Civil society, in Latin America and elsewhere, is increasingly responding by resisting the spread of agribusiness, and working to re-build food sovereignty. This concerted effort involves collaboration between communities, Indigenous Peoples, and many different social movements and civil society organizations.

what happened

To facilitate collaborative resistance FoE Paraguay/Sobrevivencia provided the venue for and co-hosted a forum on food sovereignty, in Asunción, 21-23 August 2009. Many organizations worked together to make the forum possible, including FoEI and FoE Uruguay/REDES, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, Vía Campesina Paraguay and Via Campesina International, the World March of Women (WMW), Cono Sur Sustentable, Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Rural e Indígenas (CONAMURI), Food & Water Watch and the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

The forum followed on from and built upon the global Nyeleni ‘Forum on Food Sovereignty’ convened in Mali in February 2007. It provided another space for leaders of different communities, movements and organizations to come together to generate resistance strategies, exchange experiences and testimonies, strengthen affected communities and women, and further develop and implement the concept of buen vivir (literally, ‘the good life’) in communities.

The Asunción forum also looked specifically at the agribusiness model, the soya-meat chain, the timber/cellulose-biofuels chain, and industrial fishing. The forum also highlighted the critical question of gender, looking at the role of women, especially in protecting seeds and conserving water resources, and the impact that agribusiness has on them. Additionally it focused on building a de-globalized agriculture and reconstructing national food markets through agrarian reform, food sovereignty, rescuing native seeds, and territories free of transgenic organisms and agro-toxins.

The forum was recorded and shared through multiple media, including video, photography and radio. Radio Mundo Real broadcast the event, and recorded interviews with many different participants.
 

what changed

The Forum on Food Sovereignty helped to build synergies between many communities, movements and organizations, allowing the continued construction of a common agenda and strategy around people’s food sovereignty. The richest moments came during the panelists’ presentations, and the subsequent debates in plenary and in working groups.

The forum served to strengthen national, regional and global alliances, including those between the Paraguayan campesino groups participating in Via Campesina Paraguay, and FoE Paraguay.

what next

Participants discussed a joint strategy and key dates for collaborative efforts following the forum. Important moments listed included the International Day Of Food Sovereignty on 16 October, and Regional Forums such as the Foro Social América due to take place in Paraguay in 2010.

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs

Additionally, we challenged false publicity about the potential of jatropha, and other plants that might be used for agrofuel production. In particular, FoE Africa groups and others set out to research the extent to which agrofuels are expanding across Africa, through a literature review, on-the-ground observation, and interviews with government officials, community leaders, local authorities, farmers and farmers’ organizations, civil society groups and academics. The resulting report considers the state of agrofuels production in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It records details, where available, on incoming investment, key companies, case studies, issues relating to land and legal rights, and environmental impact assessments. It also delves into government and state policies on agrofuels promotion and energy self-sufficiency.

The FoE Europe campaign on agrofuels was selected by the European Parliament Magazine as the most effective NGO campaign, specifically because of our high-visibility creative actions organized in collaboration with groups from all our regions. Improvements to our web site, and investments in communications in FoE Europe, allowed us to mobilize 47,000 people in May to participate in a poll by EC President Barroso, which changed the poll from 95% in favor of the EU's biofuels target to 89% against, in just three days.

FoEI also organized two speakers’ tours (in May and December 2008) for leaders from the South, in order to raise awareness in Europe about the devastating impacts of growing crops to produce agrofuels. We also organized an action in front of the Brazilian embassy in Brussels to protest against their agrofuels policies, in collaboration with La Via Campesina and FIAN (Face It Act Now – for the right to food). The speakers took part in lobby meetings to demand an end to the EU 10% biofuels target, with Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the European Commission. Similar meetings were organized with national parliaments in France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. The visiting speakers also lectured at universities in Brussels, Grenoble, Leuven, Montpellier, and the UNDP University in Namur. They received good media coverage, including through outlets such as Télé Grenoble, Midi Libre, France 3 TV, Planète Libre Magazine, national TV RFO, Radio Campus in Belgium, Panoramica magazine, ANP Netherlands, Agrarisch Dagblad, and Agripress Belgium.

When the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) met in Buenos Aires, FoEI helped  gathering civil society from producer countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) as well as importing countries in the EU, to protest against the use of ‘sustainable soy’ certification schemes, which are bound to fail because they do not address the overall expansion of monoculture plantations to produce increasing quantities of agrofuels. Similar round-table approaches around the world have completely failed to address the major social and environmental impacts of industrial-scale soy cultivation and actually serve to frustrate real solutions.

Photo credits: FoE Brazil

Through the FoEI Corporates and IFIs campaigns, civil society organizations were able to halt specific harmful projects while employing campaign activities that highlight the systemic tendencies that allow these types of projects to move forward. We provided financial support for local and national activities, and technical assistance on policy research and analysis, as well as bringing international attention to local concerns in order to ensure successful campaigns.

We also accompanied Nigerian communities in their tireless efforts to force Shell and other oil companies to stop gas flaring and other damaging practices connected to oil extraction. FoEI helped twelve Nigerian communities file an official complaint with the World Bank Inspection Panel, for which the Board approved an Inspection, which then took place in July 2007. The final report of the Inspection Panel’s investigation, released in August 2008, outlines serious errors made by the West African Gas Pipeline Company, as it took possession of lands and displaced already-impoverished residents. In its response to the Panel report, the World Bank’s management admits that residents were paid just 10% of the established value of their land. The Panel also validates the complaint that the Bank refused to consider the pipeline’s impact on communities in the Niger Delta, the source of the gas. This is an important recognition of the concerns of FoE groups and communities in the region.

Given the long-term nature of our campaigns to help communities denounce and halt damaging projects in Africa, it is important to maintain momentum and encourage communities. One successful approach has been the sponsoring of community exchanges, where communities that are affected by the same corporation or sector or type of project (gas pipeline or dam, for example) can meet, share experiences, and corroborate that they are not alone. In 2008, we sponsored exchanges among communities from Togo and Mali, Nigeria and Ghana, all of whom are affected by oil companies’ environmental and social crimes.

To do this more effectively, we focused on the use of innovative and mass means of communication, to disclose our research findings to a much wider audience than ever before, and to mobilize people to fight for environmental justice.

We have developed new ideas to convey our campaign messages in more innovative and creative ways; and used creative campaign tools so that people can understand and support our messages more easily. These included a series of video clips (community testimonies) and using YouTube to broadcast them to the public. We have also started to work with artists in designing strong visuals with a clear message.

‘Lost in Palm Oil’ is a documentary about the impacts of oil palm plantations on local communities in Indonesia, and the production, trade and consumption of palm oil. The documentary was screened (sometimes fully, sometimes partially) on TV and at film festivals. Many of these broadcasts reached out to audiences of more than 100,000 viewers. A list of TV broadcasts and slots in 2008 includes: Eenvandaag (Netherlands); ORF Weltjournal (Austria); TV Eco (Switzerland); French TV channel France 2; YLE (Finland); SWR Auslandsreporter, Phönix and NDR ARD (Germany); RTP (Portugal); TVN27 (Poland); TV2 (Finland); SVT (Sweden); Green Film Festival-Seoul (Korea); NHK (Japan); and the Berlin Film Festival (Germany). ‘Lost in palm oil’ was also screened at an alternative summit in Bali, Indonesia, during the United Nations climate talks (UNFCCC) in December 2007; and about 500 DVD copies of the film were circulated to communities in Indonesia (in Bahasa Indonesia). The DVD version is available in English, French, German and Bahasa.

For ‘Poison Fire’ FoEI contracted Lars Johansson to make a documentary about the impacts of oil in Nigeria, using a 'participatory approach' to film-making and at the same time training local community members in Nigeria to use video tools in their campaign activities. Poison Fire shows how increasing people’s capacity to advocate on their own behalf with video tools and skills led to exposing oil giant Shell’s violations of Nigerian law and the fact that it was ignoring court judgments in Nigeria.

Footage of the documentary was even aired by the Dutch investigative program 'Netwerk' and mainstream news program 'RTL news' in the years previous to the film’s formal launch.  A short film based on footage from Lars Johansson was produced with Element TV (a project focused on the UN millennium development goals) and broadcast on other MTV channels in 2007. Element was initially broadcast on three European MTV 'feeds' and in Israel, and was picked up for 'Switch', a global campaign for MTV which reached a potential audience of 1.5 billion viewers in 62 countries. Guardian films also used footage from Poison Fire (and took on board information exposed in the film) in a video report by The Guardian's George Monbiot (a renowned environmental writer and author of a number of bestselling books). The report focused on an interview with Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, and generated substantial debate on The Guardian newspaper’s website. A short version of the documentary was also aired on MTV and at the March 2008 Amnesty ‘Movies that Matter’ film festival in Amsterdam.

The film, which can be viewed online on various websites including its own, at www.poisonfire.org, also caused intense debate in Nigeria, where it has been screened to many local communities and policy makers. Nigerian lawmakers have watched it in special screenings and commented on it. A high policy committee annexed it to its report on the Niger Delta sent to the Nigerian President. It also had an impact on Shell; the company made direct references to the film in a Shell video online on www.shell.com. In 2008, the film-maker entered a co-production agreement with Danish production company Everest Pictures (Anders Ostergaard, the director of the highly successful documentary 'Burma VJ') which decided to finance a longer, more ambitious version of Poison Fire.

In February 2008, following up on a project which started in 2006, a map with details of 50 environmentally damaging and economically dubious infrastructure projects in Central and Eastern Europe was launched by CEE Bankwatch Network and FoE Europe. The projects are either already financed, or in preparation and likely to be financed by EU structural and cohesion funds and/or the European Investment Bank (EIB). FoE Europe continues to monitor the developments of these projects, raise public awareness and campaign to stop them.

To respond to various destructive projects in Southern and Eastern Africa, FoE South Africa and FoE Mozambique, together with the International Working Group on Oil, hosted the East and Southern African workshop in September 2008. Participation was from a variety of sectors that had close links to the daily reality on the ground: fishermen from Mauritius, Islamic clerics from rural Mozambique, community members from Lake Albert in Uganda, and rural community folk from Ethiopia, together with other representatives of social organizations and local communities from Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Malawi, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda, A number of participants also came from West African countries including Chad, Congo Brazzaville, Mali and Nigeria. Critically, community people shared the experience of their present struggles and considered how these struggles could provide a platform for articulating their efforts in the future.

FoEI continued, along with others around the world, to denounce the abuse by companies aiming to put Latin American governments under pressure. ATALC is monitoring the cases with ETI Telecom in Bolivia, RDC in Guatemala, Harken and other oil companies in Costa Rica, and Katoen Natie in Uruguay.

FoE groups in Europe and Latin America also worked together to address the impacts of European (mostly Scandinavian) pulp and paper producers in Latin America. At the European Social Forum, an exhibition exposing these impacts was displayed. Groups also worked together on a specific project relating to the Finnish company Botnia, and its activities in Uruguay. Several European investors, such as ING, decided not to finance the project as it has been highly controversial in Uruguay and Argentina and did not adhere to World Bank’s environmental standards.

In 2008, we also exposed the myth that fossil fuels are central to development. FoEI believes this assumption is misguided on both climate and development grounds, and subsidies to the fossil fuel sector must be ended. We challenged the Asian Development Bank during at its annual meeting in Madrid in May 2008. The ADB issues calls for clean energy investments to fight global warming, while providing massive financial support to dirty coal projects in Asia. Together with WEED, Oil Change International and APMDD Jubilee South, we produced a concise argument about the link between oil and poverty, which was distributed at the 2008 ADB annual meeting, the Netherlands conference in July 2008 on ‘The Future of the World Bank,’ and at the national level.

FoEI had a strong presence at several international events in 2008. We also supported the participation of community representatives and civil society organizations from the South in many international events, giving them an opportunity to publicize their experiences and struggles.

Some of the events in 2008 included:

• the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank
• the spring and annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank
• UN Framework Convention for Climate Change meetings
• UN Convention for Biological Diversity meetings
• MOVIAC’s meetings
• Via Campesina´s 5th International Conference
• the EU-Latin American Summit and the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on Corporations
• the III Americas Social Forum
• the European Social Forum 2008
• meetings of the Latin American Network on Dams

global europe

The Global Europe campaign aims to expose the negative impacts and the corporate bias of the Global Europe  strategy; and to counter trade and investment agreements that harm men, women and the environment in the Global South, but also harm Europe's peoples as well.

corporate power

The Corporate Power campaign campaign focuses on dismantling corporate power by exposing and countering corporate crimes and their social, environmental and human rights impacts, specifically on women’s and men’s productive and reproductive activities. It also counters corporate influence over governments and institutions, including international financial institutions and the World Trade Organization (WTO); and building peoples' power by developing and advocating for legal measures to give rights to women, men and communities and to protect them against corporate power.

plantations

EJRN is also engaged in the Plantations campaign (led by the Forests and Biodiversity program) through exposing and countering the role of relevant corporations, and trade and investment flows, and by promoting resistance activities.

Further, the EJRN program also contributed to the Agrofuels campaign by exposing and countering the role of corporations, trade and investments in that sector. 

Finally, the EJRN program contributed to the Climate and Finance campaign (which is led by the Climate Justice and Energy program) by exposing and rejecting the World Bank’s involvement in controversial projects on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD); stopping the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (CIFs) and other World Bank involvement in fighting climate change; and proposing and promoting an alternative climate financing mechanism

accomplishments

In 2008, FoEI's EJRN Program successfully:

• Strengthened the fight against the EU’s Global Europe policy
• Continued the fight against free trade agreements
• Disclosed the truth, built awareness about and mobilized against specific corporate abuses
• Tackled corporate lobby and greenwash
  
• Halted destructive projects
  
• Denounced corporate-driven policies
  
• Used legal strategies to defend people from corporate abuses

These reports were very controversial as far as industry participants were concerned, and Syngenta and others walked out of the process in December. The final report was remarkably strong about the need for a radical change in agriculture, and did not promote genetically modified organisms (GMOs). It addressed the need to strengthen regional markets and protecting natural resources; the importance of traditional knowledge; diversity; agro-ecology; and the role of women in agriculture. It recognized the threats from agrofuels; GMOs; intellectual property rights rules; and the model of industrial agriculture. In short it called for more Food Sovereignty! The report was supported by 58 governments.

Europe continued to be an essentially GMO-free zone, which is a very important achievement for the European people, but also for other regions in the world. The food price crisis was cleverly used to try and persuade the EU to weaken its GMO laws and therefore get other regions of the world to grow more kinds of GMOs. FoE groups in Europe researched the issue and were able to prove that lobby groups had manipulated the facts. While this is an important success, however, we need to continue to monitor the process and ensure that laws aren’t weakened behind closed doors.

In June 2008, just before FAO’s High Level Conference on World Food Security, organizations in the Nyeleni Forum launched the statement No More “Failures-as-usual”. In two weeks over 600 organizations and movements had signed the statement. This is a clear indication of the importance of the food sovereignty agenda and the need to promote concrete actions and policies to ensure its implementation.

To date, Nyeleni has inspired many crucial events on food sovereignty all over the world. Many local and regional governments are collaborating to apply its principles. Significant initiatives from national governments include those of ALBA and the Petro-Caribe Conference in Latin America; processes to include food sovereignty in the constitutions of Nepal, Bolivia and Ecuador; and the increased priority being given to peasant-based production by the government of Mali.

Friends of the Earth is developing its Food Sovereignty Program in close conjunction with allies, including La Via Campesina. We attended the High-Level Meeting on Food Security in Madrid (26-27 January) where Via Campesina and FoE Spain’s joint actions outside the conference got excellent coverage in the Spanish media, and Henry Saragih from Via Campesina was eventually invited to speak on behalf of civil society in the final plenary session. The response from the conference was striking: the applause was deafening and continued for a full two minutes despite repeated attempts by the Chair to move on to the next agenda item. 

Critically, the meeting ended without consensus on a new 'Global Partnership', which was in line with civil society proposals. However, the official website is less clear about this outcome and presents a non-negotiated and non-adopted 'Final Statement' that still talks about a new Global Partnership. In general we were extremely disappointed to find that proposed solutions to the food crisis still include pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and fertilizers.

The 17th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in May, in New York, saw important progress on food sovereignty however, when the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter's proposals included the right of peoples to access land and define their own food policies, as well as the principles that the government should support the least protected (including rural) people and implement production models that do not contribute to climate change. The UN Special Rapporteur’s position strongly echoes the new production model that La Vía Campesina and FoEI have been promoting for years, although it does not yet go far enough: people also need to have the right to define and control their own food and food production systems. A successful side event on GMOs and the food crisis was also held during this event.

Together with the EJRN Program, the Food Sovereignty Program is also starting to build a new global campaign challenging agribusiness. This lengthy undertaking is being undertaken in conjunction with Via Campesina and the World March of Women, and is a follow up to the Food Sovereignty Forum, which took place in Nyeleni, Mali in February 2007.

The plan is to build up from the regional sphere to the global. To this end, we have started organizing regional forums to launch the regional processes; from these we can then decide where to concentrate forces in our struggles for food sovereignty, how to strengthen our coordination and our joint campaign efforts. To date regional food sovereignty forums have been held in Paraguay (21-23 August) and Nigeria, with representatives from different regions of FoEI and strategic allies present at each. The meeting in Nigeria focused on Opposing Land Grabs, AGRA and Non-Ecological Agriculture, and took place in Abuja, Nigeria, 20-23 October. AGRA is an organization that focuses on the Green Revolution, and it represents agribusiness in Africa at its worst.

In April 2009, when FoEI activists from around the world were in Amsterdam for internal strategy meetings, FoEI and FoE Netherlands also co-hosted a public discussion on "Food sovereignty versus certification: the soy case in the Netherlands," with politicians, academics and members of the Dutch farming community.

In-line with the program’s objective to expose industrial corporate-led agriculture and promote food sovereignty, Friends of the Earth, together with Food and Water Watch and the European Co-ordination of Via Campesina, also produced a groundbreaking film, "Killing Fields: the battle to feed factory farms," which investigates the impacts of growing soy in South America to feed factory farms in Europe. Few people realize that a hidden chain of destruction stretches from factory farms in Europe to the forests of South America – where huge soy plantations are wiping out wildlife and making climate change worse. To make way for soy plantations, thousands of people are being forced from their land and with it, losing their ability to grow their own food. Indigenous People are being evicted and forests are being cleared. Many of the soybeans are genetically modified and massively increase the use of pesticides – resulting in the poisoning of rural communities, water sources and the natural environment.

As part of its collaborative approach, FoEI has been increasingly involved with the International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), participating in the drafting committee of the IPC’s "Eradicate Hunger" document, and in the Steering Committee of the People’s Food Sovereignty Forum that paralleled the FAO Summit on Food Security in Rome, 16-18 November 2009. As soon as the summit was announced, social movements, NGOs and other civil society organizations started a dialogue with FAO to organize the parallel civil society forum, which included some 500 farmers, Indigenous Peoples, rural youth, women and others. The forum addressed the hunger crisis affecting over one billion people and nearly one sixth of the world's population. FoEI was also involved in preparations for activities in parallel to the 3rd Session of the Governing Body on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, in Tunisia, in June. FoEI has been invited to join the IPC’s international facilitation group, which has been formed to work on the FAO process for the adoption of voluntary guidelines on land and natural resources tenure. This group will also be a space for reflection and articulation on land rights and land grabbing.

The struggle for a GM-free world also remains a priority for the food sovereignty movement and Friends of the Earth International continues its campaign against the GM industry. Working against GMOs includes struggling against soy monocultures and the dominant model of production. We are campaigning to stop GM food aid, and to increase land available to family farmers and for rural agriculture.

In 2009, we published our annual research report on GM crops," Who Benefits from GM Crops? Feeding the biotech giants, not the world’s poor," which focused on the importance of democratic decision-making in food production and distribution, and raised questions about the ability of GM crops to contribute to poverty reduction, global food security or sustainable farming.

Friends of the Earth groups and allies are also maintaining pressure on the GM industry at the national and regional levels. This has had a particularly marked impact in Europe. At the beginning of the year, the European Commission issued proposals for two new varieties of genetically modified (GM) maize to be grown in Europe despite ongoing safety concerns. In a proposal sent to EU member states, the Commission also said it wanted to force Greece, Hungary and France to drop their national bans on a similar GM maize. But the European Commission was defeated when member states voted on this issue, with many member states holding fast with their position on GMOs. Civil society organizations were clearly instrumental in this.

In Hungary, for example, Friends of the Earth, along with other civil society organizations, farmers’ organizations and politicians held a demonstration to keep Hungary free of genetically-modified organisms and demonstrators dispatched representatives to every EU foreign representative in Budapest to ask other European countries to vote against the Commission’s proposal. FoE Spain and other Spanish civil society organizations coordinated a hugely successful action against genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with more than 100 actions and protests across the country. 8,000 people also took part in a national demonstration in Zaragoza, the capital city of the GM maize-growing region. With support from FOE Europe, FoE Spain also organized actions and sent letters to the Spanish Embassies in the EU.

This European resistance received a further boost in April, when Germany banned Monsanto's GM maize MON810 as allowed under EU law (known as the ‘safeguard clause’). Germany joins Hungary, Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Poland and Italy who all effectively have bans in place. The German decision is based on new scientific research, which shows that the crop damages ladybirds, butterflies and daphnia magna (water organisms). This was a huge success for FoE Germany and other environmental and agricultural organizations, who have worked hard for this outcome for many years. Furthermore, 73% of Germans polled in April said they would favor products labeled as being GM free.

In July 2009, a scientific analysis commissioned by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth Europe showed that an opinion by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which advocated the safety of the only genetically modified (GM) crop grown in Europe, was fundamentally flawed. The report revealed serious mistakes and omissions, which completely undermined EFSA’s conclusion. The report was submitted to a public consultation on Monsanto’s MON810 maize, and the groups called on the European Commission and EU countries to reject the authorization of this crop.

In a related action organized by FoE Spain in September, activists dressed as Spanish maize fled to the French Embassy in Madrid to seek asylum, fearing contamination from genetically modified varieties, which are being grown in Spain without any precautions against contamination. FoE Cyprus has also been active, hosting a lecture on GMOs, and speaking at a seminar designed to educate teachers about organic food and its benefits, organized by PASYBIO (the Cyprus Organic Farmers Union).

Other national campaign successes and activities in Europe in 2009 included the following:

• On 6 March, during an extended session on food safety and regulation in the Georgian Parliament, Georgia’s Minister of Agriculture unexpectedly supported citizens’ demands to declare Georgia a GM-free country. This is an abrupt change in the political discourse, after many years of campaigning by FoE Georgia and other Georgian NGOs, and a significant public victory.

• In its Renewed Programme for Government, published on 10 October 2009, the Irish Government declared that it “will declare the Republic of Ireland a GM-Free Zone, free from the cultivation of all GM plants.” This will make it the ninth country in the EU to prohibit the cultivation of transgenic plants.

• A protest outside the head office of WWF-Netherlands with a weeping panda, a Monsanto circus director, and various people in white overalls spraying ‘Roundup’, protesting against WWF’s support for the Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) proposal to certify GM Roundup Ready soy as 'responsible'. Another action followed days later outside the head office of Ahold, which is a prominent member of the RTRS, in response to RTRS’s newly agreed criteria for ‘responsible’ soy, which will allow the continued expansion of soy and even certify GM soy. 

There have also been strong FoE campaigns against GM crops in other regions. For example:

• In Mexico, Friends of the Earth Mexico organised a festival event in the square Plaza de Mexicanos in San Cristobal, to mark World Food Day on 16 October. 

• In Nigeria, Friends of the Earth launched a campaign against field trials of the so-called ‘super cassava’, which is engineered for enhanced levels of Vitamin A. FoE Nigeria has published a detailed report arguing that the trials would be a breach of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which Nigeria has signed. 

• In Paraguay, the Paraguayan Senate has been discussing a new law on agrochemicals, which would dramatically increase the environmental, health and other social impacts of soy and other crops in Paraguay. Several key clauses of the existing law would be weakened, such as the requirement to have vegetation barriers and to warn surrounding communities in advance of spraying. Also, as the new law would be easier for soy growers to comply with, their crops – including GM crops – could be more likely to acquire Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) certification, which calls for adherence to national laws. Friends of the Earth and others, including small farmers’ movements, several Ministers and the World Health Organization have all strongly opposed this proposal.

The Food Sovereignty Program is also starting to develop its work around climate and agriculture, together with the CJE Program. It is important to analyze and expose the links between climate justice and agriculture including emissions from long distance transport of food for international trade; the impacts of changes in land use; the impacts of industrial agriculture on climate; and the impacts of agrofuels production. In addition, we will report on the impacts of false solutions to the climate crisis on food sovereignty, expose the impacts of climate change on women, and analyze and report the increasing control of agribusiness transnationals in the UN’s climate change negotiations.

The first steps in this process were the development of an analysis of the role of GMOs in climate change, and a seminar at the Klimaforum09 in Copenhagen in December. On 11 December, a major event on "Food, Energy Sovereignty and Climate Justice" (which also included several presentations on REDD) was also co-organized in Copenhagen, by Friends of the Earth International, the Global Forest Coalition, Via Campesina and the World March of Women.

Developing strategic relationships and alliances is a priority for the Food Sovereignty Program, especially with Via Campesina and the World March of Women, and has been a focus throughout the year, including in preparations for and actions at the Forum Against Agribusiness in Asuncion, the Conference against Land Grabbing and AGRA in Abuja, the Global Action Day against Monsanto on 16 October, and events in Copenhagen in December. This has included a number of joint letters and statements, including:

• Preparing and coordinating a statement from FoEI and Via Campesina within the framework of the 17th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development: "Food sovereignty: A new model for a human right" (May).

• Civil Society open letter to FAO regarding the High-Level Expert Forum on "How to feed the world in 2050" (September). 

• An open letter to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with regard to their participation in AGRA.

Other key meetings that the Food Sovereignty Program has participated in include:

• The High-Level Meeting on Food Security for All, Madrid (January)
• CSD Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting (February)
• 17th Session of the UN Division for Sustainable Development (May)
• Activities prior to the WTO Ministerial Conference, Geneva, (November-December), and the
• Trade to Climate Caravan, Geneva to Copenhagen, organized by the Trade and Climate Change Working Group of Our World Is Not For Sale and other organizations prior to COP15 (December). 

The Food Sovereignty Program’s main working areas are:

• Resistance to land grabbing and agribusiness
• A GM-free world, and 
• Climate and agriculture. 

Internal cross-cutting themes include:

• The promotion of food sovereignty and solutions; and 
• Gender

Collaboration with other programs and campaigns:

• With EJRN and Agrofuels - resistance to land grabbing and agribusiness, including Stora Enso.

International Co-coordinators

• Martín Drago, FoE Uruguay, martin.drago@redes.org.uy
• Kirtana Chandrasekaran, FoE EWNI, kirtana.chandrasekaran@foe.co.uk

Regional Coordinators:

• For ATALC: Caludia Jerónimo, FoE Guatemala, and FoE Paraguay as alternate
• For Africa: Marianne Bassey (Nigeria) and Sicelo Simelane (Swaziland) as alternate
• For Asia Pacific: Choony Kim (South Korea)
• For Europe: Helen Holder (FoE Europe) and Kirtana Chandrasekaran (FoE EWNI) as alternate

Groups that participated actively in 2009:

Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, EWNI, France, Georgia, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Paraguay, Spain, Uruguay, and members of the Feeding and Fuelling Europe project in Europe. 

The Nyeleni Forum was crucial in helping FoEI to frame its Food Sovereignty Program, continue to build its strategic alliance with La Via Campesina, and act more strongly at both the grassroots and international levels. In 2008, around 30 FoEI member groups from Australia, Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, El Salvador, England Wales & N Ireland, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Uruguay and the USA actively participated in FoEI’s Food Sovereignty Program, and worked in solidarity to advance the food sovereignty agenda globally.

accomplishments

In 2008, FoEI's Food Sovereignty Program was able to:

• advance the food sovereignty agenda globally
• strengthen the fight for a GM-free world
• focus on the links between industrial agriculture and climate change
• link trade to food sovereignty and defend territories and land rights from agribusiness
  

To respond to this and various other such developments in Southern and Eastern Africa, FoE South Africa and FoE Mozambique, together with the the International Working Group on Oil, hosted the East and Southern African workshop on Oil and Gas in September 2008. 

48 people, including both community representatives and NGOs from South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Mauritius, Uganda, Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and west Africans from Nigeria, Chad, Mali and Congo Brazzaville, attended a five day workshop where information was shared on oil and gas.

Critically, community people shared the experience of their present struggles and considered how these present struggles could be the platform for articulating the struggles in future. Participation was from a variety of sectors that had close links to the daily reality on the ground: fishermen in suits from Mauritius, Islamic clerics from rural Mozambique, community members from Lake Albert in Uganda and rural community folk from Ethiopia.

what changed?

It was exciting to see how at the end of the day, people opted for a focus on cross- border community work between people who are in close proximity to each other to develop nodes of action rather than just a network. As the local action develops, a broader network will be the inevitable result.

What was learned

Finally, through the intense debate of five days, it was clear that people were considering the very real campaign of ‘keeping the oil in the soil’, ‘blocking the block’ and ‘keeping the coal in the hole’. As one of the Mauritian fisherman said in relation to oil drilling, “You do not want to disturb the devil’s fire.”

what happened?

Friends of the Earth Togo / ADT Togo organized an exchange of information with Friends of the Earth Mali / Guamina, including a visit to communities living near to Mali’s Sadiola opencast goldmine. One community member described these mines as “‘hell on earth' for our village.”

On their return, the group that visited Mali shared their experiences with communities in Agou, and showed a film about the impacts of mining and the realities of life for people in Sadiola.

what changed?

The visit and subsequent activities have made communities living around Mont Agou much more aware of the potential impacts of mining, and confident that they know how to resist it. They learned about the ways in which minerals are exploited, and the international and state actors involved. Local people’s lobbying capacity has been strengthened, and a network of mining-affected communities in Mali and Togo has been set up.

“These communities can from now on defend themselves. The Agou community representatives saw the impacts of gold mining in Mali and the suffering of the local people. They now have the necessary tools to make their own case, and not to give in to the demands of the corporations and politicians” said Ekue Assem, from FoE Togo.

what next?

FoE Togo and FoE Mali have committed to work together in 2009, on climate justice and extractive industries. They are planning to visit Guinea Conakry, where bauxite is mined, to collect witness statements, and film and photograph affected communities. If possible, they hope to identify another group to work with within Friends of the Earth Africa. They will also organize workshops to strengthen communities’ advocacy capacity in Mali.

what happened?

Members of FoE Africa from Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Tunisia and Swaziland met in July in Accra, Ghana, to review issues that confront the African environment. A particular focus was placed on the current food crisis and agrofuels. The groups released a statement deploring the characterisation of Africa as a chronically hungry continent; and rejected the projection of the continent as an emblem of poverty and stagnation and thus as a continent dependent on food aid.

Matching these concerns, FoE Africa groups and others set out to research the extent of agrofuels expansion across Africa, through a literature review, on-the-ground observation, and interviews with government officials, community leaders, local authorities, farmers and farmers’ organizations, civil society groups and academics.

The report considers the state of agrofuels production in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It records details, where available, on incoming investment, key companies, case studies, issues relating to land and legal rights, and environmental impact assessments. It also delves into government and state policies on agrofuels promotion and energy self-sufficiency.

what was learned?

Although data was sometimes hard to acquire, this first report, ‘Corporate Push of Agrofuels in Africa’, clearly corroborates that there is a very real agrofuels ‘boom’ in Africa. To take just one example, in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and other countries, staple food crops such as cassava, corn, groundnuts, sorghum and sweet potatoes, are being used or are being proposed to be used to produce bio ethanol.

The report provides clear evidence that when it comes to agrofuels most African governments are intent on promoting the industry, and attracting foreign investment to do so, even though on-the-ground evidence shows that:

• there is little public understanding of the issue;
• farmers are often tied to monopolies;
• forced resettlement, land grabbing and displacement from traditional lands are common;
• food importing nations tend to increase their reliance on food imports;
• ethanol production affects food prices; and
• agrofuels production leads to deforestation and biodiversity losses.

what changed?

With this more detailed picture of what is really happening in Africa, concerned organizations are now able to make a much clearer assessment of the risks associated with the agrofuels ‘boom’. Local communities and Indigneous Peoples are also in a better position to engage in the debate on agrofuels, and make informed decisions about the use of their lands and territories.

what next?

This information will be used by FoE Africa groups and others to develop positions and campaigns relating to agrofuels production at the national level. Agrofuels activities are already underway, for example, in Nigeria, Togo, Swaziland and South Africa.  It will also be shared with other civil society organizations and local communities.

Additional information can be found at http://www.eraction.org/publications/presentations/The-Agrofuels-debate-in-Africa.pdf

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs (dgis)

Friends of the Earth Uruguay / REDES recognize that declining diversity of food grown on farms is both a likely cause, and a consequence, of this crisis. As a solution, they aimed to use conservation and reintroduction of local varieties to build up the food autonomy of rural families. They also sought to bring decision-making about local resources — biodiversity, water, agriculture and food — back into the hands of people and communities. By promoting collective rights, this project would also challenge the ongoing corporate take-over of these resources.

what happened:  FoE Uruguay began by compiling and generating value-added information on corporate behaviour and food sovereignty. This included reports, briefings, and magazine articles on: international financial institutions, US and transnational corporations, water and fisheries, and free trade and investment agreements.  They shared this information with other civil society organizations, as well as members of parliament in Latin America.

FoE Uruguay also lobbied the government about the need to question policies which concentrate corporate power. They met with the Ministry of Environment and other key parliamentarians about the impacts of genetically modified (GM) crops. They also participated in a special consultative government committee on new water and fisheries legislation, as well as on the formulation of Uruguay’s biosafety framework.

At the same time, FoE Uruguay worked to build coalitions and networks which defend collective rights.  This included a plan with Via Campesina in Brazil to carry out a massive campaign against monoculture expansion, working alongside other regional organisations and coalitions. At the international level, FoE Uruguay followed up the February 2007 Forum for Food Sovereignty in Mali with a meeting in Buenos Aires in June, where civil society groups agreed on strategies to confront agribusiness. 

FoE Uruguay also used media work to raise public awareness on these issues. This included producing three radio programs broadcast by Real World Radio (www.realworldradio.org), which reached community radios all across Latin America, as well as print and TV coverage.

Finally, FoE Uruguay also took the step of legal action, to challenge corporate power and to defend citizens’ right to information.

what is changing: In a major victory, after pressure from FoE Uruguay and other groups, the national government has introduced a moratorium on new GM crops.  FoE Uruguay are also hopeful that the new water and fisheries legislation might restrict corporate power.

FoE Uruguay’s work has strengthened coordination between organisations and movements working on water, human rights, food sovereignty and local economic development in Latin America, the Caribbean and even other Southern regions.  FoE Uruguay is a key actor in an increasing number of Latin America fora. They have also strengthened their coordination of the Hemispheric Social Alliance with regard to corporates issues, and are actively preparing for May 2008 Summit of the Peoples in Lima.

In terms of media work, “We have been able to make our space in the mass media and kept developing the alternative media through Real World Radio and their quarterly magazine Biodiversidad, Sustento y Culturas.” They also have a permanent spot on two national radio programs, which allows them to reach almost 21,000 people every week. Dozens of other radio, TV and print pieces have covered their work.

In general, FoE Uruguay’s information and analysis helped inform and mobilize citizens on corporate issues related to food sovereignty and access to water at the national, regional and international levels. In 2007 they also worked to involve rural women’s organizations in these issues.

Two events, which FoE Uruguay helped organized, demonstrated the public’s greater involvement in social movements: the National March in Defence of Sovereignty, and the Forum of Southern Peoples (Foro de los Pueblos del Sur), held in parallel to the MERCOSUR (Latin American regional trade) summit. The latter was attended by one thousand people.

what we learned: FoE Uruguay faced a considerable challenge in convincing politicians to take their position, despite managing to consult with them and participating in special committees on the new laws. Although such consultative spaces have opened up, FoE Uruguay fears that, “at the end of the day, real participation in the definition of policies is not really allowed.”

Another challenge is that the need for jobs and new investment often trumps other issues when it comes to mobilizing people — a key challenge in FoE Uruguay’s efforts to oppose monocultures and the wood pulp industry. However, “The forums organized by REDES all over the country and the presentation of our video on the impacts of plantations have contributed a lot.”

Finally, despite a media bias toward the corporate viewpoint, FoE Uruguay was able to introduce their analysis to the debate; however obtaining media coverage of alternative visions remains a considerable challenge in Uruguay.

what next: According to FoE Uruguay, “We need to keep up the pressure to guarantee the creation of spaces for real participation, and to make sure that existing spaces such as the COASAS (for the defining of the water policy) allow for real participation.”

with thanks to our funders: the dutch ministry of foreign affairs

Following pressure from FoE groups in West Africa and around the world, the World Bank decided to carry out an inspection of the controversial West African Gas Pipeline.
FoE Africa groups stepped up their campaign to keep their continent GM-free, through meetings, reports, the monitoring of rice imports and a global Food Sovereignty Forum in Mali.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development  announced that it would not fund the Sakhalin II project following pressure from many FoE groups around the world.
FoE Europe was at the forefront of the battle against “Global Europe”, the European Union’s new “external competitiveness” strategy.
The corporates campaign worked with a local community group in the Philippines in a lawsuit that forced the relocation of an oil depot housing three oil companies.
FoE Europe brought together 300 activists to create a giant EU energy flag during the European Union Spring Summit to call for safe, renewable energy. 
FoE corporates campaigners in the Netherlands, England and Belgium filed complaints against Shell greenwash.
FoE Europe's call for an aviation tax was supported by Members of Parliament from Belgium, France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.

FoE Europe and others campaigning for corporate lobby transparency welcomed a European Commission communication on this subject.
With the stalling of global trade negotiations, FoEI focused on regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs), building alliances and creating alternatives.
The Forests and Biodiversity programme strengthened alliances throughout 2007 with among others Via Campesina and the World Rainforest Movement.
FoEI, FoE Europe and others campaigned successfully for European Parliament approval of an important resolution on Trade and Climate Change.
FoEI's complaint to the UK Advertising Standards Agency about a misleading palm oil advertisement was upheld.
FoEI took out a two-page ad in major newspapers telling oil giant Shell to “Use your profits to clean up your mess”.

FoE Europe continued its strong campaign to keep Europe free of GMOs.