US Food Sovereignty Alliance

Category: Food Sovereignty

Contains all pages under the Food Sovereignty menu item.

  • Join the Virtual 2023 Food Sovereignty Prize Ceremony on Dec. 14!

    Join the Virtual 2023 Food Sovereignty Prize Ceremony on Dec. 14!

    Español abajo | Kreyol ayisyen anbao

    US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA)
    Announces 2023 Food Sovereignty Prize Winners & Virtual Ceremony

    Black Dirt Farm Collective &
    Mouvman Peyizan Papay-MPP of Haiti

    Join the virtual 2023 Food Sovereignty Prize Ceremony on Thursday, December 14 at 3:30pm (PST), 4:30pm (MST), 5:30pm (CST), 6:30pm (EST and Haiti time)

    Register here
    for the virtual event emceed by Darnella Winston
    of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives

    Now in its 15th year, the Food Sovereignty Prize is given annually near World Food Day to a domestic and international organization advancing food sovereignty – the right of all peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their food, fishery, and farming systems. It stands in contrast to the corporate-funded World Food Prize, which perpetuates the myth that society can produce its way out of hunger and the climate crisis with biotechnology and synthetic inputs.

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance has awarded the Food Sovereignty Prize to two outstanding organizations, the Black Dirt Farm Collective, located in Maryland, and Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP), based in Haiti. This award is particularly meaningful for MPP at this time, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary amid ongoing political strife, economic depression, and violence in Haiti, prompting an announcement by the UN Security Council to send armed forces into the country.

    The Black Dirt Farm Collective is a collective of farmers, educators and organizers that arose from the need to support and protect Black agrarian knowledge in the US mid-Atlantic region. The Collective fights for a just transition using “Afroecology” – the connection between Black agrarianism and agroecology – to build systemic solutions to global food and farm crises. Racial discrimination led to the systematic removal of US Black farmers from the land. Between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers lost roughly 90% of the farmland they collectively owned, and the US Department of Agriculture now reports that fewer than 1% of US farmers are Black. The Black Dirt Farm Collective is committed to reclaiming Black agrarian history, lost generational wealth, and returning to the land.

    Shakara Tyler, a returning-generation farmer, educator and organizer and Collective co-founder, summarized one of its essential tenets: “If we are not feeding ourselves our culture, who will?”

    Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP, or Papaye Peasant Movement) was established in 1973, aligned with the international peasant movement La Via Campesina from the 1990s onward, and has grown to represent more than 60,000 members. The movement empowers rural agricultural workers and focuses on food sovereignty to reclaim Haiti’s independence from global food imports. The Prize committee recognizes MPP’s work combating the ongoing environmental, humanitarian, and hunger crisis in Haiti, worsened by entrenched legacies of colonization, land grabbing, climate change, and foreign exploitation at the expense of local food systems. MPP works directly with local farmers to bolster local food economies through agroecology and build environmental resiliency through planting tens of millions of trees. This inspiring grassroots strategy rejects Haiti’s continued reliance on sporadic international aid in favor of local community control.

    “When we received word of this honor during our Food Sovereignty Camp, 450 young peasant leaders let out a thunderous cry of joy,” said MPP leader Jusléne Tyresias. “Through MPP’s 50-year history, Haiti’s peasants have persisted, not only confronting multiple crises head-on, but planting seeds – literally and figuratively – for our people to live with dignity, safety, and sovereignty.”

    Join us to hear their stories and to celebrate their efforts to realize food sovereignty!

    Honorees will be recognized at the virtual 2023 Food Sovereignty Prize Ceremony on Thursday, December 14 at 3:30pm (PST), 4:30pm (MST), 5:30pm (CST), 6:30pm (EST and Haiti time)

    Free registration here

    About the US Food Sovereignty Alliance

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is a US-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based and food producer groups that upholds the right to food as a basic human right and works to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty. The Alliance works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies and assert democratic control over the food system, believing that all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced in an ecologically sound manner.
    Learn more at usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org

    La Alianza por la Soberanía Alimentaria de los Estados Unidos (USFSA) Anuncia los ganadores del Premio a la Soberanía Alimentaria 2023 y Ceremonia Virtual

    Colectivo Black Dirt Farm & Mouvman Peyizan Papay-MPP de Haití

    Únete a la Ceremonia virtual del Premio Soberanía Alimentaria 2023 el jueves 14 de diciembre a las 3:30pm (PST), 4:30pm (MST), 5:30pm (CST), 6:30pm (EST y hora de Haití)

    Inscríbase aquí para asistir al acto virtual presentado por Darnella Winston, de la Federación de Cooperativas del Sur

    En su 15ª edición, el Premio a la Soberanía Alimentaria se concede anualmente cerca del Día Mundial de la Alimentación a una organización nacional e internacional que promueva la soberanía alimentaria: el derecho de todos los pueblos a alimentos sanos y culturalmente apropiados producidos mediante métodos ecológicamente racionales y sostenibles, y su derecho a definir sus sistemas alimentarios, pesqueros y agrícolas. Contrasta con el Premio Mundial de la Alimentación, financiado por las grandes empresas, que perpetúa el mito de que la sociedad puede salir del hambre y de la crisis climática mediante la biotecnología y los insumos sintéticos.

    La Alianza por la Soberanía Alimentaria de Estados Unidos ha concedido el Premio a la Soberanía Alimentaria a dos organizaciones destacadas: Black Dirt Farm Collective, de Maryland, y Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP), de Haití. Este premio es especialmente significativo para MPP en este momento, en el que acaba de celebrar su 50 aniversario en medio de continuos conflictos políticos, depresión económica y violencia en Haití, que han llevado al Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU a anunciar el envío de fuerzas armadas al país.

    La Granja Colectiva de Tierra Negra es un colectivo de agricultores, educadores y organizadores que surgió de la necesidad de apoyar y proteger el conocimiento agrario negro en la región del Atlántico Medio estadounidense. El Colectivo lucha por una transición justa utilizando la “Afroecología” -la conexión entre el agrarismo negro y la agroecología- para construir soluciones sistémicas a la alimentación mundial.

    El Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP, o Movimiento Campesino Papaye) se creó en 1973, se alineó con el movimiento campesino internacional La Vía Campesina a partir de la década de 1990 y ha crecido hasta representar a más de 60.000 miembros. El movimiento empodera a los trabajadores agrícolas rurales y se centra en la soberanía alimentaria para reclamar la independencia de Haití de las importaciones mundiales de alimentos. El comité del Premio reconoce la labor del MPP en la lucha contra la actual crisis medioambiental, humanitaria y del hambre en Haití, agravada por el arraigado legado de la colonización, el acaparamiento de tierras, el cambio climático y la explotación extranjera a expensas de los sistemas alimentarios locales. El MPP trabaja directamente con los agricultores locales para reforzar las economías alimentarias locales a través de la agroecología y crear resiliencia medioambiental mediante la plantación de decenas de millones de árboles. Esta inspiradora estrategia de base rechaza la continua dependencia de Haití de la ayuda internacional esporádica en favor de la cooperación de la comunidad local.

    “Cuando recibimos la noticia de este honor durante nuestro Campamento por la Soberanía Alimentaria, 450 jóvenes líderes campesinos lanzaron un estruendoso grito de alegría”, declaró Jusléne Tyresias, líder del MPP. “A lo largo de los 50 años de historia del MPP, los campesinos de Haití han persistido, no sólo haciendo frente a múltiples crisis de frente, sino plantando semillas -literal y figurativamente- para que nuestro pueblo viva con dignidad, seguridad y soberanía”.

    Únase a nosotros para escuchar sus historias y celebrar sus esfuerzos por alcanzar la soberanía alimentaria.

    Los galardonados recibirán su reconocimiento en la ceremonia virtual del Premio Soberanía Alimentaria 2023, que tendrá lugar el jueves 14 de diciembre a las 15:30 (PST), 16:30 (MST), 17:30 (CST) y 18:30 (EST y hora de Haití).

    Inscripción gratuita aquí

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    Acerca de la Alianza por la Soberanía Alimentaria de EEUU

    La Alianza por la Soberanía Alimentaria de Estados Unidos (USFSA, por sus siglas en inglés) es una alianza estadounidense de grupos de justicia alimentaria, contra el hambre, sindicales, ecologistas, religiosos y de productores de alimentos que defiende el derecho a la alimentación como un derecho humano básico y trabaja para conectar nuestras luchas locales y nacionales con el movimiento internacional por la soberanía alimentaria. La Alianza trabaja para acabar con la pobreza, reconstruir las economías alimentarias locales y afirmar el control democrático sobre el sistema alimentario, convencida de que todas las personas tienen derecho a alimentos sanos, culturalmente apropiados y producidos de forma ecológicamente racional.

    Más información en www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org 

    US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) Anonse Ganyan Pri Souverènte Manje 2023 yo & Virtuel Seremoni

    Black Dirt Farm Collective & Mouvman Peyizan Papay-MPP d Ayiti

    Antre nan Seremoni Pri souverènte Manje 2023 vityèl Jedi 14 Desanm a 3:30 pm (PST), 4:30 pm (MST), 5:30 pm (CST), 6:30 pm (EST ak lè Ayiti)

    Enskri isit la pou evènman vityèl ki te òganize pa
    Darnella Winston nan Federasyon Koperativ

    Sid yo Kounye a nan 15yèm ane li, Pri Souverènte Manje a bay chak ane tou pre Jounen Mondyal Manje a yon òganizasyon domestik ak entènasyonal k ap avanse souverènte alimantè – dwa tout pèp pou manje ki an sante ak kiltirèl ki apwopriye ki pwodui atravè metòd ekolojik ki bon ak dirab, ak dwa yo genyen pou defini sistèm manje, lapèch, ak agrikilti yo. Li kanpe kontrèman ak World Food Prize ki finanse ak antrepriz la, ki perpétuer mit ke sosyete a ka pwodui fason li soti nan grangou ak kriz klimatik la ak bioteknoloji ak entrain sentetik.

    US Food Sovereignty Alliance te bay pri souverènte alimantè a bay de òganizasyon eksepsyonèl, Black Dirt Farm Collective, ki sitiye nan Maryland, ak Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP), ki baze ann Ayiti. Prim sa a patikilyèman enpòtan pou MPP nan moman sa a, ki fèk selebre 50yèm anivèsè li nan mitan konfli politik kontinyèl, depresyon ekonomik, ak vyolans ann Ayiti, sa ki pouse yon anons Konsèy Sekirite Nasyonzini an pou voye fòs lame nan peyi a.

    Fèm Kolektif nan Pousyè Tè Nwa se yon kolektif kiltivatè, edikatè ak òganizatè ki soti nan bezwen pou sipòte ak pwoteje konesans agrè Nwa nan rejyon Mid-Atlantik Etazini an. Kolektif la goumen pou yon tranzisyon jis lè l sèvi avèk “Afwoekoloji” – koneksyon ki genyen ant agrè Nwa ak agwoekoloji – pou bati solisyon sistemik nan manje mondyal ak kriz agrikòl. Diskriminasyon rasyal te mennen nan retire sistematik kiltivatè Nwa Ameriken yo nan peyi a. Ant 1910 ak 1997, kiltivatè Nwa yo te pèdi apeprè 90% nan tè agrikòl yo te posede ansanm, e Depatman Agrikilti Ameriken an kounye a rapòte ke mwens pase 1% nan kiltivatè ameriken yo se Nwa. Black Dirt Farm Collective pran angajman pou reprann istwa agrè Nwa yo, pèdi richès jenerasyon yo, epi retounen nan peyi a.

    Shakara Tyler, yon kiltivatè jenerasyon retounen, edikatè ak òganizatè ak ko-fondatè Kolektif, te rezime youn nan prensip esansyèl li yo: “Si nou pa nouri kilti nou an, ki moun ki pral?”

    Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP, oswa Mouvman Peyizan Papaye) te etabli an 1973, ann amoni ak mouvman peyizan entènasyonal La Via Campesina depi ane 1990 yo, e li te grandi pou reprezante plis pase 60,000 manm. Mouvman an otorize travayè agrikòl nan zòn riral yo epi li konsantre sou souverènte alimantè pou reprann endepandans Ayiti kont enpòtasyon manje mondyal. Komite Prize a rekonèt travay MPP ap konbat kriz anviwònman an, imanitè ak grangou k ap kontinye ann Ayiti, ki vin pi mal ak eritaj kolonizasyon anrasinen yo, afèkte tè, chanjman klimatik, ak eksplwatasyon etranje sou kont sistèm manje lokal yo. MPP travay dirèkteman ak kiltivatè lokal yo pou ranfòse ekonomi manje lokal yo grasa agwoekoloji epi pou devlope rezistans anviwònman an atravè plante plizyè dizèn milyon pye bwa. Estrateji debaz enspire sa a rejte depandans kontinyèl Ayiti sou èd entènasyonal detanzantan an favè kontwòl kominote lokal yo.

    Lidè MPP Jusléne Tyresias di: “Lè nou te resevwa pawòl onè sa a pandan Kan Souverènte Alimantè nou an, 450 jèn lidè peyizan te lanse yon gwo rèl lajwa. “Atravè 50 ane istwa MPP a, peyizan Ayiti yo te pèsiste, non sèlman fè fas ak plizyè kriz tèt-sou, men plante grenn – literalman ak senbolikman – pou pèp nou an viv ak diyite, sekirite, ak souverènte.”

    Join nou pou tande istwa yo epi selebre efò yo pou reyalize souverènte manje! Yo pral rekonèt moun ki onore yo nan seremoni pri vityèl souverènte alimantè 2023 Jedi 14 desanm a 3:30 pm (PST), 4:30 pm (MST), 5:30 pm (CST), 6:30 pm (EST ak lè Ayiti).

    Enskripsyon gratis isit la

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    Konsènan US Food Sovereignty Alliance

    US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) se yon alyans ki baze Ozetazini nan gwoup jistis manje, anti-grangou, travay, anviwònman, ki baze sou lafwa ak pwodiktè manje ki defann dwa a manje kòm yon dwa imen debaz epi travay pou konekte lokal nou an. ak lit nasyonal nan mouvman entènasyonal la pou souverènte manje. Alliance lan travay pou mete fen nan povrete, rekonstwi ekonomi manje lokal yo ak revandike kontwòl demokratik sou sistèm alimantè a, kwè ke tout moun gen dwa a manje ki an sante, ki apwopriye pou kiltirèl pwodui nan yon fason ekolojik ki bon. Aprann plis sou www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org

  • US Food Sovereignty Alliance Demands Democratic Food Systems that are Based on Human Rights and the Principles of Food Sovereignty

    The small-scale food producers and their allies in the US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) – family farmers, rural workers, fishermen, peasants, farmworkers, and food justice advocates – call for a democratic transformation of our food systems based on human rights and social, ecological, economic, and cultural justice principles of Food Sovereignty. We make our demand  just after the historical week of World Food Day 2023, and we will continue to work and organize in the United States, and with our allies in North America and globally, in the face of on-going systemic challenges, including the crises of climate change and corporate power. We draw strength from our united alliance across the food system, and collective power at the grassroots base of our movements, as we strive for the transformative vision articulated by our global food sovereignty movement for decades.

    As humanity faces a crucial point in its history to move away from the extractive and destructive economic model that has brought about this climate crisis, we oppose the industrial, corporate agrifoods model that is privatizing, commodifying, and financializing public services, land, nature, and data, increasing inequality, and accelerating environmental damage. We fight for human rights of all people and work to promote agroecology, food sovereignty, biodiversity, climate justice, and gender and racial equality, aiming to achieve the well-being of all people to and guarantee the future for humanity and Mother Earth. As we advance with vision, we call on our allies in, and outside, of the food and agriculture movement to join USFSA and others in the global Nyeleni process for Food Sovereignty.

    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance

    Family farmers, food and farm workers, urban gardeners and food justice communities, fishing communities, non-profit organizations, food-systems research networks, youth and people of color have been organizing with the US Food Sovereignty Alliance since 2010, working to bring about food systems that produce healthy food, take care of nature, and ensure that food producers and communities are at the center of decision-making around food systems. We have fought especially the intense corporate concentration and consolidation in food and agriculture, and the more general corporate domination over rural life, in the US, as well as the complicity of our government in handing over more and more power to transnational corporations. We have fought against a system that sees 1 in 5 children in the U.S. and more than 700 million people going hungry around the world as acceptable. We have fought against a system that is destroying and wasting our natural resources and polluting our air and water. And we have fought a system that sees rural workers and their labor as disposable and exploitable.

    Why We Are Called to Act

    Food insecurity, in many ways, is present in the US and globally, because the rights of food producers and their communities are being ignored, in favor of the interests of transnational corporations and the private sector. Opaque, unaccountable multistakeholder networks are taking the place of transparent, democratic, and multilateral processes in decision-making and policy development. We cannot stand by as governments abandon commitments to ensuring the right to food and a dignified life for rural peoples.

    Moving Forward for Food Sovereignty and Agroecology

    We continue our efforts to organize people who want a better world and who are done with destructive and extractive economies and corporate control of our lives. We renew our commitment to a better world, in the face of the climate crisis that is a catastrophe of unimaginable magnitude, through the vision of the food sovereignty movement and welcome you to join us.

    READ “Beyond World Food Day”
    The Statement from the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPP)

  • 15th Annual Food Sovereignty Prize Honors the Black Dirt Farm Collective and Haiti’s Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP)

    15th Annual Food Sovereignty Prize Honors the Black Dirt Farm Collective and Haiti’s Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP)

    Contact:
    Christina Schiavoni
    Grassroots International
    cms@grassrootsonline.org
    617-690-4079

    WASHINGTON, DC, October 10, 2023 — In advance of the annual celebration of World Food Day by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the US Food Sovereignty Alliance has awarded the annual Food Sovereignty Prize to two outstanding organizations, the Black Dirt Farm Collective, located in Maryland, and Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP), based in Haiti. This award is particularly meaningful for MPP at this time, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary amid ongoing political strife, economic depression, and violence in Haiti, prompting an announcement by the UN Security Council to send armed forces into the country.

    Recognized internationally, the Food Sovereignty Prize serves as a counterweight to the World Food Prize initiated by Norman Borlaug, the controversial “father of the Green Revolution.” “The World Food Prize typically focuses on expanding production of single crops through expensive, large-scale technology,” said Heather Day, executive director of Community Alliance for Global Justice, a USFSA coordinating member and 2009 recipient of a Food Sovereignty Prize Honorable Mention. “In contrast, the Food Sovereignty Prize champions grassroots, agroecological solutions from the people most harmed by the injustices of the global food system. Mouvman Peyizan Papay and Black Dirt Farm Collective demonstrate community-led farming systems that work toward Black and Indigenous liberation while nourishing humanity and the Earth.”

    The Black Dirt Farm Collective is a collective of farmers, educators and organizers that arose from the need to support and protect Black agrarian knowledge in the US mid-Atlantic region. The Collective fights for a just transition using “Afroecology” – the connection between Black agrarianism and agroecology – to build systemic solutions to global food and farm crises. Racial discrimination led to the systematic removal of US Black farmers from the land. Between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers lost roughly 90% of the farmland they collectively owned, and the US Department of Agriculture now reports that fewer than 1% of US farmers are Black. The Black Dirt Farm Collective is committed to reclaiming Black agrarian history, lost generational wealth, and returning to the land. 

    Shakara Tyler, a returning-generation farmer, educator and organizer and Collective co-founder, summarized one of its essential tenets: “If we are not feeding ourselves our culture, who will?” 

    Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP, or Papaye Peasant Movement) was established in 1973, aligned with the international peasant movement La Via Campesina from the 1990s onward, and has grown to represent more than 60,000 members. The movement empowers rural agricultural workers and focuses on food sovereignty to reclaim Haiti’s independence from global food imports. The Prize committee recognizes MPP’s work combating the ongoing environmental, humanitarian, and hunger crisis in Haiti, worsened by entrenched legacies of colonization, land grabbing, climate change, and foreign exploitation at the expense of local food systems. MPP works directly with local farmers to bolster local food economies through agroecology and build environmental resiliency through planting tens of millions of trees. This inspiring grassroots strategy rejects Haiti’s continued reliance on sporadic international aid in favor of local community control. 

    “When we received word of this honor during our Food Sovereignty Camp, 450 young peasant leaders let out a thunderous cry of joy,” said MPP leader Jusléne Tyresias. “Through MPP’s 50-year history, Haiti’s peasants have persisted, not only confronting multiple crises head-on, but planting seeds – literally and figuratively – for our people to live with dignity, safety, and sovereignty.”

    The Black Dirt Farm Collective and Mouvman Peyizan Papay will be recognized at a virtual ceremony, date and time to be announced soon. The ceremony is free and open to the public. Further information will be made available at www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org and www.facebook.com/USFoodSovAlliance.

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    The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is comprised of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based and food producer groups that work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty. The Alliance strives to end poverty, rebuild local food economies and assert democratic control over the food system, believing that all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced in an ecologically sound manner.

  • Member of the Month ~ Food In Neighborhoods Community Coalition

    [Español abajo] — Thanks to member organization, Community Alliance for Global Justice, for creating this first Alliance member profile!

    This month, we learn about the Food in Neighborhoods Community Coalition (FIN) whose mission is to build a just, healthy, and sustainable food system in Louisville, Kentucky.

    What led you and your organization to food sovereignty work?

    The Food in Neighborhoods Community Coalition centers equity and justice as the basis of everything we do, and we believe that those closest to the pain know their situation and the needed solutions best. We are a grassroots coalition composed of food justice and health equity activists, urban agriculturalists, farmers, citizen foresters, business owners, educators, cooperative extension and city employees, among others.

    FIN was around since the early 2000s but became an independent community coalition in 2012. One of our goals was to establish a community food policy council in Louisville, KY. We collaborated with the Mayor’s office for a short period of time, until disbanding the body due to attempts from local government to impose job creation priorities, rather than the food and farm justice focus desired by the council. Since these early experiences of FIN, we have continued to expand our membership and network of allies, particularly by strengthening FIN’s working groups such as the Urban Agriculture Coalition, Policy Action, and the Land Access and Protection group.

    We believe that food sovereignty is about democratizing and decentralizing the decisions that shape our food system. Along with our commitment to center Black and brown people and low-income people, our commitment to be inclusive, non-hierarchical, participatory and to address the structures that harm and oppress all bring us to embrace and work toward food sovereignty.

    What does food sovereignty mean to you and your organization?

    We are building a more equitable and sustainable local-regional food system. Specifically, we are creating a Food Vision 2030 strategic plan for the city that will be guided into reality by a community-driven Greater Louisville Food Council. The reality of food sovereignty that we are working toward prioritizes people – ensuring everyone has affordable, culturally appropriate and healthy food, guaranteeing that food providers are valued and fairly compensated, bringing providers and consumers closer together so they can make joint decisions and thereby putting more control into the hands of local people.

    The construction of food sovereignty requires a shift away from the industrial, extractive, and harmful food system that benefits powerful and distant corporations. FIN’s grassroots organizing and policy advocacy work aims to build local and democratic control, social justice, and ecological resilience. We see food sovereignty as a unifying concept for collective action toward meeting peoples’ needs, celebrating our resistance, and restoring ecosystems for the good of all.

    How can the rest of USFSA support and be in solidarity with your work?

    We are eager to learn from others about cooperative economics and programs that are effective and can magnify our individual, small-scale impacts. We also want to figure out best practices for rebuilding local-regional food webs that benefit those currently most neglected and hurt by the current corporate-driven food system.

    What are your hopes for USFSA in the coming year(s)?

    Regarding inter-organizational communication with global groups through the International Relations collective, connecting with the US Food Sovereignty Alliance could allow us to expand our horizons in terms of supporting national and global outreach strategies and informing our local work.

     

    [Español]

    Gracias a la organización miembro Alianza Comunitaria por la Justicia Global por crear este primer perfil de miembro de la Alianza. Este mes, conocemos la Coalición Comunitaria Alimentos en los Barrios (FIN), cuya misión es construir un sistema alimentario justo, sano y sostenible en Louisville, Kentucky.

     

    ¿Qué les llevó a usted y a su organización a trabajar por la soberanía alimentaria?

    La Food in Neighborhoods Community Coalition centra la equidad y la justicia como base de todo lo que hacemos, y creemos que quienes más cerca están del dolor son quienes mejor conocen su situación y las soluciones necesarias. Somos una coalición de base compuesta por activistas de la justicia alimentaria y la equidad sanitaria, agricultores urbanos, granjeros, silvicultores ciudadanos, empresarios, educadores, cooperativistas de extensión y empleados municipales, entre otros.

    FIN existía desde principios de la década de 2000, pero se convirtió en una coalición comunitaria independiente en 2012. Uno de nuestros objetivos era establecer un consejo de política alimentaria comunitaria en Louisville, KY. Colaboramos con la oficina del alcalde durante un breve periodo de tiempo, hasta que se disolvió el organismo debido a los intentos del gobierno local de imponer prioridades de creación de empleo, en lugar del enfoque de justicia alimentaria y agrícola deseado por el consejo. Desde estas primeras experiencias de FIN, hemos seguido ampliando nuestra membresía y red de aliados, en particular mediante el fortalecimiento de los grupos de trabajo de FIN, como la Coalición de Agricultura Urbana, Acción Política y el grupo de Acceso y Protección de la Tierra.

    Creemos que la soberanía alimentaria consiste en democratizar y descentralizar las decisiones que conforman nuestro sistema alimentario. Junto con nuestro compromiso de centrarnos en la gente negra y morena y en las personas con bajos ingresos, nuestro compromiso de ser inclusivos, no jerárquicos, participativos y de abordar las estructuras que perjudican y oprimen a todos nos lleva a abrazar y trabajar por la soberanía alimentaria.

    ¿Qué significa la soberanía alimentaria para usted y su organización?

    Estamos construyendo un sistema alimentario local y regional más equitativo y sostenible. En concreto, estamos creando un plan estratégico Visión Alimentaria 2030 para la ciudad, que se hará realidad gracias a un Consejo Alimentario del área metropolitana de Louisville impulsado por la comunidad. La realidad de la soberanía alimentaria por la que estamos trabajando da prioridad a las personas: garantizar que todo el mundo disponga de alimentos asequibles, culturalmente apropiados y saludables, garantizar que los proveedores de alimentos sean valorados y justamente compensados, acercar a proveedores y consumidores para que puedan tomar decisiones conjuntas y, de este modo, poner más control en manos de la población local.

    La construcción de la soberanía alimentaria requiere alejarse del sistema alimentario industrial, extractivo y dañino que beneficia a corporaciones poderosas y distantes. El trabajo de organización de base y de defensa de políticas de FIN tiene como objetivo construir el control local y democrático, la justicia social y la resiliencia ecológica. Vemos la soberanía alimentaria como un concepto unificador para la acción colectiva encaminada a satisfacer las necesidades de los pueblos, celebrar nuestra resistencia y restaurar los ecosistemas por el bien de todos.

    ¿Cómo puede el resto de USFSA apoyar y solidarizarse con vuestro trabajo?

    Estamos ansiosos por aprender de otros sobre economía cooperativa y programas que sean eficaces y puedan magnificar nuestros impactos individuales a pequeña escala. También queremos descubrir las mejores prácticas para reconstruir redes alimentarias locales y regionales que beneficien a los más desatendidos y perjudicados por el actual sistema alimentario corporativo.

    ¿Qué espera de la USFSA en los próximos años?

    En lo que respecta a la comunicación interorganizativa con grupos globales a través del colectivo de Relaciones Internacionales, la conexión con la Alianza por la Soberanía Alimentaria de Estados Unidos podría permitirnos ampliar nuestros horizontes en términos de apoyo a las estrategias de divulgación nacionales y globales y de información para nuestro trabajo local.