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Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. We raise and distribute life-giving food as a means to end food apartheid. With deep reverence for the land and wisdom of our ancestors, we work to reclaim our collective right to belong to the earth and to have agency in the food system. We bring diverse communities together on this healing land to share skills on sustainable agriculture, natural building, spiritual activism, health, and environmental justice. We are training the next generation of activist-farmers and strengthening the movements for food sovereignty and community self-determination.

Our food sovereignty programs reach over 50,000 people each year, including farmer training for Black and Brown growers, reparations and land return initiatives for northeast farmers, food justice workshops for urban youth, home gardens for city-dwellers living under food apartheid, doorstep harvest delivery for food insecure households, and systems and policy education for public decision-makers.

Soul Fire Farm Institute Inc is a 501c3 nonprofit educational organization. Learn more about our work by reading our FAQ.

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Ending racism and injustice in the food system

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By Habib Ayeb

The Tunisian government is in high-level talks to remove the last crumbling barriers protecting Tunisian agriculture. Efforts to capitalize on the 'comparative advantage' of Tunisia's nearly year-round sunshine has already forced a shift toward production of fruit and vegetables for export, and increasing dependence on imports for the basic cereals that make up most Tunisian diets. As the nation's agriculture turned to meet the demands of Europe over the last 25 years, poverty in the countryside swelled. If the changes go through, it would cement dependence on the European trading system, and decimate what is left of Tunisia's diverse peasant agriculture.

Dr. Habib Ayeb, activist, geographer and co-founder of the Tunisian NGO Observatory of Food Sovereignty and Environment (OSAE) discusses the potential changes and presents a new vision for food sovereignty in North Africa in this opinion editorial.
Translation and introduction by Max Ajl.
Leaving ALECA and the Global Food System: For a New Sovereign Agricultural and Food Policy that Breaks Definitively with Food Dependence and International Markets

One out of every two Tunisians is currently fed from outside the country. Our food dependence now exceeds fifty-five percent of our consumption. This situation was not inevitable. Contrary to what the vast majority of experts and decision-makers say (against all evidence), Tunisia has sufficient natural resources, including water and land, as well as human resources, namely extremely rich peasant knowledge, to feed its entire current population, if not a larger one.

For decades, Tunisia has been sinking into an ever-more-asphyxiating food dependency. After 2011, many of us wished for a change of course and hoped for a complete break with the policies that had been followed since national independence. However, all our governments have blindly pursued the policies of their predecessors in a forced march to nowhere, and against the vital interests of the country.

This massive food dependency is likely to worsen if the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (ALECA, as it is commonly known by its French acronym) with Europe is signed and approved by Tunisian policymakers.

Read more : https://foodfirst.org/building-food-sovereignty-in-tunisia/

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The Tunisian government is in high-level talks to remove the last crumbling barriers protecting Tunisian agriculture. Efforts to capitalize on the 'comparative advantage' of Tunisia's nearly year-round sunshine has already forced a shift toward production of fruit and vegetables for export, and increasing dependence on imports for the basic cereals that make up most Tunisian diets.

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When Philip Howard of Michigan State University published the first iteration of his now well-known seed industry consolidation chart in 2008, it starkly illustrated the extent of acquisitions and mergers of the previous decade: Six corporations dominated the majority of the brand-name seed market, and they were starting to enter into new alliances with competitors that threatened to further weaken competition.

Howard's newly updated seed chart is similar but even starker. It shows how weak antitrust law enforcement and oversight by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has allowed a handful of firms to amass enormous market, economic, and political power over our global seed supply. The newest findings show that the Big 6 (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer, and BASF) have consolidated into a Big 4 dominated by Bayer and Corteva (a new firm created as a result of the Dow-DuPont merger), and rounded out with ChemChina and BASF. These four firms control more than 60 percent of global proprietary seed sales.

Howard began his annual tracking of seed industry ownership changes in 1998, a year that served as a turning point for industry consolidation. Two years after genetically engineered (GE) varieties were introduced in 1996, by 1998 the large agribusiness companies had accelerated their consolidation by buying up smaller firms to accumulate more intellectual property (IP) rights. By 2008, Monsanto's patented genetics alone were planted on 80 percent of U.S. corn acres, 86 percent of cotton acres, and 92 percent of soybean acres. Today, these percentages are even higher.

Economists say that an industry has lost its competitive character when the concentration ratio of the top four firms is 40 percent or higher. The seed industry continues to exceed this benchmark not only across the entire global supply, but across crop types as well. For example, even before the Big 4 merged, three firms (Monsanto, Syngenta, and Vilmorin) controlled 60 percent of the global vegetable seed market.

The most notable mega-mergers in Howard's updated chart include:

* Dow and DuPont: This $130 billion merger resulted in the two chemical companies dividing into three companies, including a new agriculture firm called Corteva.

* ChemChina and Syngenta: This $43 billion merger allowed China to add its second company ranking in the top 10 of global seed sales (along with Longping High-Tech).

* Bayer and Monsanto: This $63 billion deal was the second-biggest merger announced in 2016; Bayer has since dropped Monsanto's 117-year-old name.

"For farmers, the options continue to be reduced," says Howard. "Although Bayer sold a number of seed divisions to BASF to pave the way for its acquisition of Monsanto, the share of the market controlled by the largest firms has only increased." What's more, he added that although those firms made promises of job growth and greater innovation if the merger was approved, Bayer last month announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its global workforce.

History shows us that seed industry consolidation leads to less choice and higher prices for farmers. These companies also aggressively protect their IP rights, which means less innovation and more restrictions on how seed is used and exchanged, including for seed saving and research purposes. These restrictions affect conventional and organic agriculture alike by making a large pool of plant genetics inaccessible to public researchers, farmers, and independent breeders, which in turn limits the diversity of seed in our landscapes and marketplace and weakens our food security.

A number of studies suggest increased market domination removes companies' incentive to innovate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's own data confirms this trend, finding that fewer players mean less innovation. As the seed industry became more concentrated, private research "dropped or slowed" and those companies that survived consolidation are "sponsoring less research relative to the size of their individual markets than when more companies were involved."

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The Sobering Details Behind the Latest Seed Monopoly Chart

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As four seed companies now control more than 60 percent of the global market, a seed policy expert argues that consolidation poses major risks to our food supply.

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Arab Food Security Vulnerabilities and Pathways

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Arab Food Security Vulnerabilities and Pathways

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In a recent initiative, Dubai has launched the futuristic Food Tech Valley earlier this year to triple the UAE's food production.

"Food and water security are among the priorities of the UAE government for the post-coronavirus period, and the objective is to launch specialist initiatives that will ensure our readiness to confront all types of crises," said His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at the launch of the project.

The new initiative aims to create an integrated modern city that will serve as a hub for future clean tech-based food and agricultural products and an incubator for researchers, entrepreneurs, start-ups and industry experts.

Today, agriculture is regarded as a fundamental pillar of the UAE's National Food Security Strategy. "Agriculture is a significant part of our journey towards building a sustainable economy," said His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. "Innovation in this sector is key to our food security goals, and our country's diversified economic growth".

Improvement in food security

Despite its high reliance on imports, the UAE is still regarded as one of the food-secure nations in the world largely due to its ability to source food from international markets. The UAE jumped 10 places in the Global Food Security Index, moving from 31 in the rankings in 2018 to 21 in 2019. This achievement reflects the efforts of the government to establish the country as a world-leading hub in innovation-driven food security.

Enhancing long-term self-sufficiency through efficient domestic production has long been a key element of the UAE's food security agenda. The UAE has implemented a unique approach to advance self-sufficiency. Along with strengthening global supply chains and collaborating with multiple countries to diversify supply sources, it is also stepping up its local agricultural production to reduce its reliance on imports. This strategy worked well during the pandemic - even amid supply chain disruptions, border closures and restrictions in delivery routes, the UAE managed to maintain a sustainable flow of essential items.

Drivers of growth

From government agencies to research organisations to local farms and F&B companies, the UAE is collectively working to find its own solutions to strengthen the agricultural value chains and produce food efficiently and sustainably - solutions that touch our daily lives and make a difference.

Last year, the UAE cabinet approved a national system for sustainable agriculture to improve the efficiency of farms, enhance its self-sufficiency in food and create new opportunities to ensure that the agriculture sector is always ranked among the best. The system is projected to increase self-sufficiency from the targeted agricultural crops by 5 per cent and increase the average farm income by 10 per cent annually.

Abu Dhabi has launched a new company, Silal, to diversify food sources and increase production of locally grown and manufactured food.

Buoyed by momentum from these initiatives as well as steady investments in research in new farm-tech solutions, the agricultural sector in the UAE has made rapid strides in the past few years. Now with the pandemic emphasising the importance of safeguarding food security across the world, there has been an increased interest in exploring opportunities to grow and buy locally and increasing self-sufficiency.

Farm-tech solutions

As traditional agricultural practices become largely unsustainable, local farms are increasingly turning to aquaponics, hydroponics and vertical farming solutions. However, experts say the sector needs to explore other innovative cultivation methods and grow alternative crops to support future growth.

Headquartered in Dubai, International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), which focuses on marginal environments, has grown salt-, heat- and drought-tolerant crops for food and feed, such as quinoa, amaranth, minor millets, pearl millet and halophytes like Salicornia.

Alternative crop cultivation

"Salicornia and other halophytes have great potential as alternative crops for food production in semi-arid and arid regions such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where farming faces constraints ranging from soil and water salinity to water scarcity," says Dr Tarifa Alzaabi, Acting Director General of ICBA.

"However, a number of challenges should be addressed before such crops become widely produced and used. They include, among others, a lack of value chains and low or non-existent consumer awareness and demand. For this reason, ICBA has been focusing more and more efforts on developing value chains for Salicornia and quinoa in different countries, including Egypt, Morocco, and the UAE."

Under a project titled From desert farm to fork: Value chain development for innovative halophyte-based food products, ICBA helped farmers in Abu Dhabi to grow Salicornia and fish using reject brine from desalination units.

Solutions for climate-smart agriculture

In yet another step to strengthen the UAE's agriculture sector, Desert Control - with offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi - has through its soil recovery technology, Liquid Natural Clay (LNC), developed solutions to reverse desertification and create arable land in the desert.

"The solution can further improve existing sandy soils, reducing the water usage for agriculture, forests, and green landscapes by up to 50 per cent while increasing crop yields," says Ole Kristian Sivertsen, Chief Executive Officer at Desert Control, which focuses on accelerating adoption of solutions to reduce water usage in established farms, irrigated forests, and green landscapes.

Desert Control has partnered with Mawarid and Barari in Abu Dhabi to accelerate initiatives to strengthen food security for the UAE, and to develop a framework for sustainable land management and climate-smart agriculture that can serve the wider Middle East and North Africa region.

Scientists have also been utilising the potential of genomic research to accelerate the discovery and development of crops suited to the UAE. ICBA recently opened a new advanced genomic research facility at its headquarters in Dubai.

"The aim is to further genomic research on healthier, more nutritious, and resilient crops for sustainable food systems. Dubbed as the Desert Life Science Laboratory (DLSL), it's a joint venture between ICBA and BGI, the world's largest genomic research institution," says Dr Alzaabi.

Reasons to eat local

Demand for locally-produced food and beverages has risen, as the pandemic has made customers more health conscious. There has been a surge in the number of people turning to local produce, encouraging farms and local F&B businesses to invest in advanced tech to increase output and improve production processes.

"All businesses thrive on innovation and sustainability. In this rapidly transforming digital era we need to keep pace with the changes happening around us," says Dr Suheel Ahmed, CEO - Holding, Arabian Farms, which produces more than 120 million SAHA fresh eggs and six million kilos of chicken per year at its facility in Dubai. "We have recently reinvested in our fully automated egg collection, grading, and packing systems, along with building a state-of-the-art chicken producing and processing facility with the latest technology."

To maximise the potential of the agricultural sector and support farms, retailers and distributors have ramped up efforts to promote local produce.

Barakat currently works in direct partnership with more than 50 local farms to deliver fresh produce from farm to fork within a few hours. "Barakat has also formed a supply agreement with Silal, Abu Dhabi's new food and agritech company, to source the fresh produce from local growers in the UAE, catering to the diverse needs of consumers and hospitality, restaurant and other premium F&B customers," says Rashid Alabbar, Barakat Board Member.

"Consumers have begun to realise the role of healthy eating habits more than ever now. This has led to a significant shift in consumer preference towards local produce over the last 18 months."

Dr Ahmed agrees, "The pandemic has opened our eyes, highlighting the importance of healthy lifestyle. Food choices have become the most important part of this change with an emphasis on locally produced food that do not contain additives or undergo preservation processes to increase shelf life."

As the UAE celebrates its 50th anniversary and looks ahead to achieve its Centennial 2071 goals, it's fascinating to see how the foundation for the food secured nation, laid down by the late Sheikh Zayed, fuels further progress and prosperity in the agriculture sector. ■

Abu Dhabi start-up develops a sustainable technology to strengthen water security
In conversation with Saeed Alhassan Alkhazraji, Founder, Manhat Where did the idea for Manhat come from?
The idea started from an observation; which at the beginning didn't mean much. Most of us have noticed that when we leave a half-full bottle of water in our car or at home, water droplets form in the inner wall of the bottle. This phenomenon is not exactly new to humanity. But for me, it triggered a collection of memories and facts that allowed me to examine it in more detail. This examination led to the patents that we currently use.
Your website states that Manhat makes water naturally - could you explain the process?
Water's natural cycle starts with water evaporation from open water surfaces such as seas, gulfs, rivers, pools, ponds, etc. This evaporation is driven by solar radiation, which heats up the water, evaporates it, and forms clouds. We are using the same concept in our devices; hence, the motto "Make water, naturally."
UAE's biggest concern with regard to building a sustainable agricultural ecosystem and achieving water security is the lack of freshwater resources. How could Manhat solve this problem?
Our technology can be one of the options for the future of water production in the UAE. Our approach allows us to produce water without the side effects of other existing technologies.
At what stage is the start-up now?
We are at the seed stage as a start-up. We are developing a technology based on physical science research that requires a relatively long time to develop prototypes for customers. Nevertheless, our technology has a high ceiling and high potential as a sustainable water production method.
How do you plan to make the technology commercially accessible to people in the UAE?
Well, at this stage, the technology is more suitable for business rather than individuals. However, it is possible to provide these devices to individuals at a later stage. As for technology development, we are working on it to enhance different performance parameters.

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UAE at 50: How the nation is advancing its food security agenda

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UAE leverages cutting-edge farm tech to accelerate improvement in food security

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Humans Have the Potential to Turn Deserts into a Green Oasis

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Environmental leader, Vandana Shiva illustrates how civilizations were destroyed in the name of creating the excessive irrigation needed for chemical farming.

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Editor's note: This is the second in a weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton's Lexicon of Sustainability. We'll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.
Xuyen Pham's Garden
East New Orleans, La.

After Xuyen Pham lost her New Orleans home to Hurricane Katrina, she turned the property into a farm to feed her community. She fled Vietnam with her husband and children at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After months in Southeast Asian refugee camps they were moved to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. The family was eventually sponsored by a hotel owner in Oklahoma, but the cold proved too much so they moved yet again, settling in the "Mary Queen of Vietnam" community in East New Orleans.

This farm is surrounded by houses (we are right in the middle of a suburban housing tract in East New Orleans).

Xuyen stands amidst taro plants in her home garden. The plant stems are a base ingredient in traditional soups and congees found on most Vietnamese dinner tables. By growing taro and other vegetables, she keeps Vietnamese traditions alive in her community.

Xuyen's definition of "food sovereignty":
The ability of community members to control food access (both effluent and influent) independent of outside food sources (such as supermarkets). Members of the community grow traditional fruits and vegetables and fisherfolk go shrimping, fishing, and crabbing to sell at local stores, the local Saturday farmers market, and most importantly, to feed their families and community members.

Xuyen is also a participant in a local New Orleans East aquaponics project. The project is being implemented by MQVN Community Development Corporation and was established originally by fisherfolk displaced by the BP oil drilling disaster as a way to create jobs and to ensure adequate food access in New Orleans East (a USDA-identified food desert). In the near future, she and her husband, with the help of MQVN Community Development Corporation, will construct greenhouses and an aquaponics growing system on their farm plot.

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Lexicon of Sustainability: Food sovereignty

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After Hurricane Katrina, the only fresh produce within 50 miles of New Orleans came from a tiny Vietnamese refugee community in East New Orleans.

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Food security data per country

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The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is an annual assessment measuring food security through affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation metrics worldwide.

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The Arab Spring was a revolution of the hungry

The Arab world can't feed itself, and that's how the region's dictators like it.

By Thanassis Cambanis

Early in the Tahrir Square revolution, a group of retired Egyptian generals sat poolside at Cairo's Gezira Club and worried about whether the country's ruling elite could survive a popular uprising. It was February 2011, a week before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled. Millions of freshly politicized Egyptians had already taken to the streets. And yet, some of these career security men were unfazed.

"The only thing we really need to worry about is a revolution of the hungry," said one, a retired Air Force general. "That would be the end of us."

As it turned out, it took less than four years for Egypt's dictatorship to reconstitute itself, crushing the hope for real change among the people. In no small part, the regime's resilience was due to its firm grasp of bread politics. The ruler who controls the main staples of life - bread and fuel - often controls everything else, too.

Nonetheless, the specter of a "revolution of the hungry" still worries authoritarian rulers today, in Egypt and throughout the Arab world. Roughly put, the idea is shorthand for an uprising that brings together not only the traditional cast of political and religious dissidents but also pits a far greater number of poor, uneducated, and apolitical citizens against the state.

Look across the region, and regimes have good reason to be afraid. Even in countries where obesity is widespread, people suffer from low-quality medical care and malnutrition due to a lack of healthy food.

The basic equation is stark: The Arab world cannot feed itself. Rulers obsessed with security have created a twisted web of importers and bakeries whose aim is not to feed the population efficiently or nutritiously but simply to maintain the regime and stave off that much feared revolution of the hungry. Vast subsidies eat up the lion's share of national budgets.

So far, the bakeries haven't run out of loaves in two of the region's biggest bread battlegrounds, Egypt and Syria. But the sense of plenty is only an illusion. Food is expensive, people are poor, and repressive regimes rely on imported wheat financed through foreign aid. It's an unsustainable and volatile cocktail.

"You have a system where access to food is a primary mechanism of social control," said journalist Annia Ciezadlo, author of the book "Day of Honey," who has written extensively about food subsidies, unrest, and the use of food as a weapon in the Middle East. "The moment something happens to that supply of subsidized food, everything can go out of control."

The Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011 offered only the most recent glimpse of what it would look like if people got hit where it hurts the most: at the dinner table.

In 1977, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt managed a feat that had been considered impossible when he broke with the entire Arab world and initiated a peace process with Israel, even traveling to Jerusalem to address the Knesset. The bread conundrum, on the other hand, proved much more intractable.

Sadat tried in January 1977 to cancel Egypt's expensive wheat subsidy at the urging of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Riots swept nearly every major city, and in two days Sadat caved. He restored the bread subsidy that has remained in place ever since, and the Egyptian military took control of many crucial bakeries to ensure that the government could control the bread supply in a crisis. That awkward status quo prevails to this day. The government's bread economy is inefficient, unstable, and nearly entirely dependent on foreign imports. But any attempt to tinker with bread prices or subsidies still terrifies the country's rulers and enrages its citizens.

Regimes took heed. Hafez al-Assad, the dictator of Syria, extolled peasants in his rhetoric and made food independence a central pillar of his regime. For decades, Syrian officials constantly bragged they didn't need to import wheat.

Dictators in the Arab world learned that one of the best routes to dominance runs through the bakery. Rulers the world round usually deploy some variant of pocketbook politics, rewarding their loyalists with perks like community centers, jobs, and payola - and punishing opposition areas by scrimping on their basic services like roads and schools. In many Middle Eastern countries, the level of control was more basic: Without the government, citizens would starve.

The brittle, undemocratic regimes had, however, no mechanism of oversight and little resilience to withstand outside shocks. So distant events like a bad crop on the Black Sea or low rainfall in Canada could quickly translate into a political crisis in the Levant or North Africa. In 2008, world food prices spiked, and, once again, bread riots broke out across the Middle East. Regimes scrambled to cover the shortfall with handouts and subsidies, on the assumption that their populations might tolerate repression but not hunger.

Indeed, rising commodity prices were one of the triggers in the 2010 to 2011 uprisings. Protesters in Tunisia brandished baguettes. In Egypt, many of the revolutionary chants talked about food, and a central demand was for "bread, freedom, social justice" (it rhymes in Arabic).

The first Syrians to rise up against Bashar Assad included many poor farmers who had been displaced by drought and the government's neoliberal disinvestment from agriculture. Caitlin Werrell and Francesco Femia at the Center for Climate and Security in Washington, D.C., argue that a series of droughts in Syria from 2006 to 2010 created the preconditions for the uprisings - crop failures drove farmers off their land and raised the level of desperation until Syrians directly challenged their ruler.

Saudi Arabia's ultrarich monarchy calculated that it could survive any challenge from political dissidents critical of the country's lack of rights and freedoms - as long as it could keep its citizens in material comfort. The king quickly increased handouts to citizens, and after a brief rumble, Saudi Arabians sat out the regional wave of protests that swept through nearly every other Arab state.

Yet the obsession with food sovereignty and security remains close to the region's despots. Saudi Arabia has purchased land in fertile water-rich countries like Ethiopia in order to secure its food supply.

In Syria, unscrupulous combatants on all sides have made food one of the war's central battlegrounds. The regime blocks delivery of food aid to rebellious regions; its blockade of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus has also kept out truckloads of UN food aid, causing years of famine in the camp. Further afield, the regime routinely bombs bakeries in areas that fall under rebel control, in a method colloquially referred to as "starve-or-surrender."

The Islamic State, for its part, has made control of the food supply a basic part of its blueprint for power, starting with the bakeries and wheat warehouses, and even facilitating the international aid deliveries that have kept some parts of northern Syria from suffering the same fate as Yarmouk.

The Arab states are the world's largest net importers of grains, depending on exports from water-rich North America, Europe, and Central Asia.

So it follows that bread riots will break out every time there's a disruption in the global food supply. Anger will bubble up every time there's a drought. Or when oil profits fall and it becomes harder to pay for grain imports. The Middle East North Africa region consumes about 44 percent of global net grain imports, according to Eckart Woertz, author of "Oil for Food: The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East": "Self sufficiency is not an option in the region," he said in an interview.

Still, most scholars now accept the idea first proposed by the economist Amartya Sen, that food shortages and famines are usually caused by political mismanagement, not by an actual lack of food.

In the Middle East, that means conditions are still ripe for a tempest. "At the end of the day, we can explain the crisis in terms of political economy: corruption, crony networks favored over rural populations. Droughts don't cause civil war in Los Angeles," said Woertz, who studies food and security at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, a think tank.

And it can't be ignored that droughts have been a fact of life in the arid Arab world as long as there has been agriculture, and bread riots on their own have yet to transform a dictatorship into a democracy. That's because the problem is much larger: People in the Arab world have been kept poorer than they should be by corrupt repressive governments that hog national wealth for a tiny elite. Until that changes, hunger and food insecurity will remain yet another symptom of the region's terrible governance.

Thanassis Cambanis, a fellow at the Century Foundation, is the author of "Once Upon a Revolution: An Egyptian Story." He is an Ideas columnist and blogs at thanassiscambanis.com.

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The Arab Spring was a revolution of the hungry - The Boston Globe

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The Arab world can't feed itself, and that's how the region's dictators like it.

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Israel Gaza war: EU says starvation being used as a weapon

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Israel Gaza war: EU says starvation being used as a weapon

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Israel Gaza war: EU says starvation being used as a weapon

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The bloc’s foreign policy chief says not enough aid is getting in because land routes are being closed off.

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UN resolution barring use of hunger as weapon

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UN resolution barring use of hunger as weapon

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The day the UN barred using hunger and starvation as weapons of war | World Food Programme

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Four years after the Security Council passed the landmark resolution 2417, World Food Programme Head of Emergencies Margot van der Velden explains why in a year of unprecedented hunger marking the anniversary is so important

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Syria - Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

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Syria - Global Food Security Index (GFSI)

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Select a country

Syria

Middle East and North Africa | Low income

N/A

Prevalence of undernourishment

29.6%

Percentage of children stunted

10.4%

Percentage of children underweight

25.8%

Prevalence of Obesity

0.57

Human Development Index

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The Global Food Security Index (GFSI) is an annual assessment measuring food security through affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation metrics worldwide.

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From soil conditions to crop productivity, satellite data help inform farmers, scientists, and decision-makers in the U.S. and around the world.

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From soil conditions to crop productivity, satellite data help inform farmers, scientists, and decision-makers in the U.S. and around the world.

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As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UNDER) gains momentum, UNCCD and WOCAT are partnering up on a video series that highlight the central role of sustainable land management (SLM) in restoring and maintaining the health of ecosystems.

SLM has a central role in each of the eight UNDER ecosystems - farmlands, grasslands, forests, mountains, freshwaters, urban areas, peatlands, oceans and coasts - by combating land degradation, improving production and securing livelihoods while simultaneously generating multiple environmental co-benefits.

While people have directly contributed to ecosystem degradation, they can also be the primary agents of change toward a sustainable land management restoration when armed with knowledge to adopt and upscale SLM.

The new video series presents successful practices for each ecosystem, demonstrating how SLM can deliver powerful solutions to ecosystem degradation.

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Restoring life to land: Sustainable land management for ecosystem restoration

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As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (UNDER) gains momentum, UNCCD and WOCAT are partnering up on a video series that highlight the central role of sustainable land management (SLM) in restoring and maintaining the health of ecosystems.

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Why Famine is Returning as a Weapon of War

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Turning food into a weapon: how Russia resorted to one of the oldest forms of warfare

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With Russia blockading Ukraine’s eastern ports, an alternative route to the west is possible but faces serious problems

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U.S. Agency for International Development

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In July, the UN helped broker a lifesaving deal between Ukraine, Turkey and Russia that enabled Ukraine to resume shipping millions of tons of desperately needed grain exports through the international waters of the Black Sea. The deal unlocked millions of tons of desperately-needed grain and other foods that would otherwise be stuck in Ukraine. The Black Sea Grain Initiative helps people in need across the globe by directly delivering desperately-needed grains to lower-income countries and bringing down food prices. The Black Sea Grain Initiative could be forced to expire in late November if Putin refuses to renew it.

Since the first ship went out on August 1:

Over 380 ships have departed to some 37 countries, transporting over 8.6 million tons of cargo carrying life-saving food exports from Ukraine ports.

More than 2 million metric tons of food have been exported directly to countries most vulnerable to severe hunger, like Kenya, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Over 1 million metric tons of wheat have been shipped from Ukraine to low and lower-middle income countries through the Black Sea Grain Initiative. That is the equivalent of nearly 3 billion loaves of bread.

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The Black Sea Grain Initiative | Food Security | Fact Sheet | U.S. Agency for International Development

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In July, the UN helped broker a lifesaving deal between Ukraine, Turkey and Russia that enabled Ukraine to resume shipping millions of tons of desperately needed grain exports through the international waters of the Black Sea.

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As of April 2022, food prices in Iran were up 43 percent over the previous year largely due to a severe drought, sanctions, inflation, corruption, and government mismanagement. In early May, the government implemented economic reforms intended to help consumers, but prices of bread and other staples spiked. Cooking essentials, such as oil and sugar, were increasingly scarce.

Iranians had already struggled to make ends meet during the three previous years of economic contraction between 2018 and 2021. By early 2022, some 30 percent of households were living below the poverty line, according to government figures. Some experts estimated that at least half of Iran's 85 million people were living under the poverty line. And inflation for all goods hit 40 percent, the highest since 1994.

The challenges were exacerbated by:

The worst in a half century, which dragged on for nine months from October 2020 to June 2021, and hurt crop production

Sanctions, which increased the cost of imported food as well imported parts and machinery for food processing facilities

The devaluation of Iran's currency, which increased the cost of imported goods

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a major grain producer, which caused the global price of wheat to rise nearly 20 percent in March 2022

Protests Erupt Over Bread Prices

On May 1, the government announced that it would eliminate an exchange rate subsidy available for the import of wheat, other basic foodstuffs, and some medicines. Many retailers responded by tripling the price of flour-based staples, including bread and pasta. On May 6, protests began in Khuzestan province over bread prices. In the following days, prices for chicken, cooking oil, eggs, milk, and other basics also rose.

President Ebrahim Raisi called on the public to "not panic" about prices during a televised interview on May 9. He promised to issue electronic coupons in the coming months to allow people to buy a limited amount of bread at subsidized prices. In the meantime, Raisi said that individuals would receive monthly cash transfers of $10 to $13 to help deal with price hikes, but the protests intensified. Major General Hossein Salami, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, acknowledged the economic "difficulties" and called on the Basij paramilitary to help the people.

The recent protests are not the first time that economic reforms triggered national unrest. Similar protests erupted after the government cut fuel subsidies in November 2019, in turn increasing the consumer price of gasoline. Subsidy reforms are often a political lightning rod because of high inflation and low public trust in government. Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic vowed to help "the oppressed" and improve the material welfare of ordinary people.

But Iran has experienced economic stagnation since sanctions were imposed by the United States, European Union, and United Nations in 2012 during a diplomatic deadlock over Tehran's controversial nuclear program. The standard of living has not significantly improved in a decade.

Many Iranian economists believe that fuel subsidy reforms or the elimination of the subsidized exchange rate will reduce wastage and corruption-and in turn help the government slow inflation. But successive Iranian governments have failed to communicate the purpose of so-called "economic surgery" or the long-term gains of subsidy reforms, in turn fueling popular resentment.

Government Efforts to Aid the Poor

Economists have long argued that a government-subsidized exchange rate was highly inefficient and did little to help vulnerable households. Since 2016 the government has enabled companies to purchase foreign currency at exchange rates below market prices, effectively providing Iranian importers with billions of dollars in subsidies who did not pass along the subsidized price benefits to food processors, producers or farms.

Proponents of subsidy reform argue that the government could better shield the poor from high prices by giving them cash subsidies. In May 2022, the Raisi government promised to implement new cash transfers to counter price increases as the subsidized exchange rate was eliminated.

The new transfer was originally intended to target only the poorest households. But the initial tranche instead covered the vast majority of the population to avoid backlash. Iran has a long history of using cash transfers to preserve the purchasing power of households. Economists claim that transfers can be efficient.

Public Reaction to Reforms

The reforms implemented by the Raisi administration were originally proposed by the previous government under President Hassan Rouhani, which reflects the consensus among economic policymakers across the political spectrum. "Up to 70 percent of the subsidy funds from the former policy would get lost on their way of reaching the people," economist Saeed Leylaz, a reformist, told Al Jazeera.

President Raisi (right) at a supermarket in Tehran on May 13

Critics of the reforms have focused mostly on timing and the political consequences, given opposition among politicians with a more populist outlook. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf - a conservative and the speaker of Parliament - blamed the government for causing "distress among people" by ending the wheat subsidy before issuing electronic coupons for bread. Moeinoddin Saeidi, an independent lawmaker from Sistan and Baluchistan province, warned that Raisi's "economic surgery... will lead to the death of the patient."

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative and populist, also weighed in. "You [President Raisi] cannot do whatever you wish only because you are the boss!" he told a crowd in Bushehr in southern Iran. "The nation will not allow anyone to do anything against the people's will."

Major newspapers were divided. Some reformist dailies criticized the new policy while most conservative papers defended the government. The editor-in-chief of one conservative paper, however, called on Raisi to resign. "Now that it is clear that you cannot solve the problems, have the courage to step aside and leave the work to skilled people to save the people and the country from this vortex," Masih Mohajeri wrote in a front-page op-ed for Jomhouri-e Eslami.

Problems with Multiple Exchange Rates

Many Iranian policymakers have long opted to use oil revenues to sustain the value of the rial. But the imposition of U.S. sanctions and subsequent decrease in oil revenues beginning in 2012 diminished the Central Bank's ability to shore the up the currency. Subsequently, the gap between the free-market exchange rate and the official exchange rate widened. In response, the Central Bank decided to limit use of the subsidized exchange rate for the importation of essential goods.

Importers of essential goods-a list that was originally broad-could apply to the Central Bank for currency allocations far below the market rate. In theory, this helped keep key imports cheaper. But the Central Bank lacked the means to prevent Iran's currency from being devalued, so the official rate remained low.

Over the years, importers reportedly received allocations of currency at the subsidized exchange rate only to turn around and sell the currency at rates closer to the free market rate. The system of multiple exchange rates allowed opportunities for corruption besides being an inefficient way for the Central Bank to manage the foreign exchange market.

Timeline of 2022 Protests

May 1: The government stopped allotting foreign currency below market exchange rates to importers of wheat, other basic foodstuffs, and some medicine. Within days, many retailers across the country tripled the price for flour-based products, including bread and pasta.

May 3: Seyyed Javad Sadatinejad, the Minister of Agriculture, blamed the price increases on the war in Ukraine, which disrupted the global food supply, and on smugglers trying to profit from selling wheat abroad.

May 6: Protests over the spike in bread prices broke out in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. In Izeh, residents reportedly seized a warehouse where flour was stored. In Sousangerd, security forces reportedly imposed a curfew and used live ammunition to disperse demonstrators. Reports were difficult to verify due to a disruption in internet connectivity.

Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative and populist, criticized Raisi's subsidy reforms. "You cannot do whatever you wish only because you are the boss!" he told a crowd in Bushehr, the capital of the southern province of Bushehr. "The nation will not allow anyone to do anything against the people's will," he warned.

May 7: At least 30 protestors had been arrested in Khuzestan province, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.

Mobile and landline internet in Khuzestan province had been throttled, and mobile internet from two major operators was cut off in some cities, Shargh, a reformist newspaper, reported. Disruptions were reported in Ahvaz, the provincial capital, as well as Abadan, Izeh, Hamidiyeh, and Sousangerd.

Masih Mohajeri, the editor-in-chief of the conservative daily Jomhouri-e Eslami, called on President Ebrahim Raisi to resign over the price increases. "Now that it is clear that you cannot solve the problems, have the courage to step aside and leave the work to skilled people to save the people and the country from this dangerous quagmire," he wrote in a front-page op-ed. "If the instability of the government and the current dangerous situation have not been created by infiltrators, then they must be attributed to the poor management of your economic ministers."

May 8: Security forces reportedly used tear gas to disperse protestors in Izeh and Sousangerd in Khuzestan province.

Mobile internet in Ahvaz, Hamidiyeh, Shadegan, and Sousangerd had been cut off since May 6, Jamaran News Agency reported. And landline internet was throttled.

May 9: Authorities reportedly raided the Tehran home of labor activists Anisha Assadollahi and Keyvan Mohtad and detained them.

A large contingent of security forces were deployed to Khuzestan province, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). "Iranian state forces used live ammunition and killed peaceful protesters in Khuzestan a year ago, and they appear to be gearing up for a bloody repeat," warned Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of CHRI.

In a live televised interview, President Raisi explained his new economic reforms. He said that the government would distribute cash payments to most Iranians rather than indirectly subsidize the import of wheat and other necessities. Raisi also said that electronic coupons for subsidized bread would be issued in two months. The price of cooking oil quadrupled, and the prices of chicken and eggs doubled after the plans were announced.

May 10: Alireza Habibi, the manager of Radio Farhang, a state-run station, told staff to stop reporting on economic problems because they were "viewed as [national] security matters." He instructed producers and presenters to not include "newspaper headlines that are gloomy, critical, or about high prices in the programs," he said in an audio recording acquired by Iran International.

May 11: Protests continued in Khuzestan province, centered in the cities of Ahvaz, Dezful, Izeh, and Mahshahr. Protestors chanted anti-government slogans such as "Death to Raisi" and "Death to [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei." Some called for the return of the Pahlavi monarchy that was ousted in the 1979 revolution. "God bless your soul, Reza Shah," some chanted.

NetBlocks, a cyber monitoring firm, reported a major disruption in internet connectivity. The slowdown "may limit the free flow of information amid protests," it said.

⚠️ Confirmed: Real-time network data show a brief collapse in observable international connectivity on internet provider Rightel in #Iran, as well as a deterioration on other mobile and fixed-line providers; the slowdown may limit the free flow of information amid protests 📉 pic.twitter.com/uuzu2uYduB
- NetBlocks (@netblocks) May 11, 2022

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi denied reports about internet disruptions in Khuzestan province. "There is no area with insecurity in the country," he said, according to Tasnim News Agency. Vahidi also pledged that no goods would become more expensive until the government's subsidy plan is implemented.

May 12: The government cut subsidies on chicken, eggs, cooking oil, and milk. Prices jumped some 300 percent.

In a video, protestors in Kermanshah, the capital of the western province of Kermanshah, pulled down a billboard with a picture of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Security forces reportedly fired live rounds and wounded protestors in Khuzestan province. Omid Soltani, a 21-year-old, reportedly died after being shot in Andimeshk. Three days later, Ahmad Avaei, the area's representative in Parliament, acknowledged that a resident of Andimeshk had been killed.

Major General Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), acknowledged that the new government policies caused "difficulties." He called on the Basij militia to help the people, "as the enemy is waiting for us to show weakness to take advantage."

May 13: At night, demonstrators gathered in at least six provinces, in cities including Ahvaz and Dezful in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, Boroujerd in the western province of Lorestan, Qazvin in the northern province of Qazvin, and Shahr-e Kord in central Charmahal and Bakhtiari provinces. "Death to the dictator," some chanted. In a video from Boroujerd, a man shouted "they are firing on the crowd." State media reported that hundreds of people protested in cities across Iran.

Security forces reportedly shot Hamid Ghasempour, a protester in Farsan in Charmahal and Bakhtiari province. He later died at a hospital.

State media reported that at least 22 protestors had been arrested since the start of the protests. Police arrested "provocateurs" after they torched shops in some cities, according to IRNA.

First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber said that the increase in prices was not limited to Iran. "Prices in the world have changed... the situation in the region has created problems in the prices of products and the prices of basic goods were set accordingly."

President Raisi spoke with residents of Tehran about the distribution of basic goods during visits to chicken and meat distribution centers and a supermarket.

May 14: Security forces reportedly fired on dozens of protestors who attacked a Basij militia base in the town of Babaheydar in the central provinces of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. Behrouz Eslami, a father of two, was reportedly shot and killed.

The Ministry of Intelligence banned local media from using particular words in reporting on the protests. The list included "clashing with people," "sit-in", "violent confrontation," and "economic surgery," according to Iran International. The latter was a term initially used by government officials to explain the economic reforms, but critics subsequently used the word in political cartoons and op-eds. Reporters Without Borders later said that authorities tried to intimidate journalists so that they would not cover the protests.

Ahmad Ahvaei, a member of parliament from Dezful, acknowledged that one person had been killed in Khuzestan province amid the protests.

Netblocks reported a significant drop in internet connectivity from MobinNet, one of the country's largest wireless broadband providers, for 2.5 hours.

May 15: The United States supports the rights of Iranians to "peaceful assembly and freedom of expression online and offline - without fear of violence and reprisal," State Department Spokesperson Ned Price tweeted.

Brave Iranian protestors are standing up for their rights. The Iranian people have a right to hold their government accountable. We support their rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression online and offline - without fear of violence and reprisal.
- Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) May 15, 2022

Protests were held in at least 40 cities and towns, such as Quchan in northeastern Razavi Khorasan province, Rasht in northern Gilan province, and Hamadan in the western Hamadan province. Security forces deployed in Tehran in anticipation of demonstrations.

In a video posted to social media, protestors in Shahr-e Kord chanted "Death to Raisi."

May 16: Said Madani, a professor of sociology at Allameh Tabatabai and a former political prisoner, had recently been detained, Mehr News Agency reported. Authorities alleged that he had "suspicious foreign connections" and was "acting against national security" in collaboration with "well known foreign elements." He was taken into custody just hours after speaking to IranWire about the protests. Madani's lawyer said that his client was held in solitary confinement in the infamous Evin Prison in Theran.

Vice President Mohammad Mokhber said that the price of chicken, eggs and cooking oil would "return to normal in the coming days." He stressed that the price of bread should not have risen by "one rial." Mokhber warned that infractions would not be tolerated.

Officials from the Intelligence Ministry and the Supreme National Security Council held two meetings with media executives to"to set policy on how to cover the protests and price reform plan," an Iranian journalist told BBC Persian.

May 17: More than 500 Iranian civil and political activists urged officials to "exercise restraint" and to "think before it is too late to contain problems, especially staggering inflation." The "unsettled and complicated'' situation was the inevitable result of "the majority of the nation's elected officials not being approved by the people," they said in a joint statement. The activists seemed to reference the Guardian Council's power to vet candidates for public office.

Protestors chanted "Death to the dictator" and "Death to Raisi" in videos from Golpayegan in the central province of Isfahan.

Security forces reportedly used live ammunition to disperse protests in Jouneqan in southwestern Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. One demonstrator, Jamshid Mokhtari was hit with four bullets and died.

Demonstrations had spread to at least 20 cities, including Tehran, and at least five people had died, CHRI reported. "The Iranian people are in the streets to protest living costs and air grievances against their repressive government, and the Islamic Republic is responding yet again by killing and jailing them," CHRI Executive Director Ghaemi said.

Amnesty International urged the international community to pressure Iran to stop using lethal force to disperse protestors. The human rights organization called for an independent U.N. mechanism to hold Tehran accountable. "It is the human right of people in Iran to organize and take part in peaceful protests free from intimidation, violence and threats of arbitrary arrest, torture and unjust prosecution."

May 19: Video on social media showed riot police firing live ammunition at protestors in Farsan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. In the cities of Shahr-e Kord and Hafshejan, in the same province, security forces fired teargas and used clubs to disperse demonstrators. In Dezful, in Khuzestan province, protestors chanted "Fear not, fear not, we are in this together."

Brigadier General Qasem Rezaee, the deputy commander of the police, warned the damage of public and private property would not be tolerated during demonstrations. "Police will act against those individuals with firmness." He also said that authorities were cracking down on smuggling and hoarding of supplies, which exacerbated shortages.

May 20: Some 50,000 members of the IRGC and the Basij militia participated in a rally outside of Tehran to mark the 40th anniversary of the recapture of the city of Khorramshahr during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. "The enemies mistakenly think the Iranian people will respond to... the rumors that they spread and lies they tell," IRGC commander Salami said in a reference to the protests.

May 21: President Raisi participated in an international forum on privatizing Iran's economy. He warned that the government will be making "tough decisions that some may not agree with." He did not elaborate.

Garrett Nada, managing editor of The Iran Primer, Tiffany Saade, a research assistant at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and James Motamed, a research analyst at the U.S. Institute of Peace, contributed to this report.

Photo Credits: Raisi TV interview via President.ir; Raisi at a grocery store via President.ir;

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Explainer: Iran's Protests Over Food Prices

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As of April 2022, food prices in Iran were up 43 percent over the previous year largely due to a severe drought, sanctions, inflation, corruption, and government mismanagement. In early May, the government implemented economic reforms intended to help consumers, but prices of bread and other staples spiked.

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La Via Campesina - Arab and North Africa region

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La Via Campesina - Arab and North Africa region

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Arab and North Africa Region (ArNA) : Via Campesina

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Souk aal Souk | Food Heritage Foundation

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Souk Aal Souk - Farmers' Market Souk aal Souk farmer's market aims at promoting organic and healthy food of local farmers and small producers from different Lebanese areas.

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The war in Ukraine grows worse by the day, with an estimated 1,500 civilians killed and more than 3 million forced to seek refuge in other countries, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Stopping the war as soon as possible is essential for saving lives, protecting Ukraine's sovereignty, and curbing global repercussions.

In particular, the war has had a devastating impact on local food production. Since the global food system is a fragile web of interconnections, many countries dependent on Russia and Ukraine for food and agricultural supplies now face immediate and looming food shortages that will inevitably worsen the global hunger crisis.

"I am deeply concerned that the violent conflict in Ukraine, already a catastrophe for those directly involved, will also be a tragedy for the world's poorest people living in rural areas who cannot absorb the price hikes of staple foods and farming inputs that will result from disruptions to global trade," said Gilbert F. Houngbo, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in a statement.

"We are already seeing price hikes and this could cause an escalation of hunger and poverty with dire implications for global stability."

IFAD, a Global Citizen partner, has teams worldwide working to support small-scale producers and improve food security in rural areas of developing countries that have documented the ways in which the war in Ukraine has worsened existing food crises.

The impact has been particularly devastating in agricultural contexts, where the ability to acquire and distribute food is always a vexed ordeal due to chronic underfunding. But new crises are emerging as a result of the disruptions caused by the war.

Many farmers and food producers are still struggling to recover from the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the war is making it harder.

"IFAD is committed to increasing the resilience of the world's poorest rural producers who are critical for producing a third of the world's food. We must do all we can to ensure they have the resources to keep producing food and be protected from additional shocks," said Houngbo.

"In the short-term, however, it will be difficult to mitigate the global impacts of this crisis. I join the UN Secretary-General's call to end the conflict now and restore peace. It is the only solution to avert global catastrophe."

According to analysis by IFAD and other organizations, here are five ways the war has already worsened global hunger.

1. Rising Fuel Prices

Already, millions of smallholder farmers that provide food to their communities operate on tight margins that have been strained even further by the climate crisis. Now, rising fuel prices caused in part by the war have made it difficult for many farmers to carry out basic tasks.

In Somalia, where an estimated 3.8 million people face severe food insecurity, electricity and transportation prices are climbing, and diesel-powered irrigation methods have become prohibitively expensive, IFAD reports.

2. Rising Prices for Food Imports

Russia and Ukraine account for approximately 25% of global wheat exports, with around 40% of wheat and corn exports from both countries going to the Middle East and Africa, according to IFAD. Egypt, for example, gets 85% of its wheat and 73% of its sunflower oil from these two countries.

As a result of the war, prices on imported food have been surging, making it harder for families to afford.

3. Rising Fertilizer Prices

Fertilizer helps farmers improve their crop yields to meet global food demand. Russia is the leading exporter of fertilize and, as a result of the war, many smallholder farmers have been unable to buy the fertilizer they need. Even before the conflict, spikes in fertilizer prices last year contributed to a rise in food prices by about 30 percent."

In some countries like Rwanda, a lack of fertilizer could halve harvests, leading to local and regional food shortages.

4. Increasing Poverty

Remittances - when migrant workers send money back home - keep the global economy churning, helping many communities worldwide afford the basic necessities of life. The COVID-19 pandemic already significantly reduced the ability of workers to earn and send money home. Now, for families relying on their relatives earning income in Russia and Ukraine, remittances have nearly ceased.

IFAD reports that more than 31% of Kyrgyzstan's GDP comes from remittances from Russia alone. Now that the war has disrupted this flow of money, migrants' families in rural areas may battle to access food, education and other necessities.

5. Immediate Food Shortages

The war has caused urgent food crises in many countries including Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, a country that gets 80% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The 2020 Beirut explosion destroyed major grain silos, limiting the country's ability to store food, according to IFAD. Now that their regular supply of wheat has been cut off, local prices are surging and shortages are occurring.

In Iraq, riots have emerged as a result of growing food shortages.

Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yemen was already facing looming famine. Now the country's food security is rapidly deteriorating, with the World Food Programme calling for immediate global assistance, especially as humanitarian funds get diverted.

"We are looking at a seismic hunger crisis if we do not step up now. Unless we receive immediate funds, hungry people will lose assistance right at the time they need it most," said David Beasley, the executive director of the WFP, during a pledging event for Yemen.

"Funding for Yemen has never reached this point. We have no choice but to take food from the hungry to feed the starving."
Disclosure: IFAD is a Global Citizen funding partner.

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5 Ways the War in Ukraine Has Worsened Global Hunger

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"We are already seeing price hikes and this could cause an escalation of hunger and poverty."

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Turkish chef Ebru Baybara Demir is working to empower under-resourced women in the Middle East through agricultural and culinary arts education.

"I'm a social gastronomy chef," Demir tells Food Tank. "My job is to touch people's lives as much as the taste of the plate I make."

For more than 20 years, Demir's Mardin, Turkey-based restaurant Cercis Murat Konaği (Cercis Murat Mansion) has trained nearly 200 women in the art of traditional Turkish cuisine. The restaurant prepares Indigenous recipes using ingredients from 170 different local farmers.

"By continuing to cultivate farmers' [soils], we ensure the continuity of healthy and sustainable agriculture and enable disadvantaged women to create a sustainable economy for themselves by using their values and agricultural knowledge," Demir tells Food Tank.

A violent civil war between government forces and terrorist groups in Syria over the last decade has led almost 2 million refugees to flee to Turkey. Syrian refugees in Turkey face difficult living conditions, limited employment opportunities, and widespread hostility.

The influx of Syrian refugees has strained Turkey's limited resources and exacerbated political and economic instability in the region. Demir notes the specific difficulties for female refugees, telling Food Tank, "In a society where being a woman [is] a disadvantage, women and girls [are] also the most affected by all these negativities."

In response to the Syrian civil war and the Turkish economic crisis, Demir has developed numerous humanitarian projects to aid female refugees and impoverished Turkish women. In partnership with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Demir founded Turkey's first gastronomy school-the Harran Gastronomy School. From 2016 to 2019, the school awarded culinary arts degrees to hundreds of refugees and earned Demir a nomination for the 2017 Basque Culinary World Prize.

Demir continues to educate refugees through the "Kitchen of Hope" initiative. With funding from the World Food Programme (WFP), the project teaches culinary arts to female Turkish and Syrian refugees. The initiative has taught 348 students in 9 different Turkish cities over the course of two years. Demir tells Food Tank, "I believe that ["Kitchen of Hope"] will create sustainable economies for more people with the transformative power of food by addressing the lives of our disadvantaged people from the gastronomic perspective."

Demir also promotes food and environmental sustainability through agricultural projects. Since 2017, her project Living Soil, Local Seed has employed 350 female Turkish farmers to cultivate Indigenous Sorgül wheat without fertilizer, irrigation, or power. In partnership with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Demir's From Soil to Plate Agricultural Development Cooperative teaches skills such as baking, farming, mushroom cultivation, soapmaking, and bee conservation.

Demir tells Food Tank that sustainability drives her culinary philosophy. "The flavor of the food on the table comes from the soil where it gets its strength and from the lives it benefits," she says. "For environmental sustainability, I think we should first of all take care of our food, our soil, our water, basically the balance of nature."

Demir is also working to support women impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated Turkey's food and agriculture industry. Travel restrictions and mandatory closures reduced tourism by 70 percent and drained income from restaurants and farmers. The effects have been especially severe in Demir's home city of Mardin, which has the highest unemployment rate in all of Turkey. Like many restaurants throughout Turkey, Cercis Murat Konaği closed its doors in March of 2020, only to reopen months later with few customers.

In response, Demir launched several new initiatives to provide the Turkish culinary and agricultural community with vital employment opportunities. As part of one program, Demir hired "Kitchen of Hope" graduates to sell and distribute food from farmers who could no longer sell at markets. She also purchased locally sourced olive oil to create and sell soap in an FAO-sponsored workshop.

Demir says, "While many sectors had to discharge their employees during the pandemic, we tried to create a local ecosystem in order to maintain the employment of women and to support the small agricultural producers in the surrounding provinces."

While Cercis Murat Konaği recovers from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Demir continues to engage in humanitarian aid through social gastronomy. "Gastronomy is not only cooking in the kitchen," Demir tells Food Tank. "To [produce] food, you might not just be in the kitchen. You should be taking part in everywhere you have to be."
Photo courtesy of From Soil to Plate Cooperative

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Turkish Chef Creates Humanitarian Aid Through Social Gastronomy - Food Tank

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Turkish chef Ebru Demir uses social gastronomy to protect female refugees and promote environmental sustainability.

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The ‘Wall’ and other barriers to food security | Sustainable Food Trust

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The olive groves of Palestine are not a place that springs to mind when thinking climate justice, but we explore just how farmers there are addressing such issues.

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A grassroots national food security initiative is working to revive the Lebanese food system through projects that foster agricultural self-sufficiency.

Ardi Ardak-which translates to my land, your land in Arabic-launched in 2019 to rehabilitate abandoned arable lands and decrease Lebanon's dependence on food imports. The initiative is a collaboration among The Environment and Sustainable Development Unit (ESDU) at the American University of Beirut (AUB), the Lebanese League for Women in Business (LLWB) , the Food Heritage Foundation , and .

"The idea back then was to create a mechanism that would link local production to the markets," Nicolas Gholam, founding coordinator of Ardi Ardak, tells Food Tank. Working with rural, small-scale producers under an agroecological, climate-smart approach is central to Ardi Ardak's mission, explains Gholam.

The food security initiative formed as "a response to the deteriorating socioeconomic situation in Lebanon," says Gholam.

In October 2019, protests ignited against government corruption and austerity measures . Prior to the 17 October Revolution , Lebanon faced a massive economic downturn. By the end of 2019, Lebanon's public debt ballooned to the world's third highest, estimated at 171 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2020, with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy . During the first six months of 2021, the inflation rate averaged 131 percent , disproportionately affecting the poor and middle class.

According to a recent report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the U.N. Economic and Social Commission For Western Asia (ESCWA), the loss of purchasing power renders 40 percent of Lebanese households unable to satisfy their basic food necessities.

In 2020, the explosion in Beirut's port-which handled 70 percent of food imports in a country importing about of its food-devastated Lebanon's food supply. The blast destroyed a major grain silo and damaged 120,000 metric tons of staple food stocks stored at the port, including wheat, soy and other beans. Food prices skyrocketed.

Ardi Ardak emerged in response to these events. The initiative links investors and large landowners with small farmers and rural women, and rehabilitates abandoned arable lands. Almost of Lebanon's population lives in urban areas, while agricultural land comprises of the country. According to Gholam, "Those people who came from rural areas still have lands they were not looking after."

According to a 2020 report from the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture, the agrifood sector remains a low priority from the government . This has resulted in limited public investment in infrastructure and research, and poor organization of the agrifood value chain.

To address these challenges, Ardi Ardak first conducts assessments on the agricultural viability of abandoned lands. The initiative aims to act as a hub connecting large landowners who have left their lands-whether they are "bankers, or restaurateurs, or anything," says Gholam-with farmers still living in rural areas. Then, the initiative provides technical guidance to promote sustainable agricultural practices for farmers willing to work the land.

"In the first year, we reached 180 assessments, and it's been steady ever since," Gholam tells Food Tank.

Ardi Ardak believes it is also important to provide market access and adequate infrastructure for rural small-scale producers. The initiative aims to ease the burden of managing every single aspect of the value chain for smallholder farmers, because, Gholam says, "not all smallholders are entrepreneurs." Through partnerships with humanitarian organizations and private sector start-ups, the initiative works to create an environment where farmers can focus on production.

Gholam notes that, on average, rural small-scale producers spend two and a half days per week focused on delivery or selling activities. "This time should be spent in the workshop, or on the farm, or testing products," Gholam says.

The marketing channel Soul aal Souk helps to achieve this goal. A monthly farmers market established in partnership with AUB, it fosters linkages between urban residents and rural producers, offering city residents access to healthy, traditional food. Ardi Ardak supports food trails promoting smallholder Lebanese producers through rural tourism. To further cultivate market access, Ardi Ardak also collaborates with Food and Roots , a company that gathers, packages and sells traditional and innovative products from rural areas.

In the future, the grassroots initiative hopes to complete two projects to transform landscapes, livelihoods, and the Lebanese food system. Ardi Ardak is partnering with a local municipality in the Beqaa Valley to implement an agroforestry model on a large swath of land. They hope to help residents sustain the local forest, work the agricultural land, and enjoy a public park. In Tripoli, Afif Wehbe, an Agricultural Engineer at AUB, says Ardi Ardak is in the early stages of plans to build a small urban garden divided among community members, which would include a section for a farmers market.

"We have potential, but we need the infrastructure," Gholam tells Food Tank. "We'll start by giving people an option they did not know existed beforehand, and that's a good enough thing to start with."
Photo courtesy of Ardi Ardak

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Lebanese Grassroots Food Security Initiative Fosters Agricultural Self-Sufficiency - Food Tank

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Ardi Ardak, a Lebanese grassroots food security initiative, rehabilitates abandoned arable land and cultivates market access for smallholder farmers.

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Summary of major events and developments affecting food security

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Gunesköy Cooperative started in 2000, when 8 of us formed Turkey's first "environmental cooperative". We spent months looking for the right land, and in July 2002 we bought 75 000 m2 of "stony land" from the state.

Güneşköy is not yet a living village, nor is it thick with trees. While it has dreams of fully environmental ways of interacting with nature, at the moment we are doing our best, realistic though still not ideal...

In 2018, Güneşköy was accredited as a European Voluntary Service sending organisation. In February 2019, Sercan went to Los Portales (Spain, 9 months) and Tansu to Sieben Linden (Germany, 7 monhts)
Where is Güneşköy?
Güneşköy is 65 km East of Ankara, 15 km South of the town of Elmadağ. It is 3km from the village of Hisarköy, in the province of Kırıkkale, district of Yaşihan. At nearly 1000m altitude, winters are cold (until 2017-8, when winter just never came...) and summers can be very hot, although our dry heat is relatively more bearable than the damp heat of the coast.

Before coming to Güneşköy - practical information before your first visit.
Why Güneşköy?
Because we aim to design an example that will be able to inspire people living in villages anywhere in Turkey. That is why we chose to start with poor soil, that we intend to work and enrich using natural ecological means.
Because we hope to show how cooperation between long-term residents of the area and others can benefit everyone: by reducing migration from villages, by using resources more effectively, by sharing information, by mutually supporting each other, by bridging between official sources and those who work the land.
To prove what can be done without quality arable land by developing uncultivated land.

A non-profit cooperative, aiming to demonstrate sustainable ecological alternatives in Central Anatolia. To spread concepts of sustainable living, Güneşköy raises awareness of villagers and city dwellers by raising awareness of each others' needs and contributions, and builds bridges to connect people, by

developing farming along ecological principles, using and sharing local seeds.

promoting the use of renewable energy resources.

building eco-friendly designs with environmentally friendly materials.

identifying and using suitable environmentally friendly transportation.

Restoring damaged natural environments.

Working to re-establish damage natural balances.

Promoting effective use of resources, and developing recycling systems,

When Güneşköy?

2001: the group came together to discuss concepts and what could be done.

2002: the land was purchased by auction: 74 000m2, for 22 000 000 000TL (in those days, a bus trip cost 1000 000TL)

2004: the land was fenced and first trees were planted. A two roomed mud brick house was built. Broccoli was grown on the additional arable 10 000m2. A well was sunk 30m on neighbouring land, but absence of electricity prevents extraction.

2005: first agriculture on the main land. Water problems, but eventually a sprinkler system works! Barley planted on main land, for the roots to break deep into the hardened soil.

2006: More planting along the perimeter fence. First 'Boxes' project, delivering weekly organic produce to 40 families in Ankara. One person worked the land, another was employed 2 days a week for the deliveries. UNDP Small Grants Project: biofuel production and use in tractors (with Türk Traktör company)

2007: Straw bale "Mandala" building construction by a hundred volunteers. Second 'Boxes' project, delivering weekly organic produce to 70 families in Ankara. A second person was employed to work on the land; so 3 people were getting wages.

2008: Third 'Boxes' project, delivering weekly organic produce to over 90 families across Ankara. This meant 3 delivery days; very time consuming, so this year we're trying a different system.

2009: By April people have already started joining up to our "Community Supported Agriculture" (CSA)

2011 January: On our first visit of the year we found engineers measuring up - for the construction of the Ankara Sivas High Speed Train. This was the first we heard of this project. So much for consultation...

2012 "An Ecovillage-Initiative and its Interact" Theresa Weitzhofer-Yurtışık (2012, MSc in Sociology, University of Vienna)

2014 10 000 m2 compulsory purchased by the state for the viaduct.

2015 Negotiations with Doğuş construction company saves the Mandala building and 120 trees. 50 volunteers and Doğus workers transplant the remaining 80 trees to nearby locations.

2016 Building restoration and reorganisation.

2017 Renewed CSA project: delivery of produce to 8 collection points in Ankara. First "Discover Nature" events.

2018: End of the railway viaduct pillars. 11th CSA

2019: CRY-gen UNDP project starts. The viaduct platform is completed.

2020: COVID interrupts CRY-gen, but 13th Vegetable Box project is fully booked by May.

2021: 14th Vegetable Box project. "Sustainable design implications for alternative food networks: A case on Güneşköy's community supported agriculture (CSA) model" Ayşe Kaplan (2021, MSc in Industrial Design, METU)

Some videos before the railway viaduct construction began:

Summer 2009 when our adobe building was the main structure, and we employed 4 people.

3.2015: The service road and contruction warning sign, but our hill Güneştepe is still there. The strawbale Mandala needs attention, and our first building, the Infinity shaped (two circular rooms) adobe building is counting down to returning to dust - as all local buildings did since building began thousands of years ago.

6.2015 Views from Güneştepe hill - It was a cold June day, after heavy rains which flooded the fields around the Balaban stream.

2021 "The Viaduct" Duygu Bostancı's first Güneşköy video
How Güneşköy?
By involving as many volunteers as possible, to allow a great number to experience
By developing bonds with local people.

The Bahce project, started in 2006, produces organic vegetables that are delivered to families that subscribe (40 in 2006, 70 in 2007, 95 in 2008). In 2006 drip irrigationwas introduced; in 2007 the first companion planting was tried. In 2008 a system of raised beds enabled a clearer layout of the crops.

Who was Güneşköy in the first 10 years?
Eight founder members: Ali and Inci Gokmen, Atila Koc, Claire Ozel, Cetin Goksu, Evren Yilmaz, Fikret Simsek and his brother, Yavuz Ataman. And later Omur Evren and Fevzi Torun.

Many active participlants came from Ankara: Özer Tayiz, Yasemin Çetiner, Ceyhan Temurcu, Nihal Poyraz Temurcu, Ali İhsan Başgül...
From Elmadag: Talat Kurusakız
And the nearby village Hisarköy: Sinan, Mustafa, Ramazan, Ismail, Ethem dayi, several muhtar (village heads), ...
Regular volunteers included Kivanç Cantimur, Ali Dogan, Neslihan, Fatih, Sinan Kayaligil, ...
And foreign visitors have participated from Germany, Britain, Holland, Iran, Poland...

"An Ecovillage-Initiative and its Interact" Theresa Weitzhofer-Yurtışık (2012, MSc in Sociology, University of Vienna) studied interactions between members of Güneşköy, and villagers in the village of Hisarköy in those early years.
What at Güneşköy?
75 decares of land has about 20 decares that can be cultivated. The original vegetation, Central Anatolian steppe, is composed of plants that have developed strategies to survive the deep cold of winter, the roasting dryness of summer, with flash floods often taking soil without contributing much water to the slopes.

BUILDINGS:

** The Mandala Staw Bale building, a meeting room for up to 50 people.

** The Stone Depot, half buried and so not visible from the air

** GünSera, the prototype solar greenhouse: 500m2, built into the slope. The lower part has 250m2 for planting, the higher part has 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchen and large meeting/eating room.

** Toilets: as well as the two toilets in GünSera (connected to a sceptic tank), a compost toilet (built by a volunteer in 2016) allows direct contributions to the soil. In future, a tree will be planted to grow from the rich nutrients. An earlier version still stands north of the Mandala building

The wild flowers are varied, richest especially in May. Güneşköy flora - wild flowers and some other life forms an archive is growing of the wildlife seen at Güneşköy. This is a long project, growing slowly...

Big things are easily noticed, but it is the millions of mini- and micro-organisms that keep the biosphere turning.

Vegetable boxes - 11th season in 2018
Masters Theses:

"Sustainable Design İmplications for Alternative Food Networks: a Case on Güneşköy's Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model"Ayşe Kaplan (2021) Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi.

An ecovillage-initiative and its interact, "Developing a village" in Central Anatolia Theresa Weitzhofer-Yurtışık (2012, Viyana Üniversitesi Sosyoloji Bölümü Yüksek Lisansı

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Gunesköy Cooperative started in 2000, when 8 of us formed Turkey's first "environmental cooperative". We spent months looking for the right land, and in July 2002 we bought 75 000 m2 of "stony land" from the state. Güneşköy is not yet a living village, nor is it thick with trees.

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Food Tours NDQuick Bite: This full-day Istanbul market tour draws from our best-of list in the European side's Karaköy neighborhood and the Asian Kadıköy, tied together by a Bosphorus crossing, visiting two markets on two continents. Our favorite Istanbul experiences include exploring the eateries in local markets and crossing the Bosphorus on the public ferry. The route for...

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Kadıköy Kooperatifi: Better Food for the People

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Kadıköy Kooperatifi connects Istanbul residents with a variety of foodstuff sourced directly from producers all over Turkey.

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The seeds of the Buğday (meaning "wheat") Movement were first sown in 1990 at a small market stall where founder Victor Ananias sold brown rice, olive oil, sage, thyme, and sea salt in the Bodrum outdoor market. Ananias then moved his operation to the Başak Natural Products Shop, which he opened on the Eski Hükümet Street in Bodrum the following year. After adding Başak Naturcafe to the shop in 1992, it became a frequent destination for those seeking to eat healthily as well as a meeting place for environmentalists.

In March 1992, Ananias restored an old Greek house and opened Buğday Vegetarian Restaurant. The restaurant prepared and presented unprocessed local, seasonal, natural foods without compromising its principles in its cuisine. At the same time, it hosted meetings, seminars, courses and exhibitions on individual development, environment and ecological life, and offered a small library containing domestic and foreign publications on these subjects.

Patrons from around Turkey and across the globe came to the restaurant because of their interest in healthy eating and ecological life. Eventually, the restaurant's kitchen became a meeting point where many volunteers came together to learn about nature-friendly cooking. While more and more people sought information on environmentally conscious cuisine and lifestyle, over time the need to publish a bulletin arose.

In 1998, the first Buğday Bulletin was published and included news from the Buğday Vegetarian Restaurant and Başak Natural Products Shop, information about ecological architecture, healthy recipes, and articles about natural, ecological and traditional products. One year later, in 1999, the bulletin became a magazine and reached its subscribers across Turkey under the name of Buğday Ecological Living Magazine. In a short time, the magazine became a contact point and a resource for all areas of ecological life, from ecological agriculture and products to healthy nutrition, from individual development to natural healing methods, from consumption habits to architecture. It has become a resource.

By the end of the 1990s, Buğday became a movement that brought many people interested in ecology together, beyond being just a restaurant and a magazine. People from many different backgrounds attended the Congress for a Healthy Ecological Product Market held by Buğday Ecological Living Magazine in September 1999 on the shores of Lake Bafa: ecological product producers, sellers, and exporters; ecological agriculturists; academic experts healthy product entrepreneurs; and people interested in eating healthy foods and being a part of an ecological production and consumption cycle. After being accepted as a full member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) in 2000, Buğday started to share its knowledge and experience through trainings.

Buğday Association for Supporting Ecological Living

Believing in a holistic philosophy of life, the Buğday Movement continues its efforts to create sustainable models and support existing sustainable models under the umbrella of the Buğday Association for Supporting Ecological Living since 12 August 2002.

Over the years, Buğday Association has received the support of its volunteers and members from many different parts of the world and Turkey since the day it was founded. We continue to provide access to healthy and safe food, information on nature-friendly production and consumption. We strive to create awareness and understanding of ecological life in individuals and in society as a whole by strengthening the ties between urban and rural areas through our national and international projects, our networks and collaborations, and our events.

Buğday Association provided consultancy to many food producers to adapt Ecological, Healthy, Fair and Sustainable (ESAS'lı) criteria for their farms. These farms later became the first members of the TaTuTa Ecological Farm Visit program. With the GARDEN program in Cumhuriyetköy village of Istanbul, one of the first Community Supported Agriculture programs in Turkey, Buğday Association developed a cooperative model that supports ecological production in cities while providing easy access to reliable and healthy food. The GARDEN project also created an educational space for farmers, consumers, local governments, educators, and children about ecological farming practices

Farmers in the ever-expanding network of the Buğday Association became the leading producers of the 100% Ecological Markets, the first of which was established in Istanbul Şişli in 2006. Ecological producers, whose numbers have increased all over Turkey, have taken part in many model projects of Buğday from the Seed Exchange Network project to No Pesticides on my Plate.

There are now five 100% Ecological Markets throughout Turkey, creating a multi-stakeholder dialogue environment that serves the greater good in the field of green economy and serving as a model for other ecological markets.

Buğday Association created and ran the Seed Exchange Network Project from 2011-2014 to create a participatory and transparent model for disseminating and sharing local seeds. From 2013 to 2014, Buğday Association also carried out the Direct and Reliable Access to Natural and Local Produce project with the help of the UNDP GEF/SGP. Through these two projects, Buğday Association created a model for local food chains in Turkey where small eco-friendly producers and health-conscious consumers come together without intermediaries on the basis of trust.

Buğday Association also collaborated internationally by taking part in various activities of environmental organizations such as EkoBrücke Association and Green Circle in Germany as well as hosting large international organizations to promote Turkey's ecological agriculture and tourism industries.

Buğday Association also organized both the 18th IFOAM World Organic Congress, where the leading names of real food and organic agriculture came together in Istanbul in 2014, and organized the 4th International WWOOF Conference in Fethiye in the same year.

Between 2015 and 2016, we partnered with 9 state universities in Mersin, Adana, İstanbul, İzmir, Balıkesir, Çanakkale and Aydın to establish campus gardens through the Nature Friendly Urban Gardens project. Through this, Buğday Association trained university students in seed saving, compost production, and ecological life.

Buğday Association implemented the Turkey Composts! project, and organized the International Compost Conference in Istanbul in January 2017. Buğday Association also implemented the Live and Let Bee: Training for Ecological Beekeeping project and the Ecological Beekeeping Training, and organized the International Ecological Beekeeping Conference in Izmir in December 2017, where bee-centered beekeeping was discussed for the first time in Turkey.

Buğday Association carried out the No Pesticides on my Plate project from 2019 to 2020 with the support of the European Union's Civil Society Dialogue V Program, in partnership with European Pesticide Action Network (PAN Europe), which spread information about the harms of pesticide use in Turkey and its eco-friendly alternatives among producers, consumers, and key decision makers.

Between May 2019 and August 2021, Buğday Association implemented the Agroecological Transformation with Food Communities project in the Güdül district of Ankara in partnership with Dört Mevsim Ecological Living Association with the support of the UNDP GEF/SGP. Through this project, Buğday supported a transition to environmentally friendly agroecological food systems through trainings and mentoring with key stakeholders.

Buğday Association started the Pesticide Free Towns project in April of 2021 in partnership with Pesticide Action Network Europe, supported by Civil Society Dialogue Program VI.

The Mediterranean Caravan: Learning and Sharing Agroecology (MedCaravan) project, supported by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme, aims to collect local and rural agroecology knowledge and practices, and share the compiled knowledge and experiences with a wider audience though educational materials and an online platform.

Buğday Association started implementing the Agroecological Youth Education for Future (EU Erasmus+) project in June 2021. The project will be carried out until 31 November 2023, under the leadership of AMPI from the Czech Republic and partners from Italy, France, Serbia and Greece, and will convey the knowledge of agroecology as a holistic science for sustainable environment and food production to young people aged 13-18, thereby increasing their environmental awareness and ecological literacy.

Bugday Association began publishing the Buğday E-Magazine in March 2021, publishing news, articles, interviews and announcements on many topics from food to climate change, from rural life to ecological life in the city, from nature-friendly cuisine to non-toxic cleaning, and from harvest stories to developments in ecological technology.

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The seeds of the Buğday (meaning "wheat") Movement were first sown in 1990 at a small market stall where founder Victor Ananias sold brown rice, olive oil, sage, thyme, and sea salt in the Bodrum outdoor market. Ananias then moved his operation to the Başak Natural Products Shop, which he opened on the Eski Hükümet Street in Bodrum the following year.

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EK BİÇ YE İÇ - Kentsel tarım, yerel üretim, organik beslenme, sürdürülebilir yaşam

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We use design and technology guided by permaculture principles to create little oases in the city for a multitude of species to live and thrive together. When these green dots are multiplied by the hundreds and connected together through various networks of living organisms, we will achieve our dream of a city with a vibrant, productive, and resilient ecosystem.

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In the 90’s, this big green lot in Cihangir named Roma Garden was a prestigous area with a view of the palace. and there was an attempt to build municipal public housing on this land. The locals re…

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Until the middle of the 20th century, highly productive market gardens known as bostan covered vast swaths of Istanbul, yielding enough vegetables and fruit to feed hundreds of thousands of people. Gardens on the banks of the Bosphorus Strait that divides the city between two continents were known for their sweet-smelling strawberries and tender figs; longtime residents still sing the praises of the buttery lettuce once grown in the Yedikule neighborhood around the old city walls.

"The bostan in Yedikule are one of the first forerunners to what we today term urban farming," says Aslihan Demirtas, an Istanbul-based architect who also has a design studio in New York. "It's become very trendy in places like Brooklyn to grow your own lettuce on a warehouse rooftop, but people have been producing food here within the city for 1,500 years."

That tradition, however, is perilously close to extinction. Rapid urbanization throughout the city, whose population soared from 1 million in 1950 to more than 15 million today, has seen most of Istanbul's historic bostan disappear under an ever-sprawling sea of development. The mostly rural immigrants from Turkey's Black Sea region still eking out a living along the UNESCO-listed walls in Yedikule are among the last of their kind. And early this year, local police entered their vegetable plots, often rented from the city on a month-to-month basis, tearing down the sheds that held seeds and tools, and telling the gardeners to collect their final harvests by March.

"If you throw me out on the street, what am I going to do? I'm 53 years old and I don't have any other profession," Ahmet Ozturk said at a press conference held by the gardeners after the January incident. His family has been working the land in Yedikule for three generations.

A month later, though, the head of the Yedikule Market Gardeners' Association announced that his group had come to an agreement with the municipal government to protect at least some of the bostan.

"We will work together with the municipality to protect and improve our bostan, the source of our livelihoods," says association president Cihan Kaplan. "We are producing food here, we are growing tomatoes, mint, lettuce, cabbage. Where else in Istanbul is there this kind of opportunity, where our children can see how fruits and vegetables are planted in the ground?"

The agreement, if it holds, has the promise of bringing the treatment of Istanbul's market gardens more in line with global trends. "People [in other cities] are establishing urban gardens, protecting them with laws, and setting up educational programs to reconnect people with nature because they recognize such gardens helped keep them alive in the past," says Defne Koryurek, founder of Slow Food Istanbul.

That certainly was the case in Istanbul, where food grown within the city (then known as Constantinople) helped residents survive an eight-year siege at the end of the 14th century.

Outrage over the destruction of two gardens helped spark an interest in urban agriculture.

Today, 800 million people around the globe are engaged in urban agriculture, which can produce up to 15 times more food than a rural plot of the same size, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. In addition, the FAO notes, urban farming "generates employment, recycles urban wastes, creates greenbelts, and strengthens cities' resilience to climate change."

Despite the recent agreement between the municipality and the gardeners, Koryurek and others believe more permanent protection is necessary for the remaining Yedikule bostan, which comprise about 50 scattered acres under cultivation along two layers of ancient fortification. Though the city walls and the land around them are included in a UNESCO World Heritage site, Koryurek explains, "the bostan were not addressed specifically as a unique and inseparable portion of the walls. It's time to do that."

Activists have reason to be concerned about leaving the fate of the bostan up to city officials, who have previously seen them as a target for development. Two former garden plots in Yedikule still lie under rubble after being bulldozed in the summer of 2013 to make way for a park and recreation-area project that has yet to materialize. Another nearby garden plot was declared part of an urban renewal zone in 2006; it is now gone, replaced by a gated community.

"The area where this housing development was built was first made into a parking lot, and then a football field," says architect Demirtas. "This is a pattern we see with the development of green spaces in Istanbul - to slowly change the area's character and make people lose their memory that there was ever soil underfoot."

Historical documents dating from the 5th-century reign of Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II indicate that there was agricultural land in the vicinity when he ordered the fortified walls of Constantinople built. This is the first known written evidence of a farming tradition that continued largely uninterrupted through the Ottoman Empire and into the modern Turkish Republic.

"The Geoponika, a 10th-century Byzantine agricultural manual, has a list of all the vegetables grown within the urban gardens of Constantinople, and so many are the same as are being grown today: cabbage, beets, carrots, onions, turnips," says Chantel White, an archaeobotanist at the University of Pennsylvania, who has done research work in the Yedikule bostan. "Even plants that aren't cultivated in the gardens anymore, like mallow and orach, are growing as weeds there, and they're still edible."

Outrage over the destruction of the two Yedikule plots in 2013 has helped spark a resurgence of interest in urban agriculture in Istanbul. Activists successfully fought last summer to protect the 16th-century Piyalepasa bostan, the last example of what used to be numerous gardens connected to the city's mosques. And new gardens are popping up on university campuses, on unused plots of land, and on hotel rooftops. A new collective of producers and consumers is connecting people who want to buy local food with fruits, vegetables, and herbs from Yedikule and Piyalepasa. And a new café is sourcing produce from Istanbul's remaining urban farms to supplement the greens it grows hydroponically on the ground floor of a city-center apartment building.

But as welcome as these initiatives are to Istanbul's environmentalists and foodies, White says they can't replace the knowledge held in the Yedikule bostan, such as unique methods to successfully grow multiple harvests of crops year-round. The gardeners in Yedikule grow so many different kinds of vegetables right next to each other that they can't use a sprinkler system, explains Aleksandar Shopov, a PhD candidate at Harvard University focusing on Ottoman-era agricultural history. Instead, water is pumped up from 17th-century wells and directed into narrow canals that run into the masula, a system of small wood-framed planting beds. Each perfectly level bed can be opened up or closed off individually to ensure it gets just the right amount of irrigation. "The masula separate plants that need a lot of water from those that don't, and their edges protect the topsoil from the wind and retain moisture, even in the heat of summer, so the system saves water," Shopov says.

Gardeners in Yedikule as well as Piyalepasa also employ other environmentally friendly practices, including producing their own seeds and using manure for fertilizer, Shopov adds, although he is careful to note that local agricultural practices have been anything but static over the centuries.

Previous generations of gardeners were replaced by immigrants from Bulgaria, Albania, and Macedonia.

"Agriculture in the city during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods was very dynamic," he says. "There was a change in the kind of things that were being grown, and of course, the rise of new cultivars."

That fluidity has continued into the modern period. Crops like cauliflower that require a lot of space were replaced as the land available for farming started to shrink. When large populations of Greeks left Istanbul following violence directed at their community in the 1950s, they took their taste for bitter greens with them, and fewer of these plants were subsequently grown in Yedikule. The previous generations of Greek and Armenian gardeners were replaced by immigrants from Bulgaria, Albania, and Macedonia, and the current tenants from Turkey's Black Sea region have been joined by a handful of Syrian and Afghan refugees now making their home in surrounding neighborhoods.

Demirtas draws optimism from the way the gardens have changed over time, saying it demonstrates the same kind of resilience that urban agriculture itself can provide to a city. "Rather than perish, the gardeners are willing to adapt," she says. She hopes that recent developments will open up space for more dialogue between city officials, environmentalists, historians, the gardeners, and other local residents. Mindful of the tensions that flared in 2013 with angry neighborhood residents who wanted to see a park built over some of the gardens, Demirtas has drawn up plans for a design that would allow the bostan to continue as working gardens while giving the neighborhood some much-needed access to open space.

Standing in her Istanbul office in front of some of her drawings, she points out raised pathways through the gardens that would allow drainage to continue uninterrupted, as well as seating areas and places to sell produce - all permeable, with no foundations or permanent structures.

Her vision differs significantly from the highly manicured park plan previously proposed for part of Yedikule, which left no place for agriculture. But though the municipality has so far nixed the idea of replanting the gardens bulldozed that summer, Demirtas insists they are ripe for rejuvenation. "I've talked to agricultural engineers and the gardeners themselves, and they all say the soil is still healthy underneath the rubble, it's just sleeping and waiting."

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In Istanbul's Ancient Gardens, A Battle for Future Harvests

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Development pressures are threatening Istanbul's centuries-old gardens, which have produced food for the city's markets since Byzantine times. A coalition of gardeners and environmentalists is fighting to preserve them.

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SOILS is organizing a training on preserving local seeds to help improve food sovereignty among rural communities in the Jezzine caza, South Lebanon.

Participants will learn about the characteristics of local crop varieties that are adapted to their climate and resistant to diseases, and acquire the ability to select and preserve seeds, in the hope of establishing a seed bank in the region.
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Click here to find out more

Grey / Rain Water Gardening Manual

In collaboration with RE-Alliance, SOILS Permaculture Association Lebanon produced the "Gardening with Grey and Rain Water in Refugee Camps" manual, as part of a Malteser International project in the North West region of Syria, with funding from German Humanitarian Assistance.

We are happy to share an electronic version of this manual with you.
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Click here to find out more

Compost Tutorial Video

In collaboration with the "NGOs are Stronger Together" project by the Rural Development Coalition and the people of Saidoun, SOILS produced a short tutorial video on composting in Arabic (with English subtitles).

The Composting Tutorial video was designed to educate individuals in Lebanese rural areas about the ease of producing compost in one's own backyard.

Check it out in the link below and share it.

Micro-Gardens Manual by SOILS

SOILS completed a Micro-Gardens workshop in 6 refugee camps in the Bekaa.

As part of this project, we created an illustrated manual in Arabic to teach refugees how to start their own productive micr-gardens in small spaces and achieve a form of food sufficiency.

We are happy to share an electronic version of this manual with you.
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Click here to find out more

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SOILS is organizing a training on preserving local seeds to help improve food sovereignty among rural communities in the Jezzine caza, South Lebanon. Participants will learn about the...

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Nurturing new relationships between people and places

Permaculture education for refugee and host communities, through training, peer learning, demonstration, and mentoring.

"I began educating my neighbours after the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course and leased one acre land from a Bengali family and with five other refugee youths who did the PDC. We started cultivating many varieties of seasonal vegetables around the year and now eat from the garden, distributing to the communities and selling the surplus in the market. We feel proud and happy to be producing, it gives us happiness, peace of our mind and respect in society. "
Amir, Cox's Bazar, Rohingya camp 19

Permaculture is well-matched to meet the basic needs for food, energy, water, shelter and a refugee's concerns for self-determination and self-sufficiency. Permaculture methods facilitate and empower people with practical and positive connections to the land. It introduces design principles and strategies which provide immediate solutions for short-term survival, while also being framed for ongoing land rehabilitation and fostering social cooperation.

Explore Permaculture for Refugees

Who we are

Permaculture for Refugees (P4R) is a global network of educators, practitioners, community leaders and networkers coming from diverse fields of work, with a common vision to disseminate permaculture knowledge widely to refugees, asylum seekers, forced migrants and IDPs.

Education

Permaculture education is one of the most effective tools to help people feel empowered in refugee settings. With its learner centred approach, and immediate on-the-ground applications, it engages refugees directly and gives them a purpose.

Join us

There are many ways you can get involved with P4R, as a partner organisation, a community, a network or as an individual. P4R is committed to enabling participants in the network to collaborate and cross-pollinate, so we can work with and support refugees.

Why Permaculture for Refugees?

Permaculture a key tool for responding to the refugee situation worldwide.

Gardening in times of drought, pandemics or war rejects the chaos and affirms human perseverance. Gardens are psychologically optimistic signs of regenerative spirit...They restore the makers as much as they restore the landscape.
Rosemary Morrow

News & Features

In a world where we can sometimes feel powerless, there are things you can do to really make a difference. In the words of Paulinho, a permaculturalist and founder of UNIDOS: "at least there are still people who believe in ... Read more

By Felix Leibelt Donations gifted to the Permafund are distributed to organisations with projects in Australia and overseas through a carefully assessed grant application process.Whether a single contribution, a regular tithe, a fundraising Open Garden on International Permaculture Day or ... Read more

By Benedetta Martin At one of the many community gardens in central Adelaide, Australia I discovered an organisation called Bikes for Refugees (B4R). It is based at The Joinery, home of The SA Conservation Council and community groups who share ... Read more

Want to support us?

Your financial contribution will go a long way to support permaculture education with refugees in different contexts and stages of their journey.

Homepage photo credit: Low-Tech with Refugees
In P4R we use the term 'refugee' interchangeably with asylum seekers, forced migrants, internally displaced peoples (IDPs), refugees and stateless person. While some of these labels are used to define political and legal status of mobilised populations, it is our intention to embrace these situations under the umbrella of P4R.

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...We currently send a free newsletter quarterly...

In a world where we can sometimes feel powerless, there are things you can do to really make a difference. In the words of Paulinho, a permaculturalist and founder of UNIDOS: "at least there are still people who believe in ... Read more

By Felix Leibelt Donations gifted to the Permafund are distributed to organisations with projects in Australia and overseas through a carefully assessed grant application process.Whether a single contribution, a regular tithe, a fundraising Open Garden on International Permaculture Day or ... Read more

By Benedetta Martin At one of the many community gardens in central Adelaide, Australia I discovered an organisation called Bikes for Refugees (B4R). It is based at The Joinery, home of The SA Conservation Council and community groups who share ... Read more

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PERMACULTURE FOR REFUGEES - Permaculture for Refugees

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Nurturing new relationships between people and places Permaculture education for refugee and host communities, through training, peer learning, demonstration, and mentoring. "I began educating my neighbours after the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course and leased one acre land from a Bengali family and with five other refugee youths who did the PDC.

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The Lexicon helps people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system.

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Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork

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Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork

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FoodSpan | Johns Hopkins | Center for a Livable Future

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This free, downloadable curriculum provides high school students with a deep understanding of critical food system issues, empowers them to make healthy and responsible food choices, and encourages them to become advocates for food system change.

What is the Food System?

The food system spans the activities, people and resources involved in getting food from field to plate. Along the way, it intersects with aspects of public health, equity and the environment.

Why Teach the Food System?

The public has shown a growing concern for food system issues. Widespread problems such as chronic illness, infectious disease, social inequality, animal welfare harms, environmental degradation, and the concentration of economic power have ties to the food system. Recognizing these connections can empower young people to become not only informed consumers, but also food citizens who can engage in many facets of the food system, from growing their own food to advocating for policies.

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FoodSpan | Johns Hopkins | Center for a Livable Future

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Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork

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For purposes of this toolbox, biological carbon sequestration is the long-term storage of carbon in soils and vegetation resulting from applications of compost and mulch to land.

Soils hold more carbon than the atmosphere or plant and animal life combined. Climate experts say no strategy to reduce climate change is complete without using the vast carbon sinks available in the world's soils. Over the centuries, human activities have degraded soil, resulting in the loss of a significant portion of their carbon content to the air.

Plant photosynthesis uses sunlight to combine carbon dioxide from the air with water and nutrients from the soil to produce plant materials both above and below the ground. If plant material is not returned to the soil-as is the case with urban expansion, deforestation, and agriculture-carbon dioxide is released into the air as a greenhouse gas. Land management practices contribute to about one-third of the surplus CO 2 in the atmosphere that is driving climate change.

On the other hand, carbon can be stored long-term in soil through carbon sequestration by applying compost to the land. A series of experiments done in Northern California shows that one application of compost started a chain reaction of carbon sequestration that will last decades. Therefore, compost and mulch applied to many types of land may be the single greatest weapon in the fight to reduce the effects of climate change.

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For purposes of this toolbox, biological carbon sequestration is the long-term storage of carbon in soils and vegetation resulting from applications of compost and mulch to land.

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An group composed of Friends of the Earth International, Via Campesina, the World March of Women, ROPPA, WFF and WFFP has come together to organise Nyéléni 2007, the World Forum for Food Sovereignty.

500 delegates from the five continents, representing all sectors of society with an interest in agricultural and food issues, met in Mali in February 2007.

This gathering was an opportunity to reaffirm the right to food sovereignty and to clarify its economic, social, ecological and political implications. It also strove to create an international process whose aim will be to achieve recognition of the right to food sovereignty.

The organisers made a deliberate decision to hold this meeting in Africa, where agriculture plays a central role, and where numerous rural and urban families suffer from hunger despite the abundance of natural resources.

Mali was a natural choice. It is a democratic country where civil society organisations, be they trade unions or other types of association, enjoy freedom of action and expression. Mali is one of the first countries in the world to have made food sovereignty a policy priority, with its new agricultural framework law.

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An group composed of Friends of the Earth International, Via Campesina, the World March of Women, ROPPA, WFF and WFFP has come together to organise Nyéléni 2007, the World Forum for Food Sovereignty. 500 delegates from the five continents, representing all sectors of society with an interest in agricultural and food issues, met in Mali in February 2007.

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Food Sovereignty is the right of people everywhere to produce food locally and sustainably through agroecological methods that respect the climatic, cultural and geographical context of each region. It places us at the heart of food systems, instead of powerful corporations, by building on the principles of solidarity, collectivity and social justice. Food Sovereignty defends our past, present and future generations, and is an alternative to a destructive and harmful industrial food system. It prioritises local trade and markets, which empower peasant agriculture, food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. It ensures our right to use and manage our own lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity. Most importantly, Food Sovereignty gives us the power to preserve and grow our food producing knowledge and capacities worldwide.

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Available on Kanopy

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Available on Netflix; shorter educational version also available for instructors

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Narrated and featuring Woody Harrelson, Kiss the Ground is an inspiring and groundbreaking film that reveals the first viable solution to our climate crisis.

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International urban farming solutions

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International Urban Farming documentary, narrated by Daryl Hannah.

Trailer:
https://vimeo.com/96868393

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Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future

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Growing Solutions: Soil, Water, Farmers, Seeds, Roots

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What is regenerative agriculture? Short video

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What is regenerative agriculture? Short video

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What is Regenerative Agriculture? And Why Should We Care??

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Food security

Food sovereignty

Food regime

Resilience

Sustainable agriculture

Regenerative agriculture

Permaculture

Holistic management

Carbon sequestration

Green Revolution

Agroecology

Heirloom/landrace seeds

In-situ vs. ex-situ conservation

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Food Sovereignty is a philosophy of life.

It offers a vision for our collective future, and defines the principles around which we organize our daily living and co-exist with Mother Earth. It is a celebration of life and all the diversity around us. It embraces every element of our cosmos; the sky above our heads, the land beneath our feet, the air we breathe, the forests, the mountains, valleys, farms, oceans, rivers and ponds. It recognizes and protects the inter-dependency between eight million species that share this home with us.

We inherited this collective wisdom from our ancestors, who ploughed the land and waded the waters for 10,000 years, a period in which we evolved into an agrarian society. Food Sovereignty promotes justice, equality, dignity, fraternity and solidarity. Food Sovereignty is also the science of life - built through lived realities spread across countless generations, each teaching their progeny something new, inventing new methods and techniques which sat harmoniously with nature.

As holders of this rich heritage, it is our collective responsibility to defend it and preserve it.

Recognizing this as our duty - especially in the late '90s when conflicts, acute hunger, global warming and extreme poverty were too visible to ignore - La Via Campesina(LVC) brought the paradigm of Food Sovereignty into international policy-making spaces. LVC reminded the world that this philosophy of life must guide the principles of our shared living.

The '80s and the '90s were an era of unbridled capitalist expansion - at a pace never seen before in human history. Cities were expanding, growing on the backs of cheap, unpaid and underpaid labour. The countryside was being pushed into oblivion. Rural communities and rural ways of living were swept under the carpet by a new ideology that wanted to turn everybody into a mere consumer of things and an object of exploitation for profit. Popular culture and consciousness were under the spell of glittery advertisements goading people to "buy more". In all this, though, the ones who produced - the working class in the rural areas, coasts and cities, which included the peasants and other small-scale food producers - remained invisible, while the ones who could afford to consume with wander took centre stage. Pushed to the edges, peasant workers and indigenous communities worldwide recognized the urgent necessity for an organized and internationalist response to this globalizing, free-market ideology propagated by the defenders of the capitalist world order. Food Sovereignty became one of the expressions of this collective response.

At the 1996 World Food Summit, in a debate about how we organize our global food systems, La Via Campesina coined the term food sovereignty; to insist upon the centrality of the small-scale food producers, the accumulated wisdom of generations, the autonomy and diversity of rural and urban communities and solidarity between peoples, as essential components for crafting policies around food and agriculture.

In the ensuing decade, social movements and civil society actors worked together to define it further " as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations."
The introduction of Food Sovereignty as a collective right changed how the world understood poverty and hunger.
Until then, especially in the early years of the 21 st century, a narrow idea of "Food Security" dominated governance and policy-making circles. Noble in its intent, food security treated those affected by hunger as objects of compassion, risked reducing them to passive consumers of food produced elsewhere. While it recognized food as a fundamental human right, it did not defend the objective conditions for producing food. Who produces? For Whom? How? Where? And Why? All these questions were absent, and the focus was decidedly on merely "feeding the people". An overt emphasis on people's food security ignored the hazardous consequences of industrial food production and factory farming, built on the sweat and labour of migrant workers.

Food Sovereignty, on the other hand, presents a radical overhaul. It recognizes people and local communities as the principal actors in the fight against poverty and hunger. It calls for strong local communities and defends their right to produce and consume before trading the surplus. It demands autonomy and objective conditions to use local resources, calls for agrarian reform and collective ownership of territories. It defends the rights of peasant communities to use, save, exchange seeds. It stands for the rights of people to eat healthy, nutritious food. It encourages agroecological production cycles, respecting climatic and cultural diversities in every community. Social peace, social justice, gender justice and solidarity economies are essential pre-conditions for realizing food sovereignty. It calls for an international trade order based on cooperation and compassion as against competition and coercion. It calls for a society that rejects discrimination in all forms - caste, class, racial and gender - and urges people to fight patriarchy and parochialism. A tree is only strong as its roots. Food Sovereignty, defined by social movements in the '90s and subsequently at the Nyeleni Forum in Mali in 2007, intends to do precisely that.
This year we celebrate 25 years of this collective construction.
The world is nowhere near perfect. Capitalism and free-market ideology continue to dominate policy circles even in the face of unprecedented inequality, rising hunger and extreme poverty. Worse, new attempts are also being made to envision a digital future - of farming without farmers, fishing without fishers- all under the garb of digitalisation of agriculture and to create new markets for synthetic food.

All these challenges notwithstanding, the Food Sovereignty Movement, which is now much more extensive than La Via Campesina and comprises several actors, has made significant advances.

Thanks to our joint struggles, global governance institutions such as the FAO have come to recognize the centrality of peoples' food sovereignty in international policy-making. The UN Declaration on Rights Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas further re-emphasizes this in Article 15.4, when it states, " Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to determine their own food and agriculture systems, recognized by many States and regions as the right to food sovereignty. This includes the right to participate in decision-making processes on food and agriculture policy and the right to healthy and adequate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods that respect their cultures."

Some nations have also given constitutional recognition to Food Sovereignty. The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the industrial food chains have further reminded national governments of the importance of creating robust local economies.

Peasant Agroecology, which is fundamental to ensuring food sovereignty in our territories, is now recognized at the FAO as central to our fight against global warming. Current and previous Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations have endorsed food sovereignty as a simple but powerful idea that can transform the global food system favouring small-scale food producers. Sustained campaign by social movements have also resulted in several legal victories against corporations producing agro-toxins, other chemical inputs and transgenic seeds.

Yet, what lies ahead of us is a road ridden with many barriers.

The promoters of the capitalist world order realize that food sovereignty is an idea that impinges on their financial interests. They prefer a world of monoculture and homogenous tastes, where food can be mass-produced using cheap labour in faraway factories, disregarding its ecological, human and social impacts. They prefer economies of scale to robust local economies. They choose a global-free market (based on speculation and cut-throat competition) over solidarity economies that require more robust territorial markets (local peasant markets) and active participation of local food producers. They prefer to have land banks where industrial-scale contract farming would replace small-holder producers. They inject our soil with agro-toxics for better short-term yields, ignoring the irreversible damage to soil health. Their trawlers will again crawl the oceans and rivers, netting fishes for a global market while the coastal communities starve. They will continue to try to hijack indigenous peasant seeds through patents and seed treaties. The trade agreements they craft will again aim to bring down tariffs that protect our local economies.

An exodus of unemployed youth, deserting village farms and choosing wage work in cities, sits perfectly with their urge to find a regular supply of cheap labour. Their unrelenting focus on "margins" would mean that they will find all means to depress farm-gate prices while trading it at higher prices at retail supermarkets. In the end, the ones who lose are the people - both the producers and consumers. Those who resist will be criminalized. A happy co-existence of the global financial elite with authoritarian governments would mean that even the highest institutions - nationally and globally - meant to oversee and arrest human rights violations will look away. Billionaires would use their philanthropic foundations to fund agencies that churn out "research reports" and "scientific journals" to justify this corporate vision of our food systems. Every global governance space, where the social movements and civil society members campaigned hard to gain a seat at the table, will make way for Corporate Conglomerates who will enter the scene as "stakeholders". Every attempt will be made to deride those of us who defend Food Sovereignty as unscientific, primitive, impractical and idealistic. All this will happen, as it did over the last two decades.

None of this is new to us. Those condemned to the peripheries of our societies by a cruel and all-devouring capitalist system have no choice but to fight back. We must resist and show that we exist. It is not just about our survival, but also about future generations and a way of life handed down through generations. It is for the future of humanity that we defend our food sovereignty.

This is only possible if we insist that any local, national or global policy proposal on food and agriculture must build from the principles of food sovereignty. The young peasants and workers of our worldwide movement must lead this fight. We must remind ourselves that the only way to make our voice heard is by uniting and building new alliances within and across every border. Rural and Urban Social Movements, Trade Unions and civil society actors, progressive governments, academics, scientists and technology enthusiasts must come together to defend this vision for our future. Peasant women and other oppressed gender minorities must find equal space in the leadership of our movement at all levels. We must sow the seeds of solidarity in our communities and address all forms of discrimination that keep rural societies divided.

Food Sovereignty offers a manifesto for the future, a feminist vision that embraces diversity. It is an idea that unites humanity and puts us at the service of Mother Earth that feeds and nourishes us.

In its defence, we stand united.
Globalize the Struggle, Globalize Hope. #NoFutureWithoutFoodSovereignty
La Via Campesina

13 October 2021

1 Peasant here is an all encompassing term used to recognize the landless workers, the farmworkers, fishers, migrants, pastoralist, food artisans
2 Food and Agriculture Organization
La Via Campesina and allies are organizing a series of events and virtual actions in the month of October and November, 2021. Sign up for these events here. All members and allies are also encouraged to hold local actions in your territories to celebrate this common vision we have. Email the details of your events to lvcweb@viacampesina.org or share them on social media with the hashtag #NoFutureWithoutFoodSovereignty. Remember to tag us on Facebook (@ViaCampesinaOfficial), Twitter (@via_campesina) and Instagram (@la_via_campesina_official). La Via Campesina will also be releasing a series of communication materials that are free to use and adapt. Download the communication kit here.

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Food Sovereignty, a Manifesto for the Future of Our Planet | La Via Campesina