Food Fight! Waging Love! Radio Program
In Memory of John Kinsman, Founder, Family Farm Defenders,
and
Charity Mahouna Hicks, Detroit Food Sovereignty Leader
"This is about waging love; we love ourselves, we love our children, we love the earth, we love all of life. So this is not a protest this is actually an act of waging love. The love we are talking about is the love of life not the love of death."
Charity Mahouna Hicks
Food Fight! Waging Love! Radio Program is a joyful and engaging spark aimed to ignite a collective awakening of the need for transformation of our food and agriculture systems to healthy, truly democratic and sustainable systems that create livelihoods with dignity for small and family farmers, and farm and food workers alike.
"Poor diets kill more brothers than pistols
We're fighting for our lives like Michael Vic's pit bulls.
Dog eat dog, America eats the young,
We die from beef, but more from meat than the gun.
Bullets for breakfast and mass murder meals.
Enemy of the state, and your plate is the battlefield
in this FOOD FIGHT!"
http://sosjuice.com/foodfight/
1. Food:
A Basic Human Right. The basic human right to healthy nutritious,
culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to
sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each
nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right
and guarantee the development of the primary sector to ensure the
concrete realization of this fundamental right.
2. Agrarian
Reform. A genuine agrarian reform is necessary which gives landless
and farming people—especially women—ownership and control of the land
they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The
right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender ,
religion, race, social class or ideology; the land belongs to those
who work it.
3. Protecting Natural Resources. Food
Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural
resources, especially land, water and seeds and livestock breeds. The
people who work the land must have the right to practice sustainable
management of natural resources and to conserve biodiversity free of
restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils and reduced use of agrochemicals.
4. Reorganizing Food Trade. Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. National agricultural policies must prioritize production for domestic consumption and food self-sufficiency. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.
5. Ending Corporate
Control over our Food and Agriculture. Food Sovereignty is undermined
by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The
growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural
policies has been facilitated by the economic policies of multilateral
organizations such as the WTO, World Bank and the IMF. Regulation
and taxation of speculative capital and a strictly enforced Code of
Conduct for Trans National Corporations is therefore needed.
6. Social Peace. Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Increasing
levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with
the growing oppression of ethnic minorities and indigenous
populations, aggravate situations of injustice and hopelessness, The
ongoing displacement, forced urbanization, repression and increasing
incidence of racism against smallholder farmers cannot be tolerated.
7. Democratic
Control. Smallholder farmers and consumers must have direct input
into formulating agricultural policies at all levels. The
United Nations and related organizations will have to undergo a
process of democratization to enable this to become a reality. Everyone has the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision making. These
rights form the basis of good governance, accountability and equal
participation in economic, political and social life, free from all
forms of discrimination. Rural
women, in particular must be granted direct and active decision making
on food and rural issues.
With Host and Creator, Maria Whitaker, Program Director, Kansas Chapter of Family Farm Defenders
Maria practiced poverty and civil rights law and taught law before falling in love with agroecology. She combined her passion for justice with her passion for agroecology and her advocacy, analytical, research and oratory skills to found the Kansas Chapter of Family Farm Defenders in 2011. She graduated from Harvard University and University of Chicago Law School. She speaks English, French, and Spanish. She has participated in two global movements for food sovereignty: joining the La Via Campesina Caravan and Forum for Life, Environmental and Social justice in Mexico in 2010 and the TransAfrican Climate Caravan of Hope in 2011. She was chosen for a Bold Food Fellowship in 2011 by Growing Power.
Food Fight! Waging Love! Radio Show
If you would like to be a guest on the show or have
suggestions or comments, we welcome you to email Maria Whittaker
at foodsovereignty@yahoo.com with Food Fight! in the heading. We particularly
envision lifting-up the work of those most directly and negatively impacted by
our food, agriculture and socioeconomic systems as well as youth.
The objectives of this show are to:
1. Spark a collective awakening of the need for the transformation of our food and agriculture systems into healthy, just fair and sustainable systems that also provide livelihoods with dignity to small and family farmers and food and farm workers alike;
2. Spark a collective awakening of the need for us to organize
ourselves inclusively, from the bottom-up, to take actions to change our food,
agriculture, and socio-economic systems so that they serve our health, wealth
and sustainability;
