Grassroots International ally and grantee, the National Family Farm Coalition (a member of Grassroots' partner the Via Campesina ), celebrated the demise of the recent Doha Round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. Grassroots supports the NFFC's and Via's demand for the WTO to "get out of agriculture" as this is imperative to realizing food sovereignty. The disastrous neoliberal trade policies pursued by the WTO benefit the "industrial agricultural complex" while harming family farmers, peasants and farm workers worldwide.

"N'ap forme" are the first words that I hear after stepping into an open-air training center high in Haiti's Central Plateau after a nail-biting plane ride across the mountains in a four-seater Cessna. The training center is run by the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP), a Grassroots International partner. N'ap forme is the Kreyol way of saying we are training, literally, we are forming ourselves.

"Life in Silin community in Honduras is coming back to normal," said Wendy Cruz, an advisor for Via Campesina Central America based in Honduras. In a telephone call yesterday, Cruz expressed gratitude for the prompt actions taken by allies: "Thanks for your support and solidarity. We received hundreds of emails and calls from friends worldwide. Your rapid response and caring gives strength to continue our struggle for land rights in Honduras."

Grassroots International is pleased to announce our support to Via Campesina-Brazil's Youth Collective. The Youth Collective is a broad coalition of rural and urban working class youth dedicated to support training and networking between young people organizing for social justice in Brazil. Via Campesina-Brazil, formed by seven peasant, indigenous, women and youth organizations, is leading several initiatives through the Youth Collective to educate young people about the impacts of neo-liberalism and globalization, empower new generations of organizers through learning exchange and establish new alliances with counterpart organizations in urban areas.

Research presented in the Oakland Institute's recent publication "The Blame Game: Who is behind the World Food Crisis?" pokes holes through the myth that the "economic prosperity" experienced by an emerging minority in India has been a major contributor to the dramatic increase in global food prices.

Members of Grassroots International's partner La Via Campesina -- an international network of peasants, indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists, women, and youth -- gathered in late June in Jakarta, Indonesia to defend their right to exist, and called for a UN Convention on the Rights of Peasants. (Below, see their final declaration)

Under intense threat from the expansion of agro-fuels in South America and Indonesia, militarization in Colombia and South Korea, and increasing food prices, rural families are voicing a predicament that affects all communities.

Our partners in Guatemala have told us: the current food crisis will continue unless we guarantee the land, water and seeds rights of communities necessary to grow food. The same message is being echoed in Brazil, Mexico and many neighborhoods in the U.S.

In two separate statements, Guatemala's National Peasant and Indigenous Coordination (CONIC) and Brazil's Small Producers Movement (MPA) put forth food sovereignty as a solution to the crisis: the right of communities to produce food for local markets and for consumers to have access to local healthy foods. Both organizations denounce the expansion of industrial agriculture and growing control of agribusinesses for contributing to the hunger of urban and rural communities.

As the heads of states meet with the Secretary General in Rome this week to discuss world food security in the light of climate change and bioenergy, Palestinians are experiencing a different dimension of the food crisis. Food is of the most basic of all human rights, and in much of the Palestinian context, is being systematically denied to civilians.

Our partners in the West Bank and Gaza recently released a call to action, which we have reproduced here. We have also posted a copy of the open letter to the conference organizers referenced below.

Maude Barlow – world-renowned water activist and author of Blue Gold – was recently awarded the Citation of Lifetime Achievement by the Canadian Environment Awards. Grassroots International was honored to have her as our keynote speaker for our 20th anniversary celebration, at which time we awarded her a global activist prize.

I'd like to take a minute to congratulate Maude, and to encourage you to read about her achievements over the past two decades. Thank you Maude for your inspiring leadership in the water justice movement and for struggling tirelessly (and joyfully) for water for all!

Food Riots and a Fast

I have had the privilege of accompanying some of the largest and most dynamic social movements in Latin America over the course of my work at Grassroots International. In early 2001, we struggled with how to share the news of the agrarian reform and land rights struggles of our partners in Brazil and other Latin American and Caribbean countries in ways that would resonate with folks here in the United States. What we came up with back then was to connect land rights with food rights.

More recently the right to food has been the daily bread of the news media as the sharp increase in food prices have resulted in food riots in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the US, the working poor are suffering hunger in silent resignation.