Teresa K Miller - Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building

PRAISE FOR FOOD FIRST

It is a pleasure to congratulate Food First on four decades of valuable work educating the public and thus laying the basis for constructive efforts to address growing crises that we cannot evade. The significance and urgency of this work is even greater today than before, as the very serious threat of environmental catastrophe becomes more evident and imminent. This is no time to relax our efforts. Rather, to redouble them.

Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For 40 years, Food First has been at the forefront of deep thinking about the consequences of agricultural and food consumption practices and injustices, and what needs to be done to achieve food systems that are healthier for people and the planet. It is an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and advocates. May it flourish for another 40 years at least!

Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University, and author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Food First is a champion of farmworkers rights in the US! Lifting the voices of farmworkers in the national dialogue on food sovereignty. Que viva pa siempre!

Rosalinda Guillen, Executive Director, Community to Community Development, Bellingham, WA

Want to know what the world will be discussing tomorrow about the food system? Look to Food First today. Where else to find astute politics, accountable research, and cutting edge thinking on how we eat today, and how well eat tomorrow? Happy birthday, and thank you, Food First!

Raj Patel, author, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

Thanks to 40 years of pioneering and progressive work by Food First, we have a clearer and more critical understanding of the roots of hunger, the injustices of the worlds food system, corporate control, and the ecological footprint of industrial agriculture. Thanks to this revolutionary work we also have deeper insights into the agroecological alternatives and the path that food system transformation must take. I am proud to have been associated with such a unique think tank for more than 20 years.

Miguel Altieri, Professor of Agroecology, University of California Berkeley

Food First is the best independent think tank on global food politics. It is my political compass on food issues. I wish you more power as we celebrate your 40th anniversary!

Jun Borras, Professor of Agrarian Studies, Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague

Copyright 2015 by Food First Books / Institute for Food and Development Policy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief reviews.

Food First Books

Institute for Food and Development Policy

398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618 USA

Tel (510) 654-4400

www.foodfirst.org

Cover and text design by Design Action Collective

Copy editor: William Wroblewski

Cover artwork by Federico Boy Dominguez

Interior illustrations by Leonor Hurtado

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Food first: selected writings from 40 years of movement building / edited by Tanya M. Kerssen and Teresa K. Miller.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-935028-47-8 (e-book)

1. Food relief. 2. Food supply. 3. Food security. 4. HungerPrevention. I. Kerssen, Tanya M., 1981- editor. II. Miller, Teresa K., author. III. Food first.

HV696.F6F6426 2015

363.8dc23

2015033174

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is dedicated to the women, men, and youth from the frontline communities who are changing the world by transforming the food system. Their struggle for dignity, justice, and liberation are taking us to new, uncharted ground ripe with possibility. We are here today because of those who came beforewho gave the best they had so that others would benefit. We honor them. Our gratitude and appreciation also go out to all of the colleagues, interns, volunteers, members, friends, and allies who have made Food First the organization it is today. And special thanks to our loyal supporters for funding this special 40th anniversary book, in particular: Sudha Balakrishnan, Robert Berman, Robin Broad & John Cavanagh, Harvey Chang, Douglas Constance, Dean Cycon, Jonathan Fox, Katrina & Jonathan Frey, Steve Hayden, Gordon James, Henry Kahn, Aleksey Kovalyov, Marjorie Kuipers, Peter Laursen, Dennis Macdonald, Abby Mohaupt, Fei Mok, Loretta Pirozzi, Debbie Ruben, Joel Siegal, Joey Smith, Dale Sorensen, Lisu Thachet, Gail Thomas, Estelle Voeller, Masahiro Watarida, Charles Whitney, and David Zebker.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Benedita da Silva, 1997

From Benedita da Silva: An Afro-Brazilian Womans Story of Politics and Love, as told to Medea Benjamin and Maisa Mendoa (Oakland, CA: Food First Books, 1997), 52.

Frances Moore Lapp

I am elated that Food First is thriving in its 40th year. In honor of its four decades, let me share some powerful memories of the sparks that triggered the birth of this extraordinary organization.

What was alive in our culture 40 years ago?

A few years before Food Firsts founding, Paul Ehrlichs book The Population Bomb had frightened humanity with a warning that famine was inevitable. And the early seventies seemed to bear his warnings out: in 1974, famine in Bangladesh, and then in the African Sahel. Television brought images of skeletal babies.

In response, the United Nations called the first World Food Conference in Rome. Some of you may recall its takeaway: Kissingers line, In ten years time, no child shall go to bed hungry.