For details go to www.ussf2010.org

Doors open at 6:30pm, film to start at 7pm
Tickets: $15 online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/101354 or $20 at the door

Panel discussion will follow the film featuring:

-Rufina Juarez, protagonist in the film and activist with the South Central Farmers, who will talk about the personal experience of the eviction of the garden and what folks are doing now
-Shereen D'Souza of the California Food & Justice Coalition, talking about model policies and actions that communities are taking to protect land for food production
-Terry Corwin of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, talking about what is happening in Santa Cruz County to protect farm and garden space as well as natural habitat

Proceeds from the event benefit the work of the California Food & Justice Coalition, which promotes the basic human right to healthy food while advancing social, agricultural, environmental and economic justice.

Organized by the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems and the California Food & Justice Coalition. Co-sponsors are Transition Santa Cruz and Slow Food Santa Cruz.

For details and registration go to:
https://www.pathwayswellnessprogram.com/farm_to_table_conference.html

Part of the U.S. Social Forum planning

www.ussf2010.org for details.

register online for the All Rights for All People conference and you won't want to miss what we've got planned.

Here's a range of what you can experience in New Orleans:

• Confronting the cycle of poverty – exposing slums, maternal mortality and corporate accountability
• Lobbying 101 and legislative tactics for connecting with elected officials
• Assessing the human rights situation in New Orleans post-hurricane Katrina • Simulating crisis response strategies for the upcoming elections in Myanmar (Burma)
• Engaging the media to cover social issues and best practices for communicating your message
• Exploring a multimedia art fair on human rights

Sound exciting? Register now!

After you register, share the news on Facebook and post on Twitter using the hashtag #agm10.

And if you want to come, but are on the fence, check out these ways you can save on travel to help make your decision a little easier. Remember to take advantage of our special group rate at the New Orleans Marriott hotel!

To achieve the goal of all rights for all people, we need everyone to contribute. We want all of you to come together in New Orleans April 9-11th to share ideas, inspire and support each other, organize your communities, and speak out on behalf of those who cannot.

You are invited to the human rights conversation; your voice matters. Together, we can make a difference and come closer to a world that fully respects human rights.

See you in New Orleans,

Rocio Diaz
Director of Events
Amnesty International USA

For details: www.greenfestivals.org

A joint project of Global Exchange and Green America.

Climate change is coming, and our food is implicated. Research estimates that our food system is responsible for as much as one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, yet one study showed that the nation's top newspapers mentioned food and agriculture in only 2.4 percent of climate change articles. Anna Lappe's latest book has a simple message: if we are serious about addressing climate change, we have to talk about food. Diet for a Hot Planet: the Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It voices the dreams, tales, and warnings of the farmers and eaters at the front lines of the battle to keep the planet cool and explores the potential for sustainable agriculture to mitigate climate change. Come hear more about this important and timely work, and find out how your food choices make a difference.

Anna Lappe is a national bestselling author known for her work on sustainability and food systems. Named one of TIME's "Eco-Who's Who," Anna co-wrote Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet and Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen. With her mother Frances Moore Lappe, Anna leads the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute, a collaborative network for research and popular education, and the Small Planet Fund, which has raised and given away nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to democratic social movements worldwide, two of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize since the Fund's founding in 2002.

The talk will be followed by a reception with farmers market snacks.

Tickets are $10; all proceeds will benefit the Small Planet Fund.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds (unless the event sells out).

For details go to www.ussf2010.org

by Robert Kenner

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Food, Inc. will be accompanied by Notes on Milk, a short variation of the 2007 feature documentary Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink. Ariana Gerstein and Monteith McCollum, whose Hybrid aired on POV in 2002, take a quirky and poetic look at some lesser-known aspects of America’s favorite drink: the industry’s spiritual underpinnings, politics and the struggle of independent farmers.

with optional research tour extension May 16 - 20

Since the early 1990's, Cuba has been engaged in the most
comprehensive conversion from chemical
to organic agriculture that any nation has yet attempted.
-
Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We are inviting you to participate in our annual Sustainable
Agriculture and Urban Gardens Research Delegation in CUBA, May 5 -
15, 2010, with optional research extension, May 16 - 20.

http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/1075.html

This research tour takes place during a major conference in Cuba on
Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, organized by the Latin American
Agroecological Movement (MAELA), the Latin Amereican Scientific
Sciety of Agroecology (SOCLA), and the Cuban Association of
Agriculture and Forest Tecnicians (ACTAF).

This fortuitous circumstance affords us unprecedented access to Cuban
agriculturalists and in depth site visits.

ACTAF Conference Brochure:

Background

In the early 1990's, Cuba's agricultural system and food supply were
decimated by the tightening of the U.S. embargo and the collapse of
the Soviet Union (which had supplied the majority of Cuba's food
imports (chemical fertilizers and pesticides, fuel for transportation, feed for farm animals, and almost 60% of Cuba's food. Cubans referred to these years as the "Special Period."

Due to the severe shortage of hard currency for the importation of
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, Cuba was forced, in the early
1990's to begin to practice organic agriculture on a nationwide
scale, with some very exciting results. There are currently tens of
thousands of organic gardens in Havana alone and over a million
across the country. In the late 1990's, the Cuban Association for
Organic Agriculture was granted the International Right Livelihood
Award (the Alternative Nobel Prize) for its efforts.

Organic agriculture continues to be supported and expanded at
government and grassroots levels. Havana now grows over half its
fresh food organically, and locally. Cuba hopes to be self sufficient
in the production of many of its basic foods within the next decade.

University graduates in agronomy are handsomely rewarded for
contributing their knowledge of research, technology and
administration in rural settings. This entices educated young Cubans
to return to the countryside by offering them stimulating and
productive employment.

All Cuban young people are introduced to agriculture and food
production as part of their education, spending at least one summer
during their high school years, farming in the countryside.

Global Exchange and Food First co-organized the first U.S. delegation
to Cuba focused on sustainable agriculture in 1993, then co-authored
the seminal book on the subject, The Greening of Cuba and
collaborated on an award winning video of the same title.

Global Exchange organizes regular delegations of professors and
practitioners of organic agriculture to Cuba, who have developed
exchange programs through their universities and communities. These
relationships are now proliferating, with scientists and farmers
expanding their own joint projects between the U.S. and Cuba. It is
only the U.S. embargo that interferes with the full development of
these joint projects.

Program Highlights:

Scale Model of Havana
Meet with Cuban Architect/City Planner
City Tour/urban gardens/farmer's markets
Ministry of Agriculture
Tropical Agriculture Institute (INIFAT
Provinces of Pinar del Rio, Matanzas,
Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus
Dairy and vegetable production farm
Local farmers and Community projects
Neighborhood organization, (CDR)
Vermiculture project
Pastures and Forages Station
Cubasolar NGO

Cost:
$2550, double occupancy when available; single occupancy
supplement, $300. Fee for optional extended tour TBA.

Price includes RT flight Cancun/Havana/Cancun, Cuban visa, double hotel accommodations (when available), most meals, translation, transportation, and program fees.

How to Register:

Please send your application and a non-refundable deposit of $400 a
month before departure or a late fee of $50 will be applied. Payments
by Mastercard, Discover or Visa are welcome.

IMPORTANT GUIDELINES AND CANCELLATION POLICY and REGISTRATION FORMS FOR CUBA DELEGATIONS

Contact Drea with any questions about the logistics for this trip, at
415-255-7296, ext. 211 or call toll-free 1-800-497-1994 ext. 211.

Contact Pam with any questions about the program at 510-649-1052

Additional websites and articles on Cuba's food system

"Cultivating Havana: Urban Agriculture and Food Security in the Years
of Crisis," by Catherine Murphy, Feb 18, 1999
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/273

"Alternative Nobel Prize Goes to Cuban Group Promoting the Organic
Revolution," October 6, 1999
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/187

"Cuba's New Agricultural Revolution: The Transformation of Food Crop
Production in Contemporary Cuba," by Laura Enriquez, May 1, 2000
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/271

"The Greening of Cuba," by Caroline Whyte, An Caorthann (The Rowan
Tree) Irish green-alternative magazine
http://www.iol.ie/~mazzoldi/toolsforchange/zine/sam98/cuba.html

"The Greening of Cuba," by Peter Rosset. NACLA Report on the Americas,
1994
http://www.interconnection.org/resources/cuba.htm

We look forward to hearing from you,

Pam Montanaro
Eco Cuba Exchange
www.ecocubaexchange.org
pam@globalexchange.org
510-649-1052

Drea Hightower
Cuba Reality Tours
www.realitytours.org
drea@globalexchange.org
800-497-1994 x 211
415-255-7296, x 211

Travel and visa will be arranged by Global Exchange Reality Tours, a
Cuba Travel Service Provider, licensed by the Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department.