US Food Sovereignty Alliance

Author: USFSA

  • “Food sovereignty is justice for farmer workers” – First Video of Food Sovereignty Stories Series

    “Food sovereignty is justice for farmer workers” – First Video of Food Sovereignty Stories Series

    Food Sovereignty Stories is a series of videos from social movements in the United States working towards a more just, sovereign, and sustainable food system. The first film focuses on food sovereignty and justice for farm workers.

    For Brenda Bentley, an organizer with Community to Community Development (C2C), a grassroots organization fighting for food justice and migrant justice in Bellingham, Washington, food sovereignty is inseparable from immigrant rights.

    “Food sovereignty in Bellingham for me has been trying to get a sanctuary ordinance for our undocumented community,” Brenda said outside Bellingham City Hall after a demonstration calling on lawmakers to act. “People don’t feel safe here.”

    When Brenda shared her thoughts in October 2018, C2C had been organizing weekly “Dignity Vigils” outside City Hall for more than a year and a half to call for protections for undocumented people against detention and deportation. The organization has worked closely with farmworkers over the years to fight for fair wages, safe working conditions, and increased self-determination for farmworkers.  

    Brenda stressed that food sovereignty must start at the foundation of the food system with justice for the farmworkers who plant, cultivate, and harvest food.

    “Food sovereignty for me, looking at it from that perspective, is people in the fields being comfortable to venture out to buy food, which they don’t. People feeling safe enough to come into town, which they don’t. People just being able to live without fear, to be able to afford the food that they grow, and they don’t,” she said. “A lot of our farmworkers at least in this county go to the food bank, and that’s disgusting.”

    “For me, food sovereignty is justice for farmworkers, fair wages, a pathway to citizenship, a reasonable life, a future for their children—all the things that we want for ourselves and our neighbors, for everyone,” she concluded.

    As C2C executive director Rosalinda Guillén put it, “everything circles around food,” and food sovereignty is part of “fighting for justice in every way that we know how.”

    Food Sovereignty Stories is a video series exploring what food sovereignty can look like for diverse social movements across the United States. Share this video and follow USFSA for updates!

  • Solidarity Letter to the Highlander Research and Education Center

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance expresses our solidarity with those at the Highlander Research and Education Center after the recent racially-motivated arson attack. USFSA’s Political Education Collective drafted the letter, and the letter was ratified by the National Coordination of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance.

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    To our friends and colleagues at the Highlander Research and Education Center:

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA), a national alliance of food justice, anti- hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups sends this message of solidarity and concern to the current staff, board and constituents of the Tennessee-based Highlander Research and Education Center, at the news of the March 29, 2019 arson attack that destroyed the main office building. While we are thankful that no one was hurt or injured, we are distressed that a white supremacist symbol was found in the parking lot near where the arson took place and deeply saddened by the loss of six decades of archival material that chronicled the emergence of social movements, including the Civil Rights Movement.

    We recognize that much of our work as the US Food Sovereignty Alliance stands on the shoulders of movement organizers for union and worker rights, anti-racism, civil rights, social and economic justice, many of whom were the beneficiaries of education received at the Highlander Center, founded in 1932 by Myles Horton, Don West and James Dombrowski. We are grateful to be the beneficiaries today of the path that was laid to strengthen grassroots organizing and movement building despite acts of bigotry and hatred, and racially-motivated threats and attacks on the poor and working class which the Highlander Center resisted with popular education, language justice, participatory research and cultural work. By serving as a catalyst for communities to take collective action to shape their own destiny, the Highlander Center has persisted and triumphed for decades, from the time of the Great Depression, through Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and Appalachian economic justice struggles, and more recently struggles for democratization in solidarity with immigrants and other marginalized and scapegoated populations.

    As we seek to develop our own political education processes as a US-based alliance devoted to profound transformation of the economy, culture and political organizing around food and agriculture in the United States and linked to struggles for food sovereignty worldwide, we lift up and honor the long history of education and training that Highlander has been an epicenter for.

    As we stand in solidarity with the Highlander Center, we also stand firmly opposed to the rise of white supremacist groups and the ideology of fear-based bigotry and violent opposition to our movements for positive social change.

    Forever in solidarity! Globalize the Struggle, Globalize the Hope!

    Signed,

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance

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    To view the .pdf letter sent to Highlander Center, click here.

     

  • USFSA Assembly in Solidarity with US and International Struggles

    USFSA Assembly in Solidarity with US and International Struggles

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) held its IV National Assembly from October 12th thru 14th in Bellingham, Washington with the participation of 117 members, allies, and individuals from 71 organizations and 7 countries.  The theme “Defending Mother Earth for an Agroecological Life:  No Walls, No Capitalism” was enacted through art, drama, music, dance, organizing, debate, analysis, healthy locally-sourced food, and spirited “mística” ceremonies.

    Read and download the “Bellingham Declaration” in English or Spanish.

  • Grassroots Movements Celebrated for Building Solutions to Food and Climate Crises

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    Black Mesa Water Coalition, Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica de Puerto Rico Win the Food Sovereignty Prize

    October 14, 2018 (Bellingham, Washington) – The U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) honored Black Mesa Water Coalition and Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica de Puerto Rico on Sunday at the tenth annual Food Sovereignty Prize ceremony on Lummi and Nooksack land in Coast Salish Territory, in the city now called Bellingham, Washington.

    Black Mesa Water Coalition, the domestic honoree, was awarded the prize for restoring indigenous food sovereignty and uplifting youth leaders among Navajo and Hopi communities. Organización Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica de Puerto Rico, the international honoree, was recognized particularly for mobilizing Food Sovereignty Brigades to assist farmers recover in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

    Presented as an alternative to the World Food Prize, the Food Sovereignty Prize honors steadfast commitment to food sovereignty. Social movements, community organizations, and activists around the world recognize the importance of the prize.

    “These grassroots organizations demonstrate how frontline communities most affected by social and ecological crises are the ones with solutions to society’s most pressing problems.” -Doria Robinson, Urban Tilth (coordinator of the Western Region of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance)

    Black Mesa Water Coalition utilizes green economic development and other diverse strategies, rooted in indigenous knowledge, to address issues of poverty, hunger, and environmental injustices driven by extractive industries and centuries of colonialism. “We need to notify humanity that we need to drastically change the way we do things, especially getting away from fossil fuels, and the food system is one way to begin that transition.” -Roberto Nutlouis, Black Mesa Water Coalition

    Organización Boricuá organizes farmers to transition to sustainable agriculture and sovereignty in Puerto Rico. “Agroecology as Puerto Ricans, coming from a colonial context, has given us a space to organize and deepen our struggles. This work is a vehicle of transformation for a sovereign, free, and just Puerto Rico.” –Jesus Vázquez, Organización Boricuá

    Media contacts:

    Liz Darrow (360) 220-9065, c2cmedia@foodjustice.org
    Ahna Kruzic, (510) 927-5379, ahna@panna.org

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