People Putting Food First #112
Food First has a new web site. Contact us at info [at] foodfirst.org to tell us what you like about it and also let us know if you have suggestions for making it easier to use.
Food riots have exploded into public consciousness as food prices have risen dramatically throughout the world in recent months. Read Food First’s analysis of this emerging crisis at www.foodfirst.org
We encourage you to forward this e-mail to concerned friends. We are all going to be touched in one way or another by food price increases, food shortages, and food demonstrations and riots. Never has it been more important to promote the value of food sovereignty—the ability of each community to meet the food needs of their people.
Radio interview
Eric Holt-Giménez speaking on the food crisis on the CounterSpin radio show syndicated on 150 public radio stations nationwide. The local airing schedule is here: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=115
If you miss the radio show, you can listen here at the archives: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=8&content_type=counterspin
New YouTube segments with Eric Holt-Giménez speaking about agricultural sustainability
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPTHQ4fIkos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YbF3iWKiqE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SJ8M4vKdUY
1. Join the campaign to end modern-day slavery
2. Organic agriculturalists graduate from Agriculture and Land-Based Association (ALBA)
3. Food Not Lawns!—A banner for local food production
4. How to avoid eating genetically modified food and find organic food
1. Join the campaign to end modern-day slavery
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) has launched a National Petition Campaign to end modern-day slavery and sweatshops in the fields! In People Putting Food First #110 we covered a story from Louisiana which illustrates how important it is to guard against modern-day slavery in the fields and factories of the United States.
Now you can sign this petition to add your voice to many others who are advocating for rights for all workers, no matter their country of origin or race.
• Visit http://www.ciw-online.org/2008_Petitions/ to join the movement and bring the petition to your community! or
• Visit http://fairfoodnation.mayfirst.org/petition/ to read the petition and sign now.
These petitions will be turned in during a creative mass procession at Burger King headquarters in Miami later this spring.
The national petition drive calls on Burger King and other food industry leaders to work with the CIW to:
• improve wages and working conditions of men and women who harvest their tomatoes, and
• support an industry-wide effort to end human rights violations and modern-day slavery in all of Florida's fields.
The petition will also serve notice that those who sign are "prepared to stop patronizing Burger King now and other food industry leaders in the future, should they fail to do so.”
The launch of this petition campaign comes on the heels of a January 2008 federal indictment for the 7th case of modern-day slavery to emerge from Florida's fields in the past ten years.
Petition campaigns and consumer actions by British citizens helped hasten the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. The CIW petition campaign honors the 200th anniversary of the U.S. ban against the importation of slaves (1808), and echoes key strategies of the early abolitionist movement.
For more information, visit petition@ciw-online.org
For testimony in the U.S. Senate on April 15, 2008 on modern day slavery go to
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=311097
2. Organic Agriculturalists graduate from Agriculture and Land-Based Association (ALBA)
At ALBA, based in Salinas, California, 22 organic farmers graduated on April 5, 2008. They have been learning how to become organic, independent farmers, producing high quality products, protecting the environment, and their health. ALBA’s training consists of five modules: protecting soil fertility, reducing chemical inputs, weed and pest control, the impact of the farming system, and building local economy.
Food First’s executive director, Eric Holt-Giménez gave the keynote graduation speech in which he reminded the audience that from the time that women invented agriculture 8,000 years ago, the relationship between human beings and nature has been the basis for social change. Peasants have always been responsible for the environment and food for everyone in the world. The industrial revolution was possible thanks to the successes of agriculture. In all social transformations the peasant has played a key role; but it is rarely recognized. In capitalist and socialist nations alike, they have tried to eliminate peasants. “But here you are after 8,000 years defending the seeds. Why? Because of peasant values: respect for the life of others, mutual aid, innovation, environmental protection, and the love of producing food are maintained.”
“Thank you for insisting to produce food in a moment of scarcity and inflation of prices, when there are 840 million hungry people in the world – 36 million of whom can be found in the United States.
“Thank you for insisting on producing food in a way that improves the environment, while agroindustry seems only to look for ways to destroy it, contaminating our air, our soils, our rivers and oceans, and even poisoning our workers.
“Thank you for producing healthy food in a time in which there are millions of obese people because of processed junk food, which we feel obliged to eat because it seems cheap, but it poisons us, giving us serious problems with blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.
“Thank you for continuing in the most noble profession that exists in this world. Thank you for opening the doors to a new transition… A transition towards a healthy agriculture and a just, equitable, and sustainable food system… A transition on the road to food sovereignty.”
You can read the entire graduation address by Eric Holt-Giménez at
https://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2089
3. Food Not Lawns!—A Banner for Local Food Production
Lawns, a symbol of the American dream and a very real representation of America's profligate waste, are being slowly ripped up throughout the western United States. People from Eugene, Oregon to Bisbee, Arizona are turning their lawns into plant food gardens. “Food Not Lawns,” the banner for this nascent movement, has inspired independent groups in several states to devote city lots to local food production. The newest group to take up the banner is based in the arid mountain town of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Grow Food Not Lawns Fort Collins is helping their community “grow the idea of food production in people's backyards.” With plenty of volunteer labor, free soil testing, access to tools, advice from master gardeners at Colorado State Extension and “educational, celebratory, hands-on” workshops, member gardeners have plenty of support in making the lawns to food transition. Water, a scarce resource on Colorado's dry front range, is a major concern of the group. Organizers teach water conservation methods like building contoured beds, mulching, and drip irrigation, which they claim makes abundant food gardens consume less water than their grassy alternative. For those who want a partial conversion but still love their lawn, the group provides seed and know-how to grow native drought-tolerant Buffalo Grass. For the Fort Collins group, Food Not Lawns is a mission to both build a healthy food system, and find the “essence of community.”
For information on Food Not Lawns, or how to start your own backyard gardening support group, visit www.foodnotlawns.com or check out Food Not Lawns by H.C. Flores available from Chelsea Green Publishing.
4. How to avoid eating genetically modified food and find organic food
Today nearly all fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S. have a round sticker or label. While we don’t have federal labeling laws yet, here’s a way to avoid fresh produce that is genetically engineered or grown using pesticides and herbicides.
• A four-digit number on that sticker denotes conventionally grown with pesticides and herbicides
• A five-digit number beginning with 8 is GMO
• A five-digit number beginning with 9 is organic
For packaged foods, unless it specifically says no GMOs, it probably has some genetically modified component now that 90% of our corn is genetically modified. Corn is made into many products including corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, dextri-maltose, maltodextrin, cyclodextrin, diacetyl, amylose, amylopectin, invert sugar, isomalt, levulose, monosaccharide, lactate condensation, polyamino sugar condensate, confectioner's sugar, sorbitol, Xanthan Gum, MSG/Glutamic acid, Lecithin, baking powder, corn oil, and corn starch. This is only a very partial list of foods containing GMO corn. The best way to avoid genetically modified food is to avoid all food products sold in center isles of the store unless they are labeled GMO free.
Go to this web site to learn what food is available within 100 miles of your home. Just enter your zip code. http://100milediet.org/
-------------------------------
This edition of People Putting Food First was written by intern, Annie Shattuck, researcher, Leonor Hurtado, and development director, Marilyn Borchardt
