Justice Begins with Seeds | 4th Gathering in Oregon

BIOSAFETY AND FOOD
JUSTICE ACTIVISTS TO MEET ON EVE OF KEY ORE. & CO. VOTES ON GMO
LABELING

Moderator’s Note: The 4th Conference of the Biosafety Alliance: Justice Begins with
Seeds convenes this week on September
12-13. We are posting a Welcome Letter prepared by Miguel Robles of the
Biosafety Alliance and Devon G. Peña of The Acequia Institute that accompanies
the Official Program. Please visit the Conference page at The Biosafety Alliance.

 

Welcome to the 4^th
‘Justice Begins With Seeds’ Conference

Miguel Robles |
Biosafety Alliance

Devon G. Peña | The Acequia
Institute

The
Fourth Conference of the Biosafety Alliance, Justice Begins with Seeds,
convenes in Portland, Oregon on September 12th and 13th. The conference was
planned 
during the 2013 Seattle gathering. It reflects lessons learned from the
movement
 as it unfolded between the I-522 defeat in Washington state and the
overwhelming approval, earlier this year, of the Jackson and Josephine County
ordinances in Oregon, which banned the production of GMOs to protect farmers.
The shift is also apparent with passage of labeling laws in Vermont, Maine, and
other states in the Northeast. There are GMO crop bans in Hawai’i and pending
votes on GMO labeling in Oregon and Colorado.

Against
the backdrop of these citizen-initiated exercises in statutes supporting “food
democracy” (a.k.a. right-to-know) Monsanto, other biotech firms, and their
allies 
in the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) are spending millions
challenging these state and municipal laws in courts, for example in Hawai’i
and Vermont, and are also mobilizing a multi-million dollar PR campaign to win
the hearts and minds of the consumer and voting public.

The
next few years will be decisive for the future of the food system in the United
States and the rest of the world. Our movement derives its strength from the
fact that it is really much more than a set of non-GMO struggles. The Seattle
gathering – highlighting the work of respected alternative food system
activists like Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), George Kimbrell (Center for Food
Safety), Alexis Baden-Mayer (Organic Consumers Association), Tezozomoc (South
Central Farmers), and Theo Ferguson (Vital Systems) – showed how this movement
is, at its most vital core, a
food justice movement that
melds economic, social, and environmental justice values with ecological
sustainability; sound public health policies for clean air, water, and food
conjoined with a return to wholesome heritage cuisines; all of which are
buttressed by wise equity-minded investments in radical (qua transformative)
social entrepreneurship. This movement is thus concerned with nurturing links
between the rebuilding of local food systems and the revitalizing of civil
society’s democratic institutions.

All
these positive dimensions of food justice grow best in an environment in which
local, and especially marginalized communities, have greater access and control
over their food choices. This is where we envision a convergence between food
justice movement activism on the non-GMO front and the pursuit of alternative
systems for food sovereignty as a unifying principle of the Justice Begins with
Seeds Conference series.

Today,
the challenges of the great drought and climate change provide an opportunity
to further buttress local and global campaigns for food sovereignty by focusing
on
the growing number of consumers who consider GMOs as inappropriate for
personal consumption or as the dominant model for organizing agriculture and
food systems in the USA and beyond.

Consumers
increasingly reject any priority placed on profit before sustainability; they
disdain the “high-tech” system focused on monocultures designed to consume huge
quantities of agro-chemicals. Consumers are rightly cynical of claims by
Monsanto and other corporations that they offer the promise of “green
capitalism”; they are cynical because they recognize the banality and emptiness
of claims by those most guilty of indiscriminate extraction of increasingly
scarce resources including water and soil.

Consumers
are increasingly more knowledgeable and understand the illegitimacy of
“negative externalities” and insist that the huge chemical and fuel input
costs
for transport of global food crops to consumption centers, which may be
located thousands of miles away, are part of an utterly destructive total
cultural ecological footprint that damages environment and society alike.
Our movement supports the consumer activism that collectively seeks to end this
most systemic and yet easily overlooked form of structural violence.

Consumers
are voting against Monsanto because they choose to support local artisan,
traditional, and organic family farmers and community-based agriculture.
Consumers are voting to go local and non-GMO. This is what happens when federal
government agencies like the Monsanto-subsidiary USDA fail to protect the planet
or farmers from undeniable ecological damages or to objectively and
independently address the cumulative and inequitable risks GMOs pose for
human health.

The
global biosafety movement is an important force for sustainable agriculture and
food sovereignty. Through educational campaigns launched by scientists, health
professionals, farmers, educators, and mothers in alternative media, millions
of people opt to grow their own food; they promote the saving of native and
heirloom seeds and join food cooperatives; they attend protests against the
corporations that seek to maintain control of our food, diet, and even
cultures; they write inspired and well-informed letters to their elected
representatives demanding the right to know the contents of products through
the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms. People are
concerned about the high level of production of GM food crops in the United
States and they also want the ability to identify the ingredients in the food
they eat or serve their families.

This
great movement is made up of millions of people of all sectors and
socioeconomic backgrounds and is increasingly trans-border as well. Our
transnational networks are very strong as illustrated by the presence at the
Fourth Conference of Adelita San Vicente Tello, a lead organizer in defense of
the maize land races of Mexico, which is the heart of the Center of Origin for Zea mays.

This
contrasts with the collapsing and ruptured networks of collusion between
senior
government officials (who continue to ignore farmer demands and consumer
concerns) and large corporations who have created a monopoly on seeds and
beyond the borders into places like Mexico where they intend to take over the
biological heritage of the indigenous and traditional smallholder farmers. We
need to continue working and disrupting the massive misinformation campaign
launched by the biotechnology corporations.

Undoubtedly
one of the problems Monsanto and the other Gene Giants face is the need to
invest millions of dollars to go beyond GMOs in processed foods to GM versions
of all of our fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and tubers. They need to break
outside the boundary of the market in production of additives for use by other
corporations producing soft drinks, junk foods, and other highly-processed
foods which use transgenic high fructose corn syrup; GM canola for cooking
oils; and GM soy for increased production volumes. It is no wonder that even
some popular brands of Mexican mole contain GM soybean derivatives.

These companies
invested millions of dollars against California Proposition 37 and Washington
Initiative 522 (that would mandate GMO labeling) with ads in the
mass media
that bombarded the voters with lies hoping to confuse them. As with California
and Washington they are investing heavily to promote confusion in the state of
Oregon against labeling Initiative 92. However, in an unprecedented event on
May 20 of this year the residents of Jackson and Josephine counties voted for a
ban on transgenic plants. With this precedent, it is not hard to imagine that
voters 
in the state of Oregon have reached a higher level of awareness, with
which neither the mass media nor the recommendations of government officials
will stop the class action labeling of foodstuffs containing GMOs.

On
behalf of our colleagues, we welcome all food justice and seed sovereignty
advocates and organizers to Biosafety Alliance’s Fourth Annual Justice Begins
with Seeds Conference in the city of Portland, Oregon. More than 40 speakers
will address agricultural, legal, scientific, environmental, national, and
international political issues related to the multiple implications of GMOs in
our daily lives. The conference is a think-tank for the movement and brings
scientists, farmers, producers, consumer advocates, and educators together in
defense of biological and cultural diversity, human health, and food
sovereignty.