New Seed Survey Report Highlights Privatization Concerns

The U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance today released A Preliminary Report on Seeds and Seeds Practices across the US in celebration of La Via Campesina’s International Day of Farmers’ Struggles in Defense of Peasants’ and Farmers’ Seeds – April 17.

The report is based on surveys of seed savers and seed advocates from around the United States. It documents who saves seeds, as well as why, where and which ones. Responses reveal that many growers save and share seeds to produce healthy food, preserve their cultural heritage, and to defy efforts by transnational agribusinesses to privately patent and monopolize control of seeds.

The report is especially pertinent during 2014, the International Year of Family Farming, as designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Based on the surveys and the Call to Action of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, the report provides individual, community, national and international action recommendations aimed at defending seeds from privatization and preserving them for the common good.

As a member of the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance, the Presbyterian Hunger Program, a ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), joins in presenting this report in solidarity with La Via Campesina in its global efforts to defend food and seed sovereignty. The report is available to read at usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org and on our website at pcusa.org/food.

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For more information:

Andrew Kang Bartlett, Presbyterian Hunger Program, PC(USA) – 502.569.5388

Devika Ghai, Pesticide Action Network North America – 415.728.0169

Lisa Griffith, National Family Farm Coalition – 773.319.583

Charity Hicks, East Michigan Environmental Action Council – 313.725.0554

Sara Mersha, Grassroots International – 617.524.1400

…leaves can’t store all the sugar they make forever, it has to get used up or stored elsewhere in the plant.  Jesus does not want us storing up everything with us.  We’re going to fade away, but the work we do, our energy conversion should be given to the master gardener as we store it in our roots…

SNAP Chat

It could be the nature of my work as a Food Justice YAV, it could be that I am on SNAP and particularly sensitive to its mentions, but the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program seems to be quite a popular topic these days. There is always plenty of chatter about food stamps (but really called SNAP), I am sure, but there is some pretty though provoking, hilarious, sad, and illuminating.

Try some of these articles and videos on for size, if you like. Join the conversation, or at least know that it is happening. A lot.

My name is Andrew Kang Bartlett and I am grateful to have been able to serve as associate for national hunger for the past 13 years ever since Gary Cook (sitting in the pews) hired me on for a 6-month interim position. I hope you know the ‘minute’ in Minute for Mission is a euphemism. No one has ever done it in a minute, and I’ll be speaking for about 4 minutes. Also in the name of transparency – a principle seekers of justice promote – my salary is provided through One Great Hour of Sharing, and my job is to ask you to give generously to OGHS. A clear conflict of interest.

But I believe you should give generously in any case. Actually, all you need to do is read the story of Huerto de la Familia in the bulletin and you’ll be convinced. So I’ll just tell you a story.

Read more…

This probably seems like two random things together, God and Massachusetts, but this is something that we frequently say at the Boston YAV house, especially about food. 

From Elena Stein & Claire Comiskey

Dear friends,

The “Now is the Time” Tour came to a rallying close on Saturday as over 1,000 people gathered in Lakeland to complete the 24-hour vigil and set off marching up the main thoroughfare to downtown Lakeland.
The 24-hour witness outside an iconic Publix in the company’s hometown — staged from mid-day Friday to mid-day Saturday — proved to be the most poignant close to witness and community-building in ten cities over ten days. Click on the must-see video to the right for a sense of the confrontation between Publix officials and religious leaders during Friday’s candlelight rally (or check out a written reflection from the Rev. Lindsay Comstock, Executive Director of National Farm Worker Ministry) as well as the powerful, guiding words that the faith delegation shared upon return, fueling the vigil participants for the long, chilly night ahead.

It was silly, but I was still surprised that they did not come out of the ground ready to be borsht. They are covered in dirt, dark brown, earthy smelling. And I realized; it was a root.