CAGJ HAPPENINGS

TODAY - MON APRIL 30, 2PM: CAGJ Film Premiere & Webinar

The Northwest Fights GE Salmon: Indigenous Perspectives

Watch CAGJ's new short film, “Salmon People - The Risks of Genetically Engineered Fish for the Pacific Northwest” and hear a panel discussion TODAY, April 30, at 2PM PST where we'll be discussing the risks of genetically engineered salmon in the Northwest region. You must register (for free-click here)!

Speakers will include: Valerie Segrest, Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project; Fawn Sharp, Quinault Indian Nation; George Kimbrell Center for Food Safety; Pete Knutson, Loki Fish Co.; Heather Day - Moderator, CAGJ. The webinar is hosted by Community Alliance for Global Justice and Center for Food Safety, and co-sponsored by Friends of the Earth U.S. and Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance. If you can't join, it will be recorded, and posted on our website, where you can also view the film and see our new study guide!

TUES May 1, 2:30 -6PM

Join CAGJ for 19th Annual March for Immigrants and Workers' Rights

Meet up with CAGJ to join Seattle’s 19^th annual March for Immigrants and Workers' Rights! The march aims to publicly expose ICE activity in Washington State and to hold the Department of Licensing accountable for having facilitated ICE harassment against community members by way of sharing information about motorists. The March in Seattle is among several coordinated events happening in communities across the State of Washington, including Yakima and Tacoma and joins with other major West Coast cities protesting ICE intimidation and the Trump Administration’s fervent xenophobia. Gather at 2:30 at Judkins Park, 2150 S Norman St., Seattle. Look for CAGJ’s banner, or email us to join our contingent, and follow the updates for the march on Facebook.

SUN May 6, 3-5:30PM

AGRA Watch Campaign Training

Register today! Join AGRA Watch for a workshop on how the Seattle based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a global effect on agriculture. Who decides where the money goes? Who holds these decision makers accountable? Who decides what foods African farmers can grow, how they can grow it, and who can access it? Who should hold the power in local food systems? In this interactive workshop we will begin to unpack these questions, and orient participants to the AGRA Watch campaign, whose goal is to work in solidarity with African farmers, farmworkers, and organizers. All are welcome! Register here! Snacks & refreshments provided. Accessible location in Seattle TBA. Spread the word! Share the Facebook event.

TUES May 15, 6:30 - 8:30PM

Monthly Food Justice Project Meeting & Racial Justice Leadership Collective

New volunteer orientation at 6pm! Please RSVP.

FJP Meetings are a great way to get involved in CAGJ! We have incorporated the new Racial Justice Leadership Collective into our monthly FJP meetings to activate participants in taking action on our solidarity campaigns through a framework of racial justice. At this meeting, we will be discussing readings on racism in the food system (email Simone for readings!), organizing Summer School, and preparing for our GE salmon webinar and presence at May Day. Meetings are held 3rd Tuesday/month at CAGJ’s Office in the ID, 606 Maynard Ave. S. Rm 102, Seattle. All are welcome! For more info, email the Food Justice Project.

SUN May 20, 10AM-3PM

CAGJ Teach-Out with Kamayan Farm

CAGJ is excited to announce our Teach-Out with Ari de Leña, who gave the beautiful 2017 SLEE Dinner Keynote. Through Teach-Outs, CAGJ hopes to facilitate a place for the voices of our local food producers to be heard and their knowledge and skills to be recognized and celebrated. The site visit will include hands-on work, opportunity for discussion and reflection, and a call to action. Ari is the owner/operator of Kamayan Farm. As a queer, mixed filipina land worker, she is inspired by the ways that growing food can be an act of resistance. Kamayan Farm is a small vegetable, medicinal herb, and education farm that seeks to support our land and our communities to be healthy, diverse, and resilient through participatory workshops and by creating food and plant medicine that tells a story. Ari's work with Kamayan Farm is deeply informed by the injustices and resilience that she witnessed during a decade of working alongside low-income communities and communities of color. Register now to join us May 20; we will coordinate car-pools, and provide more info about what to bring the day-of. Contact us if you have questions!

Save the Date: SAT Sept 29, 2018

12th Annual SLEE! Dinner

Keynote: Edgar Franks, Community to Community

“The Legacy We Inherit: Luchando por una Vida AgroEcológica”

Please save the date for our 12^th Annual Strengthening Local Economies Everywhere Dinner! This year’s keynote will be given by Edgar Franks, Farmworker organizer with Community to Community Development. We are now seeking Interns & Volunteers to help organize, Sponsors and Table Captains! Contact Mollie Wolf, 2018 SLEE Coordinator, to learn more, and to get involved in organizing this year’s dinner and community gathering!

Join CAGJ's Office & Social Justice Community

Please help us find a new co-tenant! Two adjacent desks available now for $300/month in our warm community office space in the International District. Easy commute and amazing restaurants and cafes surround the office. We are a diverse group of people with deep commitments to social, economic, climate, and racial justice and toward collective liberation in our work and personal lives. We uphold clear, direct communication and community agreements around sharing our space. We meet monthly to share lunch, updates, and to address current needs in the office. The space is colorful, brightly decorated, and includes a shared conference room and kitchen. Contact us to arrange a visit!

TAKE ACTION

WED May 9, 10AM

Rally to Reject New Seasons Market in Ballard

Portland-based, non-union grocery chain New Seasons Market is opening its next store in Ballard on WED MAY 9^th. Join CAGJ and partner UFCW 21 as we gather with grocery workers, community members, faith leaders, and council members as we rally outside the store to #RejectNewSeasons. New Seasons has hired union-busters, bragged about profiting off gentrification and displacement, and has corporate ties to the hate-funding, anti-LGBTQ Murdock Trust. When hundreds of New Seasons workers in Portland went public in November with demands for living wages, adequate sick leave, and an end to arbitrary discipline, New Seasons responded by hiring the same union-busting firm as the Trump Hotel in Vegas. New Seasons’ profits enrich an investor that funds extremist organizations who work daily to undermine our values. Local grocery workers need your support – RSVP and join us on May 9^th! Contact Morgan with questions and check out NewSeasonStories.com.

SAT MAY 19, 7-10PM

Got Green's 10 Year Celebration - Donate to CAGJ's Team!

Every year CAGJ forms a team to support Got Green’s Green-a-Thon and raise funds for their visionary and grassroots food, climate, and racial justice organizing. This year we have a goal of raising $2000, and we are close to half way there! Please join CAGJ’s team by donating today, and join us at Got Green’s 10-year Anniversary Celebration, Rooted in Power! at FareStart. Get your tickets here!

CAGJ NEWS & ANALYSIS

AFSA Press Release: Hands Off African Seeds! No Intellectual Property on Life

The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) today (April 26) launches a continental seed policy report challenging the corporate capture of African farmers’ seeds and seed systems. Launched on World Intellectual Property Day, the report documents the policy shift towards corporatisation of seeds on the continent, in direct contravention of international obligations to protect farmers’ rights and to conserve agricultural biodiversity. It shows how these dangerous policies are rapidly advancing and how farmers are resisting. The report entitled ‘Resisting corporate takeover of African seed systems and building farmer managed seed systems for food sovereignty in Africa’ maps the way forward for building a continental movement to Save African Seeds.

Zimbabwean farmer and La Via Campesina General Coordinator, Elizabeth Mpofu said, “Regional bodies like SADC and COMESA are developing rules that will increase the availability of commercial seeds, only benefiting corporations like Syngenta and Monsanto. Indigenous seeds are not recognized. We believe in controlling our land and seeds and producing the healthy food that we want, the way we want. Our response is to fight for food sovereignty against these transnational corporations.” Read the full Press Release here.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

FRI-SAT: May 4-5

Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge Symposium:"Sharing Across Generations: Honoring Indigenous Food Kinships: The Living Breath of wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ"

Join us for this year's Living Breath Indigenous Foods and Ecological Knowledge Symposium. This year we have opened our doors to invite you to two days of amazing panels and break-out sessions in honor of Native Youth and Elders. Elders have much to give and pass on. What are the best ways to listen to and honor our knowledge bearers? How do young people look to the future of our Native nations and communities and their sacred relations with their place and their planet? This year we make the conversation between elders and youth prominent! Join us to share knowledge, experience and expertise on tribal food sovereignty initiatives, food justice and security, traditional foods and health, indigenous foods systems and global climate change. We invite all of you who hold these issues dear to join us for this important conversation. Your voice is welcomed! Schedule on American Indian Studies website. Location: UW wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ Intellectual House. Includes continental breakfast and traditional foods lunch both days. UW Students FREE! Other students and elders half off. Adults $20 for one day or 35.00 for both days. Register; tickets also available at the door.

SAT-SUN May 5-6, 9AM-3PM

Tilth Alliance’s May Edible Plant Sale

Come to Tilth Alliance’s Edible Plant Sale and choose from a wide selection of organically, sustainably, and locally grown plant starts. Support Tilth Alliance and grow your garden! Event is located at Meridian Park, 4850 Meridian Ave N. More information here.

WED May 9, 7PM

Movie Screening: A New Economy

Central Co-op is hosting a movie screening of A New Economy, a film focused on a handful of cooperatives and unconventional businesses across the country and the challenges and successes that they have experienced. The screening is followed by an introduction to the cooperative business model by the British Columbia Cooperative Association. Tickets go on sale March 26^th and are priced at $5 for Central Co-op members and $10 for the general public. Screening is located at Erickson Theater, 1524 Harvard Ave and doors open at 6:30 PM. More information here.

June 28- July 1, 2018

Indigenous Environmental Network Protecting Mother Earth Gathering

The Indigenous Environmental Network will once again present The PROTECTING MOTHER EARTH Gathering. This year’s conference will be hosted by the LSqualli-Absch, the Nisqually People (People of the River, People of the Grass) and held within the territories of the Nisqually Nation, near Olympia, Washington. Co-hosted by Indigenous Climate Action, a coalition of Indigenous Peoples representing different organizations and communities whom have a shared vision and mission to provide Indigenous leaders with knowledge about climate change and climate policy. From the Bakken oil fields to Standing Rock, and to the Bayou Bridge, from the Canadian Tar Sands to the Keystone XL and Kinder Morgan pipelines, to the Northwest coastal Salish Sea, Indigenous peoples are standing up to private corporations and governments that want to treat their ceded or UN-ceded territories, waters and lands, as a sacrifice zone for profit. Native Nations have inherent and the legal rights to decide what happens to their land, their waters, air, sacred sites and the climate. Learn more, and Register.