US Working Group on the Food Crisis

Public workshop series begins March 12th, 2010 in Ankeny, Iowa!  The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), will hold a series of public hearings around the country on anti-trust violations, i.e. corporate dominance, in food and agriculture.  Numerous topics are being addressed throughout the series and each workshop aims to focus on a handful of concerns.  The workshop in Iowa will introduce the workshop series and may include discussions of seed technology, vertical integration, market transparency, and buyer power.

Can't make it to Iowa this spring but are interested in participating?  Consider hosting a gathering to watch the webcast and using the workshop as an opportunity to discuss food justice in your community on or around the March 12th workshop.

Learn more about what you can do. Also, see all of our Resources on Corporate Concentration .

The global food crisis has motivated diverse groups in the US – including progressive labor, faith, indigenous, community food, farm, environmental, and trade justice groups – to join forces in response.  In late spring of 2008, a number of groups representing different areas of the food system came together to form the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis.  The Working Group’s goal has been to bring attention to the underlying causes of the crisis and to promote transformative solutions to fix our broken food system.

Through a year of activities and dialogues with diverse partners, the Working Group identified the need for an inclusive and unifying campaign to end the ongoing food crisis, which has become a daily reality for millions of Americans and a billion people worldwide. Such a campaign would help counter the well-funded propaganda of the corporate agrifoods industry and further the shared goal of a just and sustainable food system. On August 31 and September 1, 2009, the Working Group joined together with dozens of grassroots social movement leaders, community of color leaders, and NGOs to find common ground on which to collaborate towards building a campaign.

With diverse representatives of over 50 organizations and social movements, the meeting was a success.  The group arrived a unifying theme and specific strategies for the next year, building upon grassroots strengths and existing food justice movement work, while seizing the unique political moment in Washington and internationally. The proposed theme of the campaign, ending poverty by rebuilding local food economies, focuses on the poverty and injustice that the dominant food system creates -- and on the potential for communities, regions, and nations to build just and prosperous food economies from the ground up.

Through breakout sessions aimed at building a broad and coordinated set of strategies for the campaign, two primary focus areas emerged.   Participants identified corporate control of the food system to be primary cause of damage to people, communities and the environment.  Accordingly, anti-trust (anti-monopoly) efforts were deemed to be critically important. Taking advantage of the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s listening sessions on anti-trust beginning in early 2010, the campaign will bring stories, research and analysis from the grassroots to the government. Those hurt by the anti-competitive structure of the corporate food system will raise their voices in the sessions and organize creative street actions to highlight the current injustices of the food system and the positive alternatives that deserve support. Washington DC-based groups will reinforce the call for anti-trust legislation.

A second important focus area is to strengthen local food systems work with peer-to-peer training and support.  Participants agreed to use the U.S. Social Forum which will bring together as many as 20,000 people in Detroit, Michigan on June 22-26, 2010, as an important venue for convergence and organizing for food systems change.  This will potentially involve building a delegation of urban and rural farmers, farmworkers, food workers, and other food system leaders who are creating the solutions to the food crisis, as well as organizing a series of workshops and activities focused on the campaign.

Next steps include a series of meetings in fall of 2009 to bring new participants into the process and to continue dialogue and planning to move forward the campaign.  Anyone interested in learning more and getting involved is encouraged to contact Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau (Tristan(at)whyhunger.org).

The US Working Group on the Food Crisis is an ad hoc group of organizations from around the US, representing various sectors of the food system, including anti-hunger, family farm, community food security, environmental, international aid, labor, food justice, consumer, and other groups. We do not view the food crisis as an unexpected, sudden emergency of the last year, but as the inevitable consequence of the development of a long list of misguided agricultural and food policies over the last 30+ years.

We believe that we will not resolve the problems exposed by this food crisis by applying more of the same policies and thinking that caused the crisis in the first place. Nothing less than a wholesale change in the worldwide food system will allow us to address these problems sustainably and equitably.

Please join us:

• Sign the Call to Action to demand that the new US administration take rapid steps to address the food crisis through fundamental policy changes.  
• Learn more by reading the backgrounder to the Call to Action, as well as the policy brief written by Food First in collaboration with this working group.
• Learn how to take action in your own community.
• Encourage others to sign onto the Call to Action and to get involved.

This working group was first convened by a conference call in May of 2008 followed by in-person meetings in Washington DC in July of 2008, each attended by representatives of 40-50 organizations from throughout the US.  This group has since continued to grow and evolve. If your organization has already signed the Call to Action and would like to get more actively involved, please contact us.

Sign on now! 

As a result of decades of misguided policies and the recent sharp rise in food prices, a billion people around the world face hunger and food insecurity. Dangerous volatility in the financial system puts these people at even greater risk. We, the undersigned, call on people across the United States to use our political power and actions to fight for food system changes that:

Stabilize prices for farmers and consumers globally

• Regulate the finance sector’s investment in food and energy commodities.
• Establish and strengthen publicly-owned domestic, regional, and international strategic food reserves.
• Suspend international trade and investments in industrial-scale biofuels (a.k.a. agrofuels).
• Reform food aid.
• Expand fair trade, not so-called free trade.

Rebalance power in the food system

• Reduce the political influence of agribusiness corporations on public policy.
• Strengthen antitrust enforcement in agribusiness.
• Convene multi-stakeholder, representative food policy councils at state and local levels.

Make sustainable agriculture the standard

• Support biodiverse, agroecological family farming in purchasing and procurement.
• Halt expansion of government supported biofuels programs, mandates, and tax incentives and other subsidies unless they only support sustainable, domestic production.
• Direct state and national farm policy, research and education, and investment toward biodiverse, agroecological farming and sustainable food businesses.

Guarantee the right to healthy food by building local and regional food systems and fostering social, ecological and economic justice

• Call on the US to join the community of nations supporting the human right to food.
• Support domestic food production and independent community-based food businesses in the United States and around the world.
• Establish living wages, so that everyone can afford healthy food.
• Implement full workers’ rights for farmworkers and other food system workers.
• Strengthen the social safety net for low-income people across the US.
• Create a solidarity economy that puts people before profit in the United States and around the world.

You can take action in many ways, in your community or across the country:

• Contact your elected officials to demand policies that support a fair food system. The first 100 days of the new administration will be an especially important time to set a new course.
• Write op-eds and letters to the editor of your newspaper.
• Host an event to educate and mobilize your community between World Food Day (October 16) and Thanksgiving.
• Join local or national organizations working for a fair food system.
• Get involved with the US Working Group on the Food Crisis.