Introducing the South Africa-US Agroecology Exchange Article Series

Delegates from the October 2017 South Africa-US Agroecology Exchange are authoring a series of articles reflecting on different aspects of the Exchange. They will share how their trip to South Africa shaped new ideas, tactics, connections, and other means of continued engagement in the global Food Sovereignty movement, and how they’re bringing these insights to their local organizing. CAGJ co-organized the Exchange. The first two articles in the South Africa-US Agroecology Exchange Article Series are below.

Restoring my Indigeneity: Reflections on South Africa Agroecology Exchange by a Queer Black Urban Farmer, Dean Jackson First in the series. Dean Jackson is Executive Director of Hilltop Urban Gardens in Tacoma, and gave the 2015 SLEE Keynote.

In October I was honored to join seven other delegates on a US-South Africa Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Learning Exchange. As a Black queer and non-binary person who is working to remember and restore my Indigeneity through the work I do in community and at Hilltop Urban Gardens, this trip held both personal and organizational meaning for me. My ancestors were forcibly removed from their homelands. The intergenerational trauma from that displacement and subsequent horrors and enslavement, Jim Crow Laws, sharecropping, and into modern day anti-Blackness, modern day displacement through gentrification and the ongoing fight against white supremacy and white nationalism stay in my consciousness as I work to live my life for liberation and freedom. In 2017 I also committed to find Black joy and healing justice practices. This was my first trip to Africa and off the North American continent, and Hilltop Urban Garden’s first opportunity to connect with other food sovereignty and agroecology farmers internationally. I brought this all with me as I left Seattle-Tacoma International airport with my friend Xolotl Edgar Franks from Community to Community Development. I also brought the intention of coming open and ready to be filled with all that our South African comrades had to share with us. Read the rest of Dean’s blog.

Farmworkers Resist and Organize: Connected Struggles for Farmworker Justice in South Africa and the US  Second in the series. Edgar Franks is an Organizer with Community to Community Development in Bellingham.

This past October I was part of the delegation sent by the US Food Sovereignty Alliance to South Africa.  The delegation is part of a process to connect with groups throughout Africa with US-based Food Sovereignty groups to build an international analysis on the food system and to be in solidarity with one another. During the 11 days our delegation was in South Africa, we were able to meet with many organizations throughout different regions, each with their unique struggles. Our delegation was small but represented many different sectors within the food system, including farmworkers, Black farmers, and immigrants; we all brought our own area or expertise to the trip and complimented each other well. Even though every place we visited we learned a lot and were impacted by the amount of work and organizing that was happening, I want to share about the exchange that we had with the farmworkers in Robertson in the Western Cape. Personally, I was able to connect to the farmworker struggle in the Western Cape, as there was a familiarity with the way issues and conditions were discussed. The analysis that was shared resonated with me profoundly considering that farmworkers here in the United States are also going through the same exploitation. At Community to Community in Washington, we try to recognize that the struggle for farmworker justice is not limited to the workplace. Farmworkers’ lives are complex and have many intersections which is why we know that in order to achieve our goals – especially when it comes to transforming the food system – that we must go beyond just fighting for union contracts. Food Sovereignty for farmworkers also means being recognized as humans who are capable of leading ourselves. That is why we also organize for immigrant rights, climate justice, women’s rights, and food sovereignty. Read the rest of Edgar’s blog. 

Weakening of National Organic Standards as Board Votes to Allow Hydroponic Standards: New Label Needed?

To the dismay of many organic farmers, on November 1 the National Organic Standards Board voted to allow hydroponic production under the USDA Organic certification. The vote took place at their meeting in in Jacksonville, Florida, where organic farmers marched in the Rally to Protect Organic; 14 other rallies took place around the country leading up to the vote. Read a detailed account of the march and struggle at the meeting by farmer Dave Chapman here, who writes, “All of the organic philosophy is about building the health of the soil. All the benefits of health and climate come from a fertile soil. If you can get the soil right, then you don’t need pesticides”. Chapman blames Driscoll’s, the biggest berry company in the world, for being the elephant in the room who forced this vote. The National Family Farm Coalition (CAGJ is a member) shared Iowa organic dairy farmer Francis Thicke’s comments as he ended his five-year term on the National Organic Standards Board; he criticized the influence of agribusiness on the organics program and gave his support to a specialized "an add-on organic label that will enable real organic farmers and discerning organic consumers to support one another through a label that represents real organic food." His full comments are here. The meeting got considerable media coverage, including on NPR - Hydroponics are Taking Over Organic, and a Move to Ban Them Fails, and Civil Eats Opinion: Keep Organic in the Soil.

Civil Society Groups Banned from Argentina WTO Ministerial

The World Trade Organization will hold its 11th Ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires next week. In an alarming and unprecedented development, the Argentine government has revoked the accreditation of 63 civil society experts ― trade unionists, development advocates, digital rights activists, environmentalists, and others ― advising the WTO that the experts will not be allowed in the country to participate in the meeting. The majority of the rejected organizations work together through the global Our World Is Not for Sale network. Of the 20 organizations banned, only two are from corporations, while the majority of corporate representatives will be allowed. This development is particularly troubling as yesterday also marked the transfer of the G20 presidency from Germany to Argentina, leading to concern that banning of dissident voices will also extend to G20 meetings.

In the wake of disturbing reports of irregularities in the Honduran elections, CAGJ has signed onto this Open Letter, along with dozens of other human rights groups across the US.

1. Sign on your organization.

2. Individuals: Use this form to write to your Members of Congress and demand an immediate suspension of military and police aid to Honduras.

Open Letter to the US Congress and US State Department: As US-based human rights, grassroots organizing, solidarity, and other civil society organizations, we write to express our deep concern about seeming irregularities and reports of possible fraud in the November 26 presidential election in Honduras. Since election day we have seen images of US munitions that have been used against Honduran citizens asserting their right to democracy. Colleagues and friends from throughout Honduras are sending videos of massive militarization. We write to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to support credible, independent investigations into any and all claims of state-involvement in electoral fraud and violence during and since the November 26th elections. We reinforce our demand that you immediately suspend all US police and military aid to Honduras. Read the rest of the Open Letter on our website here.