My name is Lisa Griffith, and I’m the Outreach and Communications Coordinator of National Family Farm Coalition. I first met Heather Day at the 2009 Community Food Security Coalition conference in Des Moines when CAGJ was recognized with an Honorable Mention for the first US Food Sovereignty Prize. CAGJ soon joined the National Family Farm Coalition, and ever since Heather and CAGJ have been actively helping to lead our fight for economic justice and against the corporate consolidation of our food, farm and fishery systems.
From DC to Indianapolis to Nairobi, tiny CAGJ has a big voice and even bigger heart. Through artwork, protests, and research, they help build creative and powerful global movements for justice. I’m so grateful for their opposition to GMOs, free trade, and corporate ideologues, and for insisting that everyone – rural, urban, people of color, white, non-binary, young, elderly and all in-between – deserves food sovereignty. Please join me in making a generous year-end gift – your support goes so far when you donate to CAGJ!
I know that most CAGJ members are based in the Pacific Northwest, and may not see how CAGJ is appreciated for showing up in national food sovereignty spaces. This includes the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, where CAGJ has helped organize the Food Sovereignty Prize every year. (I remember the year Heather hosted the ceremony in her living room, when a windstorm threatened to shut down Seattle, forcing us to cancel the public event.)
The prize is an important way that our movement shifts the dominant narrative, by offering a counterpart to the corporate-dominated World Food Prize, and shining a spotlight on grassroots efforts both in the US and globally. It’s also an opportunity for the food sovereignty movement to gather (sometimes in person, sometimes virtually) to celebrate our successes and share our challenges.
Heather Day and Lisa Griffith at FarmAid 2023
I hope you will join the ceremony for the 15th annual prize on Thursday December 14, 3:30PM PST, when it will be awarded to Black Dirt Farm Collective & Mouvman Peyizan Papay-MPP of Haiti (register here).
If you value national and global alliance-building and wish to honor the vital food sovereignty work happening around the world, your donation to CAGJ today will help to keep this work going!
Please support CAGJ so that they can continue to stand with the rest of us in the fight for food sovereignty, in the US and globally.
Thank you!
Lisa Griffith
