[Terrapreta] "Terra Preta" Organization, FWIW

[Allan Balliett]

Farmers bringing message to the Food Crisis Summit in Rome expelled
"Stop corporate control over food!"
GRAIN, 3 June 2008
http://www.grain.org/m/?id=191

Rome - Farmer and civil society leaders carrying out a peaceful 
action today in Rome, Italy at the FAO Summit on the Food Crisis were 
forcefully removed from the premises. At around 1:30pm farmers and 
representatives of civil society organisations staged an action at 
the press room to deliver a message that millions of additional 
people are joining the ranks of the hungry as the corporations that 
control the global food system are making record profits.

The issues of corporate control and speculation, which are leading 
causes of recent spikes in food prices, are not being discussed by 
the government delegations and the international agencies meeting in 
Rome to debate solutions to the crisis.

"We are outraged that such fundamental aspects of the food crisis 
were nowhere on the agenda for the Summit," says Paul Nicholson, 
member of the International Coordinating Committee of Via Campesina 
and one of the farmer leaders who was expelled from the Summit.

The 10 people involved in the action carried posters contrasting the 
record profits of agribusiness corporations during the latest 
reporting financial quarter of 2008 with the estimated 100 million 
people in the world who now, alongside 800 million or so others, are 
hungry because they cannot afford to eat. Profits for Monsanto, the 
world's largest seed company, were up 108 per cent, while Cargill and 
Archer Daniel Midlands, the world's largest food traders, registered 
profit increases of 86 and 42 per cent respectively. Profits for 
Mosaic, one of the world's largest fertiliser companies, rose 1,134 
per cent.

The action was necessary to bring to the world's attention that the 
main causes of the world food crisis are not being dealt with and 
that the world's food producers-- the farmers, fisherfolk, 
agricultural workers and indigenous people-- have been shut out of 
the discussion. In previous high-level FAO events, civil society was 
given more space to express its views and to have a dialogue with the 
delegates. For this Summit, civil society was blocked from meaningful 
participation in the preparation and in the event itself.

"We are concerned that this Summit will only reinforce corporate 
control of the food system and lead to a further destruction of the 
way of life of indigenous peoples and their survival,"  says Saul 
Vicente Vasquez of the International Indian Treaty Council and one of 
the supporters of the action. "It is time for indigenous people and 
other food producers to take charge of food policy."

Those involved in the action have been meeting with other civil 
society organisations at the Terra Preta* civil society forum, 
parallel to the FAO Summit.

A video of the action and the suppression of the action is available 
on http://wsftv.net *
During the action, the security guards seized a banner reading: "Stop 
corporate control over food!".

*(Or view it here on the GRAIN website).
http://www.grain.org/videos/?id=175

Information about Terra Preta and a statement from the forum can be 
found at http://www.foodsovereignty.org