US Working Group on the Food Crisis

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.