Food Sovereignty Documents | Statement of the Africa-U.S. Food Sovereignty Summit












Photo by Alex Garland.
Courtesy of CAGJ    





Moderator’s
Note: Last week, I was fortunate to
host some of the participants in the Africa-U.S. Food Sovereignty Strategy
Summit organized by the Community
Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ) as part of the AGRA-Watch campaign.
This vitally important project monitors and reports on the Gates Foundation and
its Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The Summit was held on
October 10-14 in a Seattle union hall with a packed public Town Hall meeting on
October 12.





One of the Summit participants was Dr. Daniel Maingi
of Growth Partners Africa and the Food Rights Alliance in Kenya. He graciously
agreed to visit a class I am teaching on the anthropology of food. Dr. Maingi
explained the need for recognition and support of community-based local action-oriented
research by African farmers seeking food sovereignty.





Like the other participants in this important
meeting, Dr. Maingi’s approach emphasizes the need for a shift to an
agroecology paradigm, an approach in which smallholder farmers lead research
and development projects that emphasize local place-based knowledge of native
plants, heirloom crops, and other organisms in diverse polyculture farming
systems. The agroecology paradigm – increasingly embraced by scientists and
policy makers around the world – marks a great contrast to the
chemically-addicted monocultures that are characteristic of the biotechnology
path promoted by the Gates Foundation through AGRA.





Dr. Maingi also spoke of the connection between
hunger, malnutrition and violence against women and children. In this manner,
agroecology may also offer a path away from this structural violence since
women remain vital smallholders and subsistence producers.





The Africa-US Food Sovereignty Summit adopted a
statement that we are reposting for our readers’ convenience. For additional
reporting, video clips, and other Summit information, please visit the links
that follow the official statement.  I
invite my readers and followers to please support the work of the Community
Alliance for Global Justice and the AGRA-Watch campaign.









Statement of the
African and U.S. Food Sovereignty Summit






SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
OCTOBER 13, 2014





We are brought together by a shared
belief in just, sustainable and equitable food for all. We share a concern over
the dangerous loss of agricultural biodiversity and of the loss of dignified
and viable livelihoods in the countryside.





In great appreciation of the wisdom we each shared coming
from our diverse cultures, struggles and experiences that are all a reflection
of our shared humanity:





We stand together against the corporate control of our
food systems, the lack of accountability of global institutions like the G8 New
Alliance For Food Security and Nutrition, the Global Agriculture and Food
Security Program (GAFSP), the United States (US) government’s Feed the Future
Initiative, the Grow Africa Partnership, the Gates Foundation and its Alliance
for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and others, that are forcing their
policies and institutions upon the farmers of the world to open up markets and
create spaces for multinationals to secure profits; against the monopolization
of our seeds that criminalizes the historical farm practices of saving,
sharing, selling and exchanging seeds; against the displacement and
dispossession of small-scale farm producers and workers from their lands;
against the new Green Revolution, the global Free Trade Agreements,
“climate-smart agriculture” and “sustainable intensification”.





We pledge solidarity with the struggles of each of our
organizations and with the global food sovereignty movement, and will work in
mutual support to amplify the voices of the people on the ground fighting for
food sovereignty, share information with the general public about food
sovereignty and agro-ecology, and expose the myths underlying the false idea
that corporate agriculture is necessary to “feed the world.”





The undersigned,




African Centre for Biosafety


Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa
(AFSA)


Community Alliance for Global
Justice/AGRA Watch


Community to Community Development


Family Farm Defenders


Friends of the Earth—Africa


Food & Water Watch


Food First


Grassroots International


Growth Partners Africa


International Development Exchange
(IDEX)


Kenya Food Rights Alliance (KeFRA)


National Family Farm Coalition


Pesticide Action Network North America
(PANNA)


Right to Agrarian Reform for Food
Sovereignty Campaign


Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural


Rural Women’s Assembly (Southern
Africa)


Surplus People Project


WhyHunger


Zimbabwe
Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum (ZIMSOFF) 








·     
Seattle Times article: Critics
of Gates’ ag programs bring the battle to Seattle ·     
Crosscut
article: African
Food Leaders Call Foul on Gates Foundation's Green Revolution Policies  ·     
Photos
from initial reception at Kay Bullitt’s home
 ·     
Video:  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7b9b95QLA6Q
 ·     
Photos
from the Africa-US Food Sovereignty Forum in Seattle

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