Food Sovereignty Enewsletter
April 2007			Volume 2 Issue 4
Water: Commodity or Human Right? One of Mother Nature’s most powerful tools that sustains us is being co-opted. Americans are consuming 26 gallons of bottled water per person per year, up from just 1.6 gallons 30 years ago, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. Even though compared to tap water, bottled water is less regulated, not cleaner or safer, and costs one thousand to ten thousand times more. Pre-paid water meters are installed in poor areas to ensure profitable supply and services are cut-off if citizens fall behind on their payments. Along with privatization, an estimated 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water globally. Export agriculture appropriates water to the detriment of water use by family farmers or at the cost of local drinking water needs. Food sovereignty celebrates the right to universal access to clean, affordable water with local, democratic control of the world’s water resources. What are our water rights? We seek to achieve food sovereignty through everyday actions to reclaim control of our food system. Join us in working towards a fair food system that ensures health, justice, and dignity for all. Please share this resource to empower others to celebrate food sovereignty with every forkful! Click here to subscribe to the Food Sovereignty E-Newsletter.
What’s on the Table in this Issue: Water Growing Momentum for Food Sovereignty Industrialized Shrimp Production Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water Holding Animal Factories Accountable Water Rights & Food Sovereignty from a Gender Perspective Take Action Legislation Impacting Food Sovereignty Western Waters and Farm Lands Protection Act 2007 Farm Bill Resources: Food Sovereignty Publications Upcoming Food Sovereignty Events May 14-15 Washington, DC U.S. Farm Bill and the EU Common Agriculture Policy at Crossroads - A Global Dialogue on U.S., Canadian and EU Agriculture policies hosted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy June 27-July 1 Atlanta, Georgia United States Social Forum More details coming soon on Food Sovereignty workshops, but until then visit the USSF website! Share your food sovereignty events! E-mail Deb 7 Basic Principles of Food Sovereignty 1. Food: A Basic Human Right 2. Agrarian Reform 3. Protecting Natural Resources 4. Fair Trade 5. Ending Global Hunger 6. Peace 7. Democratic Control For More Information on Food Sovereignty La Via Campesina National Family Farm Coalition Grassroots International Food & Water Watch Food First Family Farm Defenders Nyeleni 2007 Official Site What You Can Do Donate $5 to $10 per month to directly improve our food system! You can fund projects like sending dairy farmers to DC to defend the integrity of the definition of milk. Click here to make your contribution!	Industrialized Shrimp Production: Is It Really Worth It? Andrianna Natsoulas, Food & Water Watch It’s hard to imagine that shrimp – the most popular seafood in the U.S. today – was once a delicacy reserved for Asian royalty. What was once a luxury item can now be consumed all-you-can-eat style at chain restaurants. How did this happen? Until recently, shrimp were caught in the open ocean, but today most shrimp are “farmed” in tropical costal areas where saltwater is available and waste can be flushed into the ocean. Industrialized shrimp aquaculture is causing environmental, economic and social disasters in many nations. It is devastating the U.S. shrimp industry, and it is creating potential health hazards for the consuming public. While the price of shrimp has fallen to less than $10 a pound, when all things are considered, what is the real cost? READ ON…
	Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of Our Water Alan Snitow & Deborah Kaufman with Michael Fox We are at the tipping point in the new, global water wars. The United States is ground zero. What happens in the next few years will determine the fate of water and our basic democratic rights. A new book THIRST is a battlefield account of the conflict. THIRST investigates eight recent high-profile controversies over the corporate takeover of water in the U.S, and illuminates how citizens are fighting back in heartland communities like Stockton, CA, Lexington, KY, Holyoke, MA, and Mecosta County, MI. Political corruption, high stakes financial takeovers, and behind the scenes maneuvering by some of the richest corporations characterize a David and Goliath battle in which local citizens muster creative and often surprising organizing methods to preserve their right to local, public control of this precious resource. READ ON… for a review of the book.
	Holding Animal Factories Accountable Margie MacDonald, Western Organization of Resource Councils What about when the manure generated from a dozen mega-dairies (50,000 dairy cows) collectively results in enough phosphorous to contaminate a downstream city water supply? READ ON…
	Water Crisis & Food Sovereignty from a Gender Perspective Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Over the past two generations, irrigation-intensive agriculture has been widely promoted as the solution to food security challenges faced by the developing world. In fact, such intensive agriculture, with its link to the global trade regime, aggravates the water crisis. A gender analytic approach to the water crisis demonstrates the importance of rain-fed agriculture to sustaining food sovereignty. READ ON...
	Legislation Impacting Food Sovereignty Western Waters and Farm Lands Protection Act HR 1180, the Western Waters and Farm Lands Protection Act aims for energy resources in Western states to be developed in ways that are protective of vital water supplies and respectful of the rights and interests of the agricultural community. Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) is leading the effort on this important legislation to deal with oil and gas drilling and its impact on private lands. Learn more and Act now! 2007 Farm Bill Every five years or so, the President signs omnibus legislation that determines what we eat, how much it costs, and as a result, the health of our population. The American food system is a game played according to a precise set of rules that are written by Congress, typically with virtually no input from anyone beyond a handful of farm-state legislators. Nothing could do more to reform the American food system—and by doing so improve the condition of America's environment and public health—than if all of us were to start paying attention to the farm bill. To digest the Farm Bill in consumer friendly terms, read these two recent articles: You Are What You Grow by Michael Pollan in the NY Times Magazine: “Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn’t hurt the world’s farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.” What We Need in the Farm Bill by George Naylor: “Large, multinational corporations count on the farm bill to ensure that they can buy U.S. farm products at the lowest cost possible. Their interest is not farmers' income or the consumers’ health but rather turning farm products into high-profit processed food "items.” Learn about the 2007 Farm Bill by reading NFFC’s Spring newsletter and listening to the webcast of Food Fight: A Teach In on the 2007 Farm Bill at Berkeley, CA on March 21^st. Resources! Food & Water Watch has a steady current of water resources with updates, action alerts, etc. Check it out: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water The Right to Water Currents