by Peter Mann, Director Emeritus of WhyHunger’s Global Movements Program
This is an exciting time for those of us who work in local food systems!
Whether we are involved in fighting hunger and poverty, joining the Occupy movement, tending community gardens or supporting family farmers and fishers, many of us are coming together to create a more unified and more effective food movement. In the new book Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food Movements (Oakland, Ca: Food First Books, 2011), editor Eric Holt-Gimenez creates space for dynamic conversations about this exciting movement.
Food Movements Unite! makes it clear that the corporate food regime is dominating our planet’s food system as well as being “environmentally destructive, financially volatile and socially unjust.” The book is “a window into the thinking and actions of the social movements fighting to bring our food systems under democratic control. It is about the emergence of alliances for the transformation of our food systems.” Social movements supporting family farming, agroecology and food sovereignty not only support farmers, but also describe a political platform to roll back the neoliberal assault on our food and farming systems. Food Movements Unite! features voices of community food security activists, farm and labor leaders, feminist thinkers and prominent analysts to lay out the strategies for the convergence of organizations within the global food movement.
Tonight in New York City, WhyHunger, in partnership with the Brecht Forum and others, will host a panel discussion on the book’s themes. Eric Holt-Gimenez, local NYC food activist leaders Karen Washington and Ray Figueroa, leaders of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, members of Occupy Wall Street and others will be part of the discussion.
Come be part of the dialogue and grow the movement!
Co-Sponsors:
Food First, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Occupy Wall St. Food Justice, Friends of Brook Park, Black Urban Growers, the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of NY, the Brooklyn Food Coalition, and more.
