Tired of carefully selecting your organic groceries only to learn that the cool, independent company you thought you were supporting (along with their commitment to your health and to the right livelihood of the product’s growers), was in fact bought out by some multi-national conglomerate earning mind-numbing profits, pushing pesticides, buying seed patents, maybe even assassinating labor unionists? Try Coca-Cola, Dean Foods and Cargill on for size.
Battles are heating up to protest unfair trade agreements, subsidies for agribusiness in our Farm Bill, and now… Tom Vilsack, Obama’s pick for Secretary of Agriculture. Consumers, environmentalists, labor organizations, Interfaith groups, and small farmer organizations – folks are feeling angry and fed up. As well they should be.
The good news is that while these larger policy debates are raging on, consumers are increasingly demanding action on a playing field closer to home – our food markets and our grocery shelves.
If you are what you eat, and money talks, then it is time we took back our food stores. We must know whose pockets our consumer dollars are lining, what ingredients (pesticides, hormones, gmos) are filling our bodies, and the conditions of those that are toiling in the fields to feed not only ourselves, but their own families.
Fortunately, we have some strong allies. Your local food co-operative should be one of them.
And now, Equal Exchange and a group of food co-operatives in the Twin Cities areas have launched a new web-site to help us navigate our way through the policy debates as well as the concrete, “bread-and-butter” dilemmas we face when walking down the food market aisles.
Fair Food Fight. You have to check this out!
Here’s what their “Why we fight” page says:
How does it make you feel when you find out that that Whaddayasay? You ready to get in the ring?
Monsanto is suing the pants off family farmers for saving seeds? That Procter and Gamble can be certified as a “fair trade” company?
Did you know that Dagoba organic chocolate is owned by Hershey’s now? That Kellogg’s owns Gardenburger, and that Cascadian Farm is really General Mills? You do know that organic companies are getting gobbled up like bar snacks, don’t you?
Did you know that Big Organic food manufacturers worked a back room deal in Congress so that non-organic ingredients can be used in USDA certified organic foods under “emergency situations”?
How about this? Did you know that millionaire corn farmers get subsidized by tax dollars? Or that American farmers are planting more corn than ever and Americans are consuming four times as much corn sweetener as they did a generation ago?
Did you know that the cost of soda and crappy fast food has been plummeting in real dollars while the cost of fruits and veggies has been skyrocketing? Did you know the US Farm Bill promotes that?
We think this all stinks to high heaven. Not only do these corporations have all the money, but then they deliberately trick consumers by playing a shell game about who they are, or pick fights with small farmers and citizens who’re roughly a thousandth their own size, or game the federal government like its a referee in a pro wrestling match.
Doesn’t that just piss you off to no end?
Well, we’re pissed. There’s a vicious food fight going on in this country and it’s not going well, so we’re ready put on our masks, lace up the stomping boots, and jump in the ring. We’re bored with lofty discussions about alternative food systems. We want to shout. We want to cajole. We want to take some action — how about you?
If so, it’s a simple choice about whose side we should be on. Ready for the options?
A) David
B) Goliath
In this corner, we have the champ. Huge. Megalithic. Arms the size of a national trucking network, shoulders wide as a thousand-acre factory style farm, and stomach muscles rippling with vast credit and buying power.
And in this corner, we have the challenger. All he’s got is a used pick-up, fifty acres, and a steely gaze.
We like a spirited fight against long odds, so we side with the challenger, the small food grower and creator in her long shot match against giant food companies who are literally working to buy her up or put her out of business.
If we don’t fight this fight alongside the challenger, look what we have: A handful of companies that create the vast majority of your food, with fewer, less interesting choices every year. These companies demolish rural America by bringing in feedlots for cattle and pig towns with their lovely manure lagoons, drive out small farmers, and drive down wages until whole communities screwed. That, and the health of America as a whole is threatened by centralizing the food system so that just one nasty germ in the national meat bucket or the national tomato packing plant can sicken thousands upon thousands of people.
Most insulting of all, the Food Goliaths lie through their teeth to us, showing us slick marketing initiatives starring themselves as small farmers. When they do this, they take from the small farmer the one advantage he has: His identity as the challenger.
Well, we’re here to unmask that marauder. We’re here to sort through the lying, cheating and stealing, because we think more small farmers with better access to market and fewer corporate shell-games is exactly what this country needs. More small farmers would bring:
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better choices to shoppers,
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safer, healthier food
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a thriving, independent rural class, worldwide
So this site is dedicated to the good fight, the fair fight, the food fight, and we need fighters to join us – food fighters – and we need lots of them, numbers, with noisy voices. If you’ve ever read the paper and said to yourself, “But what can I do?” Then you’ve found a place to vent energy and force some changes on the world. We need:
* irrationally enthusiastic activists who are willing to be called to action at a moment’s notice
* food fighters who will stay informed, attend rallies, write letters, spread the word and show up for real action on behalf of small farmers and fair food
* bloggers and videographers who will create a little corner of Fair Food Fight for yourself with your own blog and your own fights and tell stories of what’s happening in your region of the country
* testimonials of great food, recipes, victories, profiles of courageous small farmers, or fights that the rest of us may need to join.
In the coming weeks, Fair Food Fight will call on you to join us in taking specific action, but, until then, just meet and greet your fellow food fighters who’re hanging around the site. Start a blog. Spar with El Dragon in the comments of the main blog. Have fun.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
