After asking a class of college kids whether they had heard of Monsanto and none of them had, I asked the same question on the PHP Facebook page and many do know about Monsanto. But, there seems to be a generation gap on this. Many had heard about Monsanto years or decades ago. 

Like these three FB comments --
"DDT and Agent Orange in the 60's. Monsanto is a poison dealer."

"From early childhood. Monsanto had a chemical plant in our town. My father was a Chemical Engineer for Union Carbide and made, among other things, MIC the stuff that was being made in Bhopal."

And (sarcasm alert) -- "back in the 70's for dirty dealing and toxic pollution ....great company !!!!"

But not all were elders...

"Years. But in 90's heard more about ADM - and late 90's early 00's when "supermarket to the world" was sponsoring NPR, it was shocking. Well, not shocking... (for the record, I'm a Gen Xer)"

And one commented that it would be "worth doing research into the issue."

Indeed. Some articles on Monsanto have just come my way today, and below those are several earlier posts on Monsanto - in case you missed those. To be clear here, the Presbyterian Church USA has nothing against the company. On the other hand, we do have clear policy supporting family farmers and sustainable farming approaches, but your reading of the following may raise questions about whether Monsanto is always considering these. It's a hodge-podge, but hopefully something for everyone.

If you don't read the rest, here are some morsels from the GRIST article below that address some of the myths surrounding GMOs:

"...Monsanto finally admitted recently that superbugs, or pests that have evolved to be able to eat the Bt crops, are a real and growing concern."

"Not only do genetically engineered crops have worse yields than conventionally bred crops, cost more, lead to pesticide resistance, contaminate other plants with their transgenes, possibly cause allergies and even organ damage, but now we also learn that the plants themselves are possibly poisonous to the environment"

"These kinds of genetically engineered seeds keep being touted as the only way we're going to feed the world. Isn't it about time we started investing in less toxic alternatives?"

Seeds

What do food and hunger have to do with agriculture?

That's a question I've been asked from time to time, and I can understand why. In the U.S., food doesn't come from the Earth, it comes from a supermarket. We've lost touch with our agrarian roots.

Only 3% (or less) of the population in the U.S. works directly in agriculture. Compare that to the the U.S. at the turn of last century or to the Global South of today and it's a different picture.

In Kenya, over 70% of the people work in agriculture, and of those about half are subsistence farmers.¹ So for Kenyans, agriculture means even more than food; it also means jobs. Anything that negatively impacts farmers - especially small scale farmers - negatively impacts millions people, many of whom live on just a couple dollars a day.

This is where seeds come into play. In the U.S., what few farmers we have usually get their seeds from a supermarket of sorts: one of the big bioengineering companies. This is another difference between the U.S. and the Global South, where seeds are still saved in large quantities in some communities.

Seeds are food. So when the Gates Foundation and others propose to give away tons and tons of seeds in Africa, it can sound like a great idea.² But their free seeds require chemical inputs, lack the genetic diversity of local seeds, and cannot be saved, so farmers go into debt buying inputs, and if the crop fails, they have no reserve. What those free seeds are actually doing is indebting the farmer to the seed companies - in a way, stripping them of their freedom.

Take this story from Kenya as an example:

Like most of the farmers in this area, the Tumaini women explained, they had followed the advice of outsiders (mostly large-scale foreign NGOs) who told them that yields would increase if they purchased special seeds rather than saving their own and applied chemicals to their crops. But the women soon learned the long-term consequences of these methods. When the rains stopped, crops didn't produce well and debts mounted. Stripped from years of chemical use, the soil couldn’t retain what little moisture was left, nor was there enough water to dissolve the chemicals. Yields declined and farmers could no longer afford the inputs—chemical fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds, pesticides—that they believed were necessary to cultivate their land. Farmers became poorer and hungrier. ^{(Read the full story at www.yesmagazine.com)}

Seed saving gives farmers a measure of self-sufficiency that buying genetically engineered seeds cannot. Saving seeds is the first step towards food sovereignty, and food sovereignty is what keeps people fed.

So the New Green Revolution in Africa is a threat to farmers, which is a threat to the majority of the people there. You can read the full story of the Kenyan villiage online, and read up on AGRA at AGRA watch, or straight from the horse's mouth.