Food Sovereignty | Washington’s C2C and Palestinian Farmers Share 2014 Prize







Moderator’s
Note: The US Food Sovereignty
Alliance (USFSA) announced on September 9 the two co-recipients of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize: The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) of
Palestine, based in Gaza and the West Bank, and Community to
Community Development/Comunidad a Comunidad (C2C) of
Bellingham, Washington. Please join us in celebrating the good news and continue
to support the food justice innovations of C2C and the South Central Farmers.





We are reposting the press release from the US Food
Sovereignty Alliance. I personally would like to extend congratulations to Rosalinda
Guillen of C2C who has been our colleague for more than a decade as a member of
the Board of Directors of The Acequia
Institute. She is the second of our Board Members to win this prize along
with Tezozomoc of the South Central Farmers Feeding Families who shared the
prize in 2011. Please join us in celebrating this accomplishment by our
esteemed colleagues at C2C.








FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 9, 2014








U.S.
Farmworkers & Palestinian Farmers share 2014 Food Sovereignty
Prize





US Food
Sovereignty Alliance





SOURCE: La
Via Campesina








Honorees
Represent Communities Defending Their Human Rights to Food in the Face of
Policies of Land and Water Grabbing, Migration, and Militarization





Des Moines, IA — The US Food Sovereignty Alliance
(USFSA) is honored to name the Union of Agricultural Work Committees
(UAWC) of Palestine, based in Gaza and the West Bank, and Community to
Community Development /Comunidad a Comunidad (C2C) of
Bellingham, Washington, as co-recipients of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize.





Their stories of continuous struggle to defend the
rights of their communities – farmers and fishers in the occupied
Palestinian territories and migrant Mexican farm workers in
Washington State, both seeking to produce their own food, on their own land,
in their home communities – stand in stark contrast to the
storylines coming from agribusiness: that technological changes to crops can
meet human needs and resolve hunger.





Palestine has been under Israeli occupation for
decades and this summer faced heightened pressure, including thousands
killed and many more injured from bombings, destruction of homes,
schools, hospitals, farms, and fishing boats, and hundreds of arrests without
due process, and the continued building of settlements on
Palestinian farmland. UAWC builds farmers cooperatives and seed banks, and
supports women’s leadership, while continuing to seek its members’
human rights to food, land, and water.





“This important prize inspires UAWC to carry on its
work in defending Palestinian farmers' rights against the brutal
Israeli violations, both through supporting small-scale farmers and
fishermen toward their food sovereignty and rights to land and water, and
also through coordination with local and international movements
for social justice and human rights," said Khaled Hidan, General
Director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine.





In Washington State, amid failed immigration policies
that criminalize working families, Community to Community Development
has supported and worked with immigrant farm workers to develop farm
worker-owned cooperatives, organize a successful nutrition
education project called Cocinas Sanas, and promote domestic fair trade in
regional assemblies and meetings. Most recently, C2C has supported an
emerging farm worker union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and organized
a national boycott of Sakuma Farms, their employer, who withheld
pay, provided poor housing, and has since retaliated against the
workers. Familias Unidas por la Justicia recently won a settlement for
wage theft and


had a Superior Court Judge rule uphold their right to
organize – but their fight is not over.





“In honoring Community to Community, the USFSA honors
indigenous farmworkers in the U.S. Displaced by NAFTA, these
peasant farmers from Mexico are practicing a tradition of struggle for
justice. Together, C2C and Familias Unidas are promoting food
sovereignty in rural Washington State and challenging the corporate
agricultural interests


that are controlling our food system,” said Rosalinda
Guillen, Executive Director of Community to Community
Development.





The Food Sovereignty Prize will be awarded on the
evening of October 15 in Des Moines, IA, at the Historical Building. The
Food Sovereignty Prize challenges the view that simply producing more
through industrial agriculture and aquaculture will end
hunger or reduce


suffering. The world currently produces more than
enough food, but unbalanced access to wealth means the inadequate
access to food. Real solutions protect the rights to land, seeds and water
of family farmers and indigenous communities worldwide and
promote sustainable agriculture through agroecology. The communities around
the world who struggle to grow their food and take care of their
land have long known that destructive political, economic, and
social policies, as well as militarization, deprive communities of their
rights. These are the root causes of want, hunger and poverty.





The USFSA represents a network of food producers and
labor, environmental, faith-based, social justice and
anti-hunger advocacy organizations. Additional supporters of the 2014 Food
Sovereignty Prize include Iowa Citizens for Community
Improvement, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – Des
Moines, and Occupy the World Food Prize, along with media sponsor
EcoWatch.





For event updates and background on food sovereignty
and the prize winners, visit www.foodsovereigntyprize.org. Also,
visit the Food Sovereignty Prize on Facebook
(facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyPrize) and join the conversation on Twitter (#foodsovprize)





CONTACT:





Adam Mason, State Policy Organizing Director


Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement


(515) 282-0484, adam@iowacci.org


Lisa Griffith, National Family Farm Coalition


US Food Sovereignty Alliance


(773) 319-5838, lisa@nffc.net










































































































































































































































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