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Urban farming and rural workers' rights: food sovereignty in action in the US

Dan Iles, WDM's south-west mobiliser, interviews Christina Schiavoni of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance.

On day four of the European forum on food sovereignty, I met Christina from the US. I was very interested to find out about what sort of actions are happening over in the US as well the aftermath of the Wall Street Reform Act passed recently to limit financial speculation on food. In this interview she talks about the urban and rural movements for food sovereignty across the US, including dairy producers, supermarket workers and anti-food speculation protests.

US food sovereignty delegate

What does food sovereignty mean to you?

To me it means the right of people to define their own agricultural policies, rather than those policies being defined by the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the IMF, or multinational corporations.

Can you give me some examples of local initiatives that are involved with enacting food sovereignty in the US?

These are local manifestations of food sovereignty, because I really think that...

Food speaks louder than words: A fantastic guerilla market action at Nyeleni

Dan Iles

On the 3rd day of Nyeleni, we all took part in a meticulously coordinated action in the town of Krems, the host city of the forum. In this picture based blog post, I will explain how their use of colour, music, openness and most importantly local food to put across the idea of food sovereignty to Austrian public. This MUST come to the UK!

 

The March:

Setting off from the forum, we all congregated by the courtyard and then headed for the town centre. What with there being such a diverse crowd of young and old, men and women, and languages from across europe there was a lot of energy. The samba band was leading the way, which is always a great way of attracting attention from the public as well as providing a musical rhythm for the protest itself.

As we paraded around all the town's supermarkets, a dedicated team of leafleters were on the case, handing out information on the upcoming event (which I will explain about later) to every unwitting passer by. Each time we passed a supermarket we stopped, held a mini rally, handed out more flyers to the customers, and then moved on again:

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'Food sovereignty is all about rights' - an interview with Andrea Ferrante, chair of the Italian association for organic farming

Dan Iles

Day 2 of the forum and I have had the opportunity to interview an Italian delegate, Andreas Ferrante, the chair of the Italian association for organic farming. In this lively interview (I wish his Italian accent, enthusiasm and smile could come through the words) he talks about how Italy was affected by the 2008 food crisis and the positive advances that Italy has made in its journey towards food sovereignty.

What does food sovereignty mean to you? 

For me, the first word I have in mind is the word ‘rights’. We have to go back to have our rights; choosing our food, choosing our landscape and choosing our policy. And this is what has to change, it is a cultural change. And in this forum; what is clear is that we need to change the cultural framework. And the cultural framework means that we have to go back to the rights before we go on exploring other issues. And this means giving people back the right to make the decisions and the right to be in the room when politicians are making the decision. So this is what food sovereignty means to me. 

 

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Towards a democratic, inclusive, participatory and fun structure in all events: An explanation of the Nyeleni structure

Dan Iles, WDM delegate to Nyeleni Europe, explains the structure that makes the forum so exciting.

I want to try and explain a bit about the structure of the Nyeleni 2011 forum as I think it is worth emulating in future organisational structures. The way the forum is organised has been based on the way the 2007 Nyeleni forum in Mali was constructed and many of the ideas come from the global South. It has a particular emphasis on non-heirarchical and participatory structure and is dedicated to hearing the voices of a range of sub groups in society, for example young people, women, young parents, workers, producers, consumers, activists, etc. 

They have tried to give all possible groups, types of people, interests and sections of the food movement a say in the decision making process.  In this way, everyone is given a range of environments with which to express their voice and are therefore not held back by the social limiting factors that can occur in these sort of events. I hope this is of genuine interest to some people who want to organise democratic and participatory events that do not exclude people through societal imbalances such as gender,...

Grassroots activists meet in Europe’s first food sovereignty forum

Bristol activist; Dan Iles, gives you a tour of Bristol’s food movement on route to Austria to take part in food sovereignty forum  Nyeleni 2011

I've been given the opportunity to represent both World Development Movement (WDM) and Bristol’s community food projects at the European Food Sovereignty Forum, Nyeleni, in Austria. This forum will be a meeting point for around 400 delegates from producers, consumer organisations (food cooperatives, etc), NGOs and community projects from all countries in Europe. It will be an excellent opportunity for food projects across Europe to share ideas and collaborate their actions so as to forge a fully fledged European food sovereignty movement.

My blog posts over the next week or so will be documenting this forum, the decisions made in the working groups as well as profiling the various radical food projects that have been set up in countries across Europe.

First of all however, I am going to write a bit about my thoughts over food sovereignty and tell you all about projects struggling for its realisation in some parts of Bristol.

 

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