Food Voices

Defending Territories and Livelihoods

2011-08-04T09:18:00.001-07:00

Antonio José Conceiçao Feitosa is a fisherman from Curral Velho in the state of Ceara in Brazil. He started fishing when he was ten years old and now uses an elaborate trap to catch fish. Antonio is active in the community and a member of Associaçao Communitaria de Marisqueiros e Pescadores (Community Association of Shellfish Harvesters and Fisherfolk) de Curral Velho. With the community, Antonio fights to protect their homes and livelihoods from windmill and shrimp farm developers.

“Fishing is the best lifestyle. You lay the nets and traps in the morning, and in the afternoon you gather your rewards. It is what keeps me going. It is what keeps everybody going.

“We have had difficult times in the past and we don’t know if it will happen again. I have been threatened, but that is the way it is. When you organize people to defend something, even if there are 3, 4, 5, or 6 people - the opponents try to infiltrate the group. We are fighting for something more fair and peaceful. We are still a little afraid, but we are not too afraid to fight. One of our biggest fights was the defense of the mangroves. Our biggest threat was the shrimp farming. Now we are trying to organize against the windmills from coming to our community. We are organizing so we can speak together in one united voice to oppose the construction of windmills. We have talked with allies in neighboring communities, so we can organize and fight together.

“People came here saying the salt plains were worthless. They may have a higher degree of education than us, but we are very civilized. We know the natural cycles. The fishermen need that access. They said they would make all this place a shrimp farm. They would put a fence on one side, another fence on the other and we would only have access to the beach one way. Later they would put gates on each side and then we would be trapped. We refused this. I said to him, Just because we live in Curral Velho, (which means old trap), does not mean we will be trapped. He did not know how to respond, so he said to me, You talk to the manager, you explain yourself to the manager and I will not interfere again. You solve the problems. We saw he was defeated and we knew we were right.

“I hope there are no more struggles. When you go to war, you have to be prepared to live or die. We are organizing ourselves. We are always alert to what is going on. We hope there is no more violence and no more murder attempts. When we get involved with these fights, you are a target.

“We feel very proud, because through the fights, we have had the majority of victories. We have won and we are here to face what is next. It has been and is still very important to keep everybody organized, united and strong. If you are uncertain, divided and falter, you will lose.”

Land Based Skills

2011-06-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Bonsai farms on Try-on Life Community (TLC) Farm in Portland, Oregon. He has always had a passion to farm, teach about food and promote sustainability. Bonsai is able to do all three through his community farm and the non-profit arm of the operations. They run training programs and a fully outdoor, nursery school called, Mother Earth School. They also grow an array of fruits, vegetables and medicinal herbs, as well as raise goats, sheep and chickens.

“A few of us lived here in the early 2000’s. The owner wanted to sell this land and developers were the only ones making offers. He served us an eviction notice, so he could sell it easier. The eviction went through, but we filed an appeal. During that appeal period, which was ten months, we were allowed to stay here. At that time we started the non-profit and raised $1.5 million through our relentless capital campaign to protect this piece of land. It was an easy choice: condo development or a community center. Canvassing was happening all over the neighborhoods, so everyone could see the vision. Kids were walking down the driveway with their piggy banks, giving us a dollar in change. It was on that level. People were sending in checks for tens of thousands of dollars. The city gave us grants to start this community center. We had very low interest loans, personal bridge loans at no interest. All those things culminated into the purchase of this land. We put it into a land trust, called OSALT, Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust. They hold the title for the land. We have a one hundred year lease from them, so we can be stewards of the place, operate the place and operate the non-profit.

“The non-profit, called the TLC Farm, is focused on hosting workshops and teaching about sustainability, food production, natural building, animal rearing. We do consensus and facilitation trainings, workshops regarding how to plant food, when to plant it, what to plant, how to harvest, how to preserve food, how to grow medicine, how to tend animals, how to milk, how to shear sheep, how to tend bees. Land based skills, we call it. The community is Cedar Moon. The community is focused on the cottage industry, making and distributing products. Our best one so far is a raw, delicious hot sauce that we make from garlic and peppers that we grow. I’m running a bonsai nursery and a medicinal plant nursery. The school is the Mother Earth School. It’s Waldorf inspired, but not a registered Waldorf school. Their focus is on earth based spirituality, which is nothing more than awareness of the surroundings, awareness of the elements at work, the cycles of the sun and moon and the seasons, the systems that are happening in the field to make this life flourish.

“We feed everybody [in the community], but we still are buying certain stuff. The paradox of farming these days is it’s hard to grow your own grains and oils, so we’re buying stuff like olive oil, rice and oat grouts. We make yogurt and cheese and a ton of milk. Eggs are covered and all the veggies - root crops, salads, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes. We grow plenty of that, enough to feed ourselves year round. The goal is to keep all those things within the extended community, so whereas we have a ton of goat milk, we can trade that if someone is making sunflower oil at the next farm.

“These concepts of how to work with the land and of the land have been in every culture forever. People have always been thinking about the smartest ways to go about agriculture and life. Permaculture has been around forever. It’s just a new term that was given in the ‘70’s. Now, here in the 21^st century I can see not only people going back to the land, but incorporating the appropriate technologies to do so in a much more effective and efficient way. It’s the age of information now, and so this information can spread faster than ever. People who are interested, even remotely interested, can get on board and become involved in projects that they’re finding out are just around the corner. We are reinventing these systems in a way that’s applicable to our modern reality and looking back through history at how people have done that and what’s necessary, what’s needed for the future survival of our communities. This non-violent revolution is the kind of thing that we’re trying to usher in."

Maintaining A Space

2011-06-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

Linda Behnken fishes on the F/V Woodstock out of Sitka, Alaska with her husband and two children. They longline for halibut and black cod and troll for salmon. Linda first moved to Sitka in 1982 and immediately fell in love with the environment. For the past two decades, she has been an advocate for the environment and the small boat fishing community of Southeast Alaska. Photo credits to Mim McConnell.

“What I worry about the most is ecosystem impacts and second most, maintaining a place for small, independent, community-based fishermen in the face of corporate political power, money. That’s countrywide, of course. It’s the same struggle for the family farmer and the family fisherman and the bookstore on the corner. Alaska has probably done well to hold a place for small boats, but I feel anxious about the future in that way. I’ve been talking to a lot of people who go back generations of fishing up here. There has always been that fear that there won’t be a future in fisheries. I feel concern about whether my kids wanted to choose this way of life it would still be a viable option at a level and a price they could afford.

“We’ve had a lot of successes I would have to say. We got this area closed to trawling. That would be my most satisfying fisheries policy win and the one that I think is the most significant in terms of the resource. We did put together a quota share program that goes a long way through the construction of it to control consolidation and protect and hold a place for small boats and community participation. It’s not perfect but it’s a lot better than any other one I’ve seen.

“We started this community supported fisheries program in Sitka last year. It’s like community supported agriculture where people sign up for a subscription of fish and we’re buying it from boats that are participating in the conservation work of our organization and trying to return a little extra to the fishermen, but with some very strong goals of outreach, education and connecting the consumer more with the person who catches their fish. We’re doubling our subscriptions this year and we’re going to start offering a small CSF in Juneau. Black cod, halibut, rockfish, ling cod, coho and king salmon. We’re having it processed by local processors. We let them know we have a boat coming in that is black cod and halibut and we want to buy 1,000 pounds of it and here is how we want it put up. We put up our longline product in late April or early May and then the salmon in the summer. People get a mix.

“Our association, the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, works with the North Pacific Fisheries Trust to come up with this concept of the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust. The concept of this trust is to be the umbrella organization for fishing groups to launch fishery conservation networks where you’re promoting stewardship innovation and fishermen and then achieve triple bottom line goals of protecting resources and the socio-economic health of the communities, but also being able to fund that work on a sustainable basis by marketing the fish. Right now, it’s just paying its own way, but hopefully being able to use the revenue from that to support expanding our conservation work. We’re going slowly and carefully, so it’s still quite small, but it’s been really well received. I’m really excited about that.”

They Know What Is Best

2011-05-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, I returned from a week in Haiti, or “Ayiti” in Kreyol. Haiti is the last country covered in Food Voices. I chose Haiti because it has such a negative reputation of poverty, crime and natural disasters. It is often portrayed as a country facing endless problems while a rotating set of foreign governments constantly intervenes without invitation. I wanted to hear the truth from the Haitian people and catch a glimpse of what they believe to be solutions for their part of the island known as Hispaniola.

The Southwest is dotted with coastal towns that depend on the fruits of the sea. Unfortunately, the fish are scarce and people have to row their small boats farther and farther out to sea, which is dangerous and grueling. The fishing communities believe the fish are harder to find because of marine pollution. They have no facts or figures, but their own experience after generations of fishing point to degraded water quality that parallel decreased fish populations. I spoke with fisherfolks in three communities – Jacmal, Cayes Jacmal and Marigot. Only once before had an outsider spoken with them. They already have 43 fishing associations all under one federation. Now, they are looking for support to help improve their fishing methods, develop markets infrastructure, and increase their organizing capacity.

After the Southwest, I headed north to meet farmers of the Central Plateau. I stayed at the Mouvement Paysan de Papaye (MPP) (Peasant Movement of Papaye) training center where they provide agro-ecology trainings for local farmers and student groups. When I arrived, a group of students from the University of Notre Dame in Port au Prince was preparing to leave after an empowering week of hands on courses. The center has one program that has become quite successful for kitchen gardens. Tires are flipped inside out, a rich fertile compost is grown and then vegetables are planted that use a small amount of rainwater that is captured in large cisterns. I also visited a collective farm, Agricultural Production Cooperative of Kolader. They mill corn, process sugar, tend a tree nursery, raise cattle and goats and grow vegetables to feed the 150 families that are part of the collective.

On the last day, I returned to Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. Cité Soleil, known to be the most dangerous slum in the Americas, has booming urban garden programs. In 2007, a project of Pax Christi created a soccer camp to engage the youth as an alternative to joining a gang. After the 2010 earthquake, they initiated urban gardens and youth agro-ecology training programs. By growing food together and teaching each other how to provide for their families, violence has decreased and the sense of community and dignity has increased.

Haiti is still recovering from the devastation of the 2010 earthquake. Port au Prince has a population of 2 million people, but 1 million are still living in tents. Less than 2.5 billion dollars out of the 11 billion dollars promised for reconstruction aid has made it to Haiti and those funds went to debt cancelation rather than rebuilding efforts. Haiti still needs solidarity and support to rebuild the urban and rural areas. But, they do not need or want another imperial power to tell them what is best for them. They know what is best for them.

Food Is Political

2011-04-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

Karen Washington is an urban farmer from the Bronx in New York. She has been farming for over 20 years and was one of the original members of La Familia Verde, which is a coalition of five community gardens in the Bronx that educates, empowers and provides food. Karen and others in her community started the coalition in 1998 when Mayor Giuliani was trying to auction off gardens. She hasn’t stopped since.

I grow food. I feed people, body and mind. I have a community garden, the Garden of Happiness, which I helped create. It stared back in 1988 and I’m also a member of La Finca del Sur, which was created three years ago in the Bronx. The area that I live in is one of the poorest districts in the Bronx. The medium income of a family of four is less than $20,000. We’re surrounded by an epidemic of fast food and fast chain restaurants and there are no healthy food stores. Many of the produce in our supermarkets travel from far away, are moldy, not fresh at all. My message is education to help people understand that the problems they’re having, especially health problems, are connected to food. Well, what are we doing to change? Let’s start getting involved in farmers’ markets and community gardens and educate people to understand that there are resources we can use to help deal with the problems we have.

Let’s face it; food is political. Where it’s distributed, who has zoning rights, who is able to have loans. Who gets the fresh best vegetables and who gets the leftovers. I’m pretty sure, in my neighborhood, by the time it comes to the South Bronx, we’re getting the leftovers. What’s so appalling is that we have this huge area called the Hunts Point Terminal where a lot of produce from all over the country and all over the world comes and right next to it is a community of people that are starving. You see the trucks, you see the food and you don’t have access to it and that’s a shame. Where else, what other neighborhood would that happen? Could that happen in an affluent neighborhood? Heck, no. But it’s happening to us. So, food is political. Those that have affluence and those that have money and connections do much better than those that don’t and food and housing and education is all tied into one. I ask questions and really make it uncomfortable for people when they’re dealing with food and social justice and playing the race card because in essence racism is alive and well.

What we’re trying to get out and voice to the people is that political power is as strong as we, the people, allow it to be, because the people put those political people in office. To understand that dynamic, to shift that dynamics of thinking, is to understand that the politicians are there because of us. The power that we have is the power of vote and the power to make political people accountable to their actions and to go door knocking and to do rallies and to do marches and to bring it out in the open what they are or are not doing. Right now, a group is trying to fight City Hall in a way that it’s never been challenged before. We’re fighting to get community gardens have preservation land status. I don’t think in the previous administration people could sit down with the mayor’s group and figure out how to make community gardens permanent and come up with legislation, resolutions, changing zoning that will make community gardens permanent. That’s a social issue, but now we’re going to make it a political issue as well.

I’m on a journey. I’m on a ride. I’m just going to go with it. Making waves. We’ll see what the future holds. As I continue to grow food and really give thanks to elders, the people that came before us, I will continue to work on connecting people to the land and really empowering people to have a say and have a stand for what they feel is right and just. End of story.

Healthy Life with Full Human Dignity

2011-03-13T15:27:00.000-07:00

The first principle of food sovereignty is "Food: A Basic Human Right: Everyone must have access to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity." To be able to live a healthy life with full human dignity is a theme I heard from shell collectors in Ecuador to peasants in Brazil to farmers in Maine. Healthy communities require pride and dignity. Pride within each individual, for the work they do, of the natural environment and amongst each other.

The right to a dignified life is such a basic right and many farmers and fishermen are fighting for it. Despite the hard work, financial hardships and sometimes all odds against them, what I found in my interviews is the amazing resilience and hope.

Francisco Mendes Coelho is a farmer from Canadê in the state of Ceará of Brazil. He is a member of the Landless People's Movement (MST).

"This struggle is not easy; we are often arrested by the police, the media often tries to slander us, and to say that we are not a legal movement, that the movement is only full of vagabonds and bandits, but we have to show that this is not true, that we are doing this for the greater good. And our goal is to attain land, not only land but also rights, those that are sanctified in the constitution and that today are denied to us workers. Without a doubt, we do this for the greater good and I believe that it is possible to change things."

Targelia Nicolta Branda is a shell collector from Palme Real in Esmeraldes, Ecuador. She is president of the local women’s organization and a member of the Federation of the Collectors of and Aquatics of the Mangroves of San Lorenzo.

"Here, we are talking about fear. In 2009 and 2010 we had a crisis of violence, because brothers came from other countries.The paramilitary threatened us. This January 2nd, they killed one leader of the community. Because of that lack of safety, people have to leave. This conflict they had with the president of our parish was because they wanted to come and live here. Basically, to take over the community. The president of the parish said, ‘No. If you want to come here, you have to talk to Correa – he is the President of Ecuador. I am just a small leader.’ That is when the conflict started. These communities are the most forgotten by the government of Ecuador. We know about our government just through pictures, through newspapers. We don’t even have a TV channel signal or internet. We receive a lot of promises, but nobody ever fulfills those promises. They should remember us and know the poverty that is here. We also want to have a dignified life. Please don’t forget the poor people of our community."

Heather Retberg and her husband, Phil, run Quills End Farm in Penobscot, ME. She is a member of Food for Maine's Future and Maine Organic Gardeners and Farmers Association.
"A lot of us say fly under the radar, keep a low profile as long as you can. That’s certainly what we did for a really long time and I’ve come to feel like so many of us do that, but if that portion of your income is something you really depend on for your livelihood, where does that leave you if you come up on the radar? What other business has to operate like that? Drug dealers have to operate like that. People who are doing something really unhealthy for society have to operate like that. We should have the rule of law behind what we are doing because what we are doing is really healthy not just for people’s bodies, but for creating social networks in a community that binds us together so we can help each other out when hard times come. So much of that fabric of community life that comes from the farm, that gets stripped away and we really shouldn’t feel that we need to sneak around to farm."

Jay Driscoll is a commercial fisherman from Rye Harbor, NH on the fishing vessel Karenlyn. He is a board member of Granite State Fish and President of Sectors 11 and 12 in New Hampshire.

"I think cameras are the biggest injustice. I don’t understand where the fishermen lost their way so much that the government feels we have to be monitored with cameras. It is so anti-American. It is so what this country is not about. With observers today, at least it’s a human. At least there is somebody there. But, to have them say to me, I want to fit your boat with cameras to monitor your every move is a huge injustice and we are already being monitored through a satellite so they know where the boats are. But, now they want to put a camera so they can see us too. We have been slanderized by every environmental group out there to the point where we are a step below pedophiles right now. And that’s how we’re looked at. It is a huge injustice. We have rights and freedoms that we should try to protect or we are going to lose what the foundation of this country is all about."

Tara Kolla is urban farmer in Los Angeles, CA at Silver Lake Farms. She is a member of Urban Family Advocates.

"What I really yearn for is some stability and less chaos. It’s been so chaotic the last two years. Three shutdowns, then the court case. I was teaching gardening here and got shut down for that. Then I was composting. Got shut down for that. I got a cease and desist from the environmental affairs department. March 2009, I opened the door to a very sheepish man on the porch. He predicated everything by saying, 'I really don’t want to be here. But, unfortunately I’m here to tell you cannot sell your flowers.' He was enforcing this code that was interpreted to mean that it was not legal to sell flowers that were grown in a residential garden. I fought and decided that I would change the law. And luckily for me, some cool people in Silver Lake and a small group of us grouped together and had meetings with the city, city officials and Eric Garsetti, the city council president. A year later it changed. Truck gardening has been revised. It’s been called truck farming. You are allowed to grow pretty much everything, vegetables, fruit, seedlings, flowers, nut, fibers like cotton and sell them off site. So hooray for urban farming."

Sara Grusky and her husband, Michael Foley, run Green Uprising Farm at Blackberry Bend in Willits, CA. They are members of Little Lake Grange and Mendocino County Farmers Market Association.
"I think one of the things that we’ve learned from the dairy share is how ridiculously difficult it is, how ridiculously overregulated and full of obstacles it is to try to do something like a dairy share. It’s because the regulatory environment is really geared towards large dairies and it’s because there’s a long history of fear and misinformation about raw milk. The current dairy share that we have is, I would say, in a quasi-legal gray area and that’s not a very comfortable place to be. I mean the only way we can do it is to find some loophole and do something that’s actually quasi illegal but it’s the only thing that really makes sense in terms of having a sustainable local economy. In Massachusetts recently, where they were trying to outlaw raw milk, the Weston Price Foundation organized the first, I guess in 100 years, the first cow grazed the Boston Commons. So they bought a cow to graze the Boston Commons and milked her and fed people raw milk as a way to sort of protest and expose how ridiculous it is that people milking cows and drinking the milk, which has gone on for millennia is currently illegal."

Oscar Otzoy is a farm worker in Immokalee, FL and originally from Guatemala. He is a member of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

"A worker usually has to leave their house to find work at about 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning then work for 10 or 12 hours for a total of $50 or $60 a day. If a farm worker were to be earning the same that he or she was earning 30 years ago and if it kept right with inflation, it would be $1.06 per 32-pound bucket. Now it is an average of 50 cents per bucket. And many people feel like they are just a machine in the fields. Just a machine working. If you were to get sick, the company, instead of helping with the sickness, will just fire you, let you go. It is like you are an old tool. When you are broken, instead of fixing you, they just let you go. There are far uglier, worse cases. In the past 13 years, there have been nine major slavery operations uncovered in Florida. We began the Campaign for Fair Food with a Code of Conduct with zero tolerance for slavery, a penny more per pound of tomatoes that we picked that would go right to the worker, and the voice of farm workers be included in carrying out these agreements. Nine major companies finally sign agreements with the Coalition. And this is exactly what we want: That workers are recognized and they know their rights and they are respected."

John Kinsman is a dairy farmer at Kinsman Farm in Lime Ridge, WI. He is an active board member of the National Family Farm Coalition and Family Farm Defenders.

"It is very bleak right now because there are not enough farmers left. The prices are at all time lows in relation to costs. The positive thing is the urban people all over the world are demanding food that comes from family farmers that is ecologically, culturally appropriate. That all goes to our work with Via Campesina and food sovereignty that we’ve developed. It covers everything. Feed our own people first. Food sovereignty is the rights of people to determine their own food policies. And the rights of producers to live in dignity and ecologically sound ways of producing it. All of our work revolves around that. To get people to understand and to raise self-confidence. Farmers have just lost it. Because when your product you sell has a minus value, the people who produce it have a minus value. And people say, ‘Are you crazy? Producing something when it cost you twice that much to produce it.’ And of course, it has a terrible effect on family structure, on children, the way they look at their parents and be told by someone they’re stupid and told by someone if they want to do the same thing, they’re stupid. So, we have to help people restore their self-confidence and their dignity.So they can change the policy, to get a fair price and to produce this healthy food. I’ve been in different countries and cultures where farming was the most dignified way of life. It’s tremendous to see the pride and self worth these people get and respect."

Craig Barbre is a fisherman from Morro Bay, CA and fishes for albacore and salmon on his fishing vessel Preamble. He is a member of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

"National Marine Fisheries Service was designed to enhance fisheries, to help fishermen access the fish. They need to go back to that. Now they have become the hired patrol guys. They are basically out there to try and bust you doing something wrong. They are not there to enhance the fisheries, to help you access the fish. To help this country provide our own food. Same thing with our Fish & Game. Fish & Game has become law enforcement, rather than someone to enhance the fisheries. We don’t mind being managed off a resource because the stock is in jeopardy. But, if we can access the other ten species that are around without damaging that jeopardized stock, allow us to do it. At least, allow let us show them that we can do it. We are not allowed to do that any longer. All they want to do is stop fishing, not enhance it, help modify it, make it so it is viable. In the meantime, this country is importing more and more of its seafood. We are importing most of our food and I see us as being in real trouble."

2011-02-12T13:58:00.000-08:00

Máximo Cangá Castillo is an Ecuadorian farmer and fisherman. He lives in San Lorenzo in the state of Esmeraldes on the border with Columbia. Not only does he contend with the Columbian drug cartel and the palm tree investors, both of which steal farmers’ lands to plant drug labs or plantations, but he also is constantly fighting the invasion of the shrimp farm industry. The shrimp farm industry razes mangroves to make way for shrimp ponds to export cheap shrimp to the United States, but the mangroves are life for the people of coastal Ecuador. Mangroves are coastal forests rich in nutrients, they are nursery grounds for juvenile marine life, they protect the coastal area from hurricanes, they filter the saline ocean water for agriculture use, they provide food and housing to thousands of families. In order for Máximo to maintain his food sovereignty, he has to defend his territory – the mangroves.

“For me, food sovereignty, is to eat healthy, safe and with sovereignty. For that, we need to produce our own food and medicine. Without territory, we cannot practice food sovereignty. Today, we didn’t buy any food for our meal. The traps caught the crabs and mice, the net caught the fish, the earth gave us coconuts, oregano, chiles, spices to cook the meat. The water is from the well. That is why our struggle is in defense of the territory. Territory is not just a piece of land. It is water, plants, trees, animals, biodiversity.

“When we defend the mangroves, we are defending food, our source of income and our lives. If we don’t have mangroves, we don’t have crabs, shells, fish and thousands of families won’t have access to their livelihoods. I will die before I leave the mangroves.

“Seventy percent of the mangroves have been destroyed by the shrimp industry so people in North America can eat shrimp. There are shrimp farms in places that used to be cemeteries. Entire villages were destroyed to build a shrimp pond. One mangrove hectare (2.5 acres) supports ten families. But, only three families live off a 100 hectares (2470 acres) shrimp farm - the family who feeds the shrimp, the family who takes care of the shrimp and the owner's family.

“After several harvests, those ponds are no longer useful because of the chemicals they use, so they need fresh land and they continue cutting the mangroves. People put their lives on the line to protect the mangroves. When they cut the mangroves, the bio-aquatic life is gone. And people know they are not going to have anymore source of income, so they put their bodies on the line. At the end, the industry wins, because they kill our brothers and sisters, our shell collectors, crab harvesters along the entire coast of Ecuador. It is the same problem all over the coastal area and so leaders of coastal organizations travelled to meet one another. That is how we started to build a large, national movement. We formed one organization to represent us at the national level, to be our spokesperson and to demand that the shrimp industry leave our territories.

“For us, they are destroying the entire territory and our food sovereignty. They leave us without jobs, without food. We continue to fight the expansion of shrimp farms and it is a war that is never going to end. We need all our allies to spread the word and tell the world about our struggles.”

2011-01-11T14:06:00.001-08:00

Heather and Phil Retberg run Quills End Farm in Penobscot, Maine. It is a 100-acre pasture based farm with pigs, hens, dairy, beef cattle and sheep. Last year, the Retbergs realized that they would run into regulatory hurtles by selling raw milk, so they devised a plan, as have many other diary farmers around the country. Heather describes how their community is an integral part of what they do and without that support, farming would be much more difficult, if not impossible.

“We don’t sell our milk to restaurants or retail outlets, but just from the farm through a private buying club. It’s been since August and we are close to 60 members. We have a member only buying club, so that anybody who buys milk from us signs a statement of personal responsibility that they are seeking out raw milk and they understand the benefits and risks and they are not going to sue the state; they are not going to sue the farmer, but they understand what’s entailed and they still want to eat food that’s as close to nature as possible. And for now, the Department of Agriculture says that’s a fine way to operate.

It has been an interesting process. We put a lot of working into forming this contract and talked with some farmers in Pennsylvania about how to go about it. People at first, by and large, were saying, ‘Of course, we want to support what you’re doing. We’ll just sign it. We won’t even read it,’ which was really surprising. We said, ‘Really, you should read it, so you know where we all stand here.’ There seems to be a general understanding that there are big forces out there that don’t want this to continue and if this is something that helps, they’ll just do it.

One young woman came here with her friend. I said you can just take the contract and take the free sample and she said, ‘No, I’ll read it.’ So, she read it and signed it. She said, ‘I think this is how my friend in Colorado has to do it too to get milk.’ And her friend said, ‘I was in California and I remember seeing signs that said government out, we want our milk.’ So, there’s this sensibility and the dots are getting connected. It has been an eye opening thing to really have the sense that people are conscientiously making the choice to seek out good food and are willing to stand behind it and then actually go the extra step of having the contract.

It is not just that we care about the land or the animals. It is also that we care about the people who we are providing food for. And they care about us. They are willing, when times are hard, to buy a cow for us because we need another one. It is absolutely, wow. It’s not a small responsibility when my friend who is pregnant weans her baby on our raw milk. That is such a powerful incentive to be doing an excellent job. Our farm patrons are really a big part of our life. When the finances are tight and the work is hard and the days are long, and you have five people come down the drive way and say, ‘Thank you so much, we know this is really hard and we are so grateful that you do it.’ It does keep you going.”

2010-12-14T14:28:00.000-08:00

Oscar Otzoy is a farm worker in Immokalee, Florida. He came to the United States from Guatemala in 2006 to work in the fields and since then has teamed up with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to make a better life for farm workers.

“I arrived here with the dream of being able to help my family, but unfortunately, once you begin working in the fields, you realize the reality of the food industry. I was picking vegetables and the wages were sub-poverty wages. I was working for 10 or 12 hours a day for a total of $50 or $60. And many people feel like they are just a machine in the fields. If you get sick the company will just fire you. It is like you are an old tool. When you are broken, instead of fixing it, they just let you go. Another thing is that you don’t have steady work. People will ask what are the benefits of working in the field. And the truth is that there are no benefits that come along with being a farm worker.

But there are far uglier cases. In the past 13 years, there have been nine major slavery operations uncovered in Florida. I did not live through this situation. In 2007, there was a slavery situation in Palatka, Florida. These men were poor African American men, citizens of the United States, who were gathered from different cities and enslaved in Palatka picking fruits and vegetables. In 2008, men were held here in Immokalee in the back of a truck and they were chained in the back of that truck and held against their will and charged rent for this truck that they lived in, charged for the food and threatened if they tried to leave or escape.

We launched the Campaign for Fair Food. What we did was go to companies and say these are the problems we confront every day. What we called for was a penny more per pound of tomatoes that we picked. A Code of Conduct with zero tolerance for slavery, and the voice of farm workers included in carrying out this Code. Another really important right is the right to complain or report a complaint without fear. Another area was the right to complain when it comes to sexual harassment, which is extremely prevalent in the fields.

So we have broken through various barriers, but we see that there is still much more we need to do. In reality, to transform industrial agriculture, it is necessary to change the supermarkets. So now we are focusing on supermarkets like Publix, Kroger, Ahold and Walmart. When food is coming from situations where there is exploitation and in the most extreme case, slavery, how is it someone can accept that produce as their food? It is a question for the consumer to reflect. We are seeing the changes happening now for the farm workers. So we see this as the beginning of a change, but certainly not sufficient for the agriculture industry.”

Turning Vacant Lots into Edible Gardens

2010-11-23T08:32:00.000-08:00

Looking back over the past six months, one of the inspirational people I met was William Gardener from Edgeton Community Garden in Detroit, Michigan. In 2008, William started gardening in his backyard. He now has a total of 1.4 acres. He grows a variety of fruits, herbs and vegetables; keeps bees; and, raises egg laying chickens, meat producing chickens, ducks and plans on expanding.

“I’m trying to show that it is hip, it is cool to do this and you don’t have to change your lifestyle too much, but work a lot harder. I definitely know my kids are going to benefit from this experience and the neighborhood kids that see this going on. I know they are going to benefit. Because, I have benefitted so much from just doing it. I’m loving it.

People will get more interested over the years. Its not going to happen over night and I knew that, but that’s what a lot of people look for – that instant gratification. Next year, there’s going to be a thousand people out here. Well, no it’s not like that because people rather go to Randazzles and go to these other shops and not garden. Why get all dirty when you can go to the store and get it all fresh and looking clean? But, tasteless. It’s a process we have to go through and I have to show them that it takes hard work and the benefits of it. You save money and gas. Relationships. People talk and discuss. The people in the neighborhood come and you just talk. Just having that vibe together. You need that. A lot of people respect the garden. I don’t have vandalism in here. They walk down the rows and I see the respect. If we can do this more, it will make a change.”

2010-11-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

The past week, I have met amazing farmers and fishermen throughout Oregon and Northern California. A common theme is that regulations are interfering with small scale food providers ability to fed their community and make a living. In the guise of food safety and environmental conservation, farming and fishing communities are finding alternative methods to continue putting food on peoples’ plates.

Padi Anderson, Rye Harbor, NH

2010-10-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I travelled through New Hampshire and Maine, meeting farmers and fishermen dedicated to their livelihoods and their communities. It was an inspiration.

Padi Anderson has been involved with the fishing industry of New Hampshire for over forty years. She and her husband, Mike, own and operate the F/V Rimrack out of Rye Harbor. They catch groundfish, tuna, squid and shrimp. Padi is initiating new local markets for the fish off their boat and is reconnecting her community with fish as food.

“The first place to begin is that disconnect between fish being food. Consumers have lost it, the public has lost that connection, the government has lost that connection, the fishermen have lost that connection. Originally, fishermen would go fishing because it is a way of life. It is cultural. It is an experience. The regulatory changes have been a big challenge because we are not able to just take fish off a boat and sell it. It is illegal. But we could easily 20 years ago. We gave fish away to our neighbors, to friends to tourists or we would sell it and there was that connection and interaction with education, knowledge, conversation. It was a joy. It was a gift. It was that sharing with people who valued and appreciated what we did and the fishermen loved that connection and now due to regulatory compliance that has become a real challenge. The other part here in New Hampshire, and I suspect in some areas too, is the infrastructure is not supportive of connecting our fish locally. Again, I think a lot of our policy makers are missing that piece that fish is food. They may feel their responsibilities or their tasks are regulatory. It is important to keep in mind how it affects local communities. Socially, economically and ecologically.”

Food Voices video

2010-09-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Check out this new video on Food Voices.

Curral Velho, Brasil

2010-08-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

The fishing communities in the northeast of Brazil have the strength and courage to continue fighting to protect their coastlines and the marine ecosystem. In Curral Velho (which means “old trap” and is the type of fishing trap still used to fish) they have three intruders to fight: mass tourism, wind power and shrimp farms. The people united to defend access to the sea, although wind farms and shrimp farms are encroaching on their community. A shrimp farm sits on each side of the community and the company wanted to connect the two farms, which would have cut off access to the sea.

Despite death threats, the community resisted and a large salt plain continues to span the area between Curral Velho and the sea. Antonio Jose Conceicao Feitosa, a fisherman from Curral Velho says, “We may live in the community of the 'Old Trap,' but we will not be trapped.”

2010-08-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

I just spent 10 days in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador. There, people gather fresh food daily. They go to the river early in the morning or late at night to catch fish with their bare hands - the traditional way. They dig yucca that has been grown with love, rituals and prayers, as yucca is their sacred food. It is used for daily nutrition, baby's milk and alcohol. In the jungle yucca is yet untouched by mass production and chemical additives.

Juan is a Shuar Uwishin natural doctor and spiritual leader. He learned from his parents and grandfathers and continues to teach his children to ensure the knowledge lives on. Juan gathers medicines from the jungle to treat cancer, lyme disease, broken bones and depression. The medicine is food for the body and the spirit. The entire jungle is sacred and he worries about the threat corporations bring to their culture and traditions when they reap benefits for monetary gain. The Shuar and other indigenous peoples of Ecuador are still very strong and they protest the invasion and destruction of the Amazon through mass demonstrations and road and airport closures. It is a struggle to maintain their sovereignty, but Juan is hopeful.

2010-08-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

August 1:

Venezuela is a unique country. It is pulling away from the reins of corporate capitalism and instead embracing programs that allow every person living in Venezuela a dignified and healthy life. Throughout the country are free health clinics with minimal wait times and no fees, including prescriptions. Every person can be educated through university and the illiteracy rate is nearing 0%. Food Sovereignty is written into the Venezuelan Agricultural Policy and the Ministry of Agriculture is working with farmers to provide them with the tools they need to be productive small scale farmers. Fishermen have organized to prohibit industrial trawling in all of Venezuela's Exclusive Economic Zone, which reaches 200 miles out from shore.

Since internet connection is difficult, below is a glimpse of a few fishermen, farmers and the countryside of Venezuela.

Julio Cesar Moreno is the Spokesperson for the National Organization of Fishermen and Fisherwomen of Venezuela. He has been fishing for 21 years and has worked to pass a revolutionary law:
“In our fishing law, we have a fishing article that eliminates industrial trawling. It is the only country that has eliminated industrial trawling. Only 6% of the big catch actual goes to be commercialized. The rest just is dumped back as waste. And trawling does not give the opportunity for the little fish to grow into big fish. The fish caught by industrial trawling does not get to reach its sexual maturity. And it disrupts the environmental equilibrium in the marine ecosystem. So, this law of fishing we have protects both the fisherfolk and the fish.”

Sara Medino coordinates about 40 urban farms throughout Caracas. She works with schools to teach children the benefits of farming: “The School Projects help the kids become conscious about farming. The kids are like a sponge and when you teach them they enjoy it. Since all of us come from the earth, the kids enjoy connecting with the earth. Before they went on vacation they made a farm and they got to take home a basket of vegetables and when they come back they will be inspired to do the same thing again."

A young cacao producer, Elvyn Rinean, takes his cacao to the community-run cacao processor where he receives a fair price and consumers receive the highest quality cacao. Elvyns believes that, "We are all slaves to the system and when we realize that, we move from being slaves to being enslaved and only then can we break free and create a better world.”

2010-06-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

Toledo GROWs is the community gardening outreach program of Toledo Botanical Garden with over 100 sites throughout the city. They work with local youths to turn vacant lots into vibrant edible gardens and farms that offer communities a variety of vegetables, fruits, chickens, eggs and honey. The youth learn the power of growing healthy and nutritious foods with their own hands while developing skills they can use for their entire lives.

Michael Szuberla has been managing Toledo GROWS for ten years and has seen a sea change in attitudes toward the project during that time, while teaching city youth the wonders of good food.

“Community gardens and urban agriculture have made unbelievable strides in the last ten years. The whole dialogue has changed. Ten years ago when I would sit down with city officials and talk about growing food in the city they would say something like 'let me get this straight, we pay farmers not to grow food and I can go to a grocery store 24 hours a day and get anything I want anytime I want for a low price. What are you talking about? What's the problem?' That was the overall attitude 10 years ago. That's completely changed. People now see agriculture as a core industry, as a way to build wealth, as a way to revitalize communities. There is a dramatic shift in consciousness and real radical change. It is a chance to highlight post-industrious regions like ours. Developing food is the single best thing we can do to improve our quality of life. It can do fabulous things in terms of expressing our region's uniqueness.”

2010-06-21T05:30:00.000-07:00

On June 17th, I started traveling from New York to Wisconsin, speaking with farmers along the way. My first stop was Windsor, Ohio where I met Marge Townsend. Marge and her husband bought their farm in 1970 and started raising feeder pigs and growing oats and corns. Her daughter, Mardi, now raises grass-fed, organic cattle on their 220 acres.

The country side has changed considerably since Marge left Cleveland. Until the mid '90's, she sold her feeder pigs at local auctions, called sale barns. At that time there were several sale barns that operated three days a week where she could sell her pigs for someone else to fatten up. Now there is only one that operates on Mondays. When she first move out to her farm there were over 200 dairy farms, now there are only 50. Marge remains optimistic:

“My feeling is that every country can feed themselves. Maybe not every product, maybe not every place can grow oranges, but everyone can feed themselves adequately. And that is what should be happening. I don't think we should be depending on exports for our livelihood. And I don't think that somebody else should be exporting to us. They export what we want and then they don't have access to the food that would nourish them. Maybe there are times when there is famine or hunger when we can help, but the best thing to do is to help people grow their own food. And not buy it away from them because we have more money. I see us going the wrong way on counting on trade for everybody's well- being. I wouldn't ever outlaw selling a banana, but I don't think we have to have bananas to live. In this country the whole movement for local food is a good thing. And then we begin to educate people about what is wrong with importing so much or exporting so much.” - Marge Townsend, June 17, 2010

2010-04-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

Cochabamba, Bolivia. On April 22nd, Earth Day, the closing ceremony of the Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth took place. The declaration of the People's Conference was read and it will be presented at the Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010. A number of government officials spoke, including Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. They called for the people of the world and the progressive governments to develop a solid plan to combat climate change.

After the closing ceremony President Evo Morales met privately with a delegation of 40 farmers from around the world to discuss concrete steps necessary to implement food sovereignty.

2010-04-20T14:13:00.001-07:00

This morning, thousands of people filed into the stadium in Cochabamba to hear the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, address the participants of the Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. He spoke of the threat of greed to the health of the earth. He called for a substantial reduction in carbon emissions to start cooling the planet. He stated that rich countries need to decrease their dependency on oil and coal, and if they came to an agreement during the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, we would not need to be in Cochabamba today. He called for the protection of ingenious knowledge over unnecessary technological advances that support corporations rather than people or the earth. He spoke of the industrial production of food and the negative impact that has over our health and the health of the planet.

Morales called for the life of the earth over greed and consumption.

Cochabamba, Bolivia Day 1

2010-04-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

Cochabamba, Bolivia Day 1

Organizers estimated 10,000 people from around the world would gather this week for the Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. In reality, the numbers came closer to 20,000 as people waited on line for 4 hours to register.

More than 300 members of La Via Campesina (an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers) from around the world will be participating. Additionally, about 3,000 peasants from La Via Campesina Bolivia are leaving their communities to join the international gathering to protect their agricultural system and demand solutions to curb climate change.

During this week, farmers from around the world will tell their stories of why they are in Cochabamba and what the gathering means for their ability to maintain food sovereignty.