Spelling it out: 'Stop food speculation'

Early morning in Brussels and a group of us - representing different organisations from across Europe – unloaded a truck filled with 925 pots and pans representing 925 million people suffering from hunger in the world today.

Each pan has a message written on it from EU citizens calling for an end to excessive speculation on food.

Together we laid out all the pans to spell out the words 'stop food speculation.' 

It's a message from 100K people who have signed our petitions from across the EU, calling on Euro MPs to support tough new rules to curb speculation on food. It's a pertinent message as the vote takes place at 4:30pm today. If the vote goes the right way it will take us one step closer to stopping financial speculators from betting on hunger.

As the day started to brighten up the six key MEPs, representing all the party blocs in the European parliament, turned up to receive our petition. As the media started filming and taking photographs, I urged the key decision makers standing next to me to close down the dangerous loopholes in the legislation which would seriously undermine the effectiveness of strong limits.

This was our last ditch attempt to ensure that our message to these Euro MPs would be at the forefront of their minds as they vote today. And our activism and mobilisation on this issue hasn't gone unnoticed. Two influential Euro MPs - Arlene McCarthy and Jurgen Klute - both commented how appreciative they were of our campaigns and that 'people power' has enabled them to make progress on getting towards stronger rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpy3Z1_-fZk&list=UUvwtoOQPhCPC53Urxxq4Qdg&index=1&feature=plpp_video

The vote takes place later today and we will know the outcome in the morning.