Food Sovereignty at the World Social Forum

[nosmokes]

original-la via campesina

Food Sovereignty at the World Social Forum

World Social Forum

Standing outside Gate # 14 of the Kasarani Sports Stadium on the outskirts of Nairobi with ears of organically grown white corn and a sign that said: "Food Sovereignty: Strategies for Transformation" was the only way we could think of to get the word out. The programs were scarse still, thousands of people appeared to be wandering around lost, and non-stop drumming and dancing out on the tarmac was a balm to the eye and ear. But came they did, about 120 people from dozens of countries North and South, East and West.

On the panel facilitated by Agricultural Missions, Inc (AMI) were women and men speakers from tough African American farm communities facing agrarian extinction, rural villages in Bungoma District of Western Kenya hammered by governmental neglect and depleted soils, farm labor camps in Florida, US (the Dis-United States), small-scale farmers from Missouri, and a respondent speaker working with small
farmers in South Africa. Including the facilitator, three of these were members of the Via Campesina movement by membership in the US based National Family Farm Coalition!

And by the time the session was finished, we had heard from knowledgeable and engaging participants from Ethiopia (former minister of agriculture there, now working with peasant struggles), India, Germany, Haiti, Jamaica, the U.K., Kenya, and Uganda, among several others.
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