People Putting Food First #119

New at www.foodfirst.org
Check out the many upcoming events posted here http://www.foodfirst.org/en/events

Policy Brief # 15 The Doha Collapse: Time to get agriculture out of the WTO http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2224

New documentary on the roots of Mexican migration to the U.S. released by Food First, Caminos: The Immigrant’s Trail http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2219

1. Intervale Center’s Healthy City
2. Push to make Microfinance Transparent
3. Guatemalan Network for Food Sovereignty
4. South Central LA Farmers Fight for the Right to Feed Themselves

1. Intervale Center’s Healthy City

Watch this fun and fast-paced video of teens producing healthy food for schools and food distribution centers near Burlington, VT.
http://www.7dvt.com/2008intervale-centers-healthy-city

2. Push to make Microfinance Transparent

A new nonprofit, “MFTransparency,” has been launched by Columbia professor, Charles Waterfield, to provide transparency in the increasingly complex and now commercialized microfinance sector. The primary mechanism will be publication of annual interest rates and other central data at http://www.mftransparency.org/

MFI organizations have joined together with the Grameen Bank founder and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mohammad Yunus, in providing data. They have combined lending power of more than 20 million borrowers.

Yunus and others nonprofit lenders are skeptical of the move to for-profit microcredit. They see MFTransparency as a way to counter profit extraction from microfinance participants. Small borrowers often have little understanding of the mechanisms of credit transactions. Will MFTransparency be able to protect the socially motivated goals of nonprofit microfinance rather than becoming just another mechanism in the quest for profit?

http://www.mftransparency.org/
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064038915009.htm

3. Guatemalan Network for Food Sovereignty

The Guatemalan Network for Food Sovereignty, created in 2006, has 50 member organizations with a mission to educate citizens and promote sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty. Their working principles include solidarity, respect for free determination, democratic participation, and harmony with nature.

This network coordinates its work internationally with Vía Campesina and the Food Security Network, reinforcing social movements working together to achieve Food Sovereignty.

Last month their first annual meeting on rescuing native seeds involved peasants, activists and scientists. The seed and bulb exchange was a success, provoking lively discussions about ideal planting conditions for each.

Network participants advocate food sovereignty as the best way to address the hunger crisis. They will be asking the Guatemalan government to change their agriculture policies in the face of this food crisis.

4. South Central LA farmers fight for the right to feed themselves

The story of the South Central Urban Farm in Los Angeles reads like a movie script, with heroes, villains, money, and shady politicians.

ACT I: After the 1992 riots, this 14-acre garden was started by the nonprofit L.A. Regional Food Bank, which runs a food-distribution network. The city acquired the plot by eminent domain in 1986, and after a failed attempt to put an incinerator on the location, the city allowed 350 or so low-income gardeners to grow food on the plot. With over 100 species of plants, the South Central Farm was a wonderful example of agricultural diversity.

ACT II: In 2001 Ralph Horowitz, a former part-owner of this land, sued the city for breach of contract over the 1986 eminent domain agreement. This led to a closed-door deal with local politicos that allowed him to repurchase the land. There are allegations of a quid-pro-quo agreement with LA Mayor Villariagosa accepted a $1.3 million campaign donation from the clothing manufacturer/retailer that is slated to lease the property (documents describing the closed-door session have not been released). After receiving an eviction notice from the City, the LA Food Bank abandoned the site, leaving the remaining farmers to start the South Central Farmers Feeding Families (SCF).

ACT III: The showdown began on January 8, 2004, when Horowitz set a February 29, 2004 date for garden evacuation. The SCF filed suit to overturn the sale of the property. The LA County Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order and an injunction that temporarily halted development of the property during the lawsuit. On June 30, 2005, the Court of Appeal reversed the injunction. Horowitz originally offered to sell the land for 16.3 million, but his ego was bruised during a year-long widely publicized occupation of the property in protest of the eviction plans. Things got personal. When the Annenburg Foundation came up with the money to buy the property Horowitz refused to sell, saying he would not sell to the squatters for even $100 million. On July 5, 2006 he bulldozed the farm (video link at the end of this article). Ten protesters were arrested, but Horowitz’s tit-for-tat SLAPP suit against the farmers was thrown out of court.

While the City has provided 7.8 acres of land at an alternate site, only a 3-acre patch under some power lines has been made available for actual use. The SCF continued to hold nightly vigils at the South Central Farm site. This perseverance paid dividends for the urban farmers when representatives for Mr. Horowitz agreed to an environmental impact report, delaying a decision on the project for at least a year. When the city planning office decided that the report was not needed, hundreds of people sent letters and emails and signed petitions—even the four county Air Quality Management District sent a scathing letter to city planners. This caused the Planning Board to reverse its decision and require the environmental impact report. So there is still hope, and a lot of fight left in these scrappy urban farmers. The SCF is not back on the farm yet, but the final dénouement may be at hand. Will this be "Eyes on the Prize," or “Chinatown”?
You can help and learn more by visiting the SCF at http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/
A video of the raid on the South Central Farmers on June 13, 2006 can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT66AsTk4iQ
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This issue of People Putting Food First was compiled by Food First Fellows, Rick Jonasse and Leonor Hurtado and intern, Bastian Betthaeuser.