Last weekend a part of the ASEED team went to Berlin to join Wir Haben Es Satt with 9000 other demonstrators to express our frustrations with the agroindustry and demand for a more sustainable and socially just food system!
To prepare for Saturday’s demonstration, we joined other groups at the Schnippeldisco on Friday evening, creating posters and attending some workshops. We also hosted our own interactive session “Towards Food Autonomy: Exposing Corporate Control and Oppression”, where we discussed the concept of food autonomy. We offered participants the choice to explore two case studies : one on the corporate control of Yara as the biggest producer of fossil fertilisers. And one on the struggle for food autonomy in Palestine. Attendees were invited to form in small groups and read and reflect on these cases, share their thoughts and write them down.
To end the evening, we joined the collaborative effort of cutting one tonne of veggies, for the soup which re-fueled and warmed us after Saturday’s march.
On Saturday, we gathered near the Parliament to prepare for the march. We took to the streets, filling Berlin’s city centre with banners, drums and music to call for food as a fundamental human right, fair prices and conditions for its producers, and the production of healthy food for people and the climate!
After the demonstration, we returned to base to enjoy the delicious communal soup. Then we headed to exchange ideas at the Heinrich Bohl Foundation, where we participated in a series of talks centered around the question “Who actually benefits here?”. We presented a theatrical investigation, in collaboration with Inkota as our “experts”, into the harmful practices of Yara as a leader in the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser industry. We exposed the socioeconomic and ecological impacts of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, and the costs of Yara’s monopoly over the industry, as well as debunked Yara’s claims about their new “green” fertilisers!
Here is the link to the live stream!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YLIhwaZiEE
We were disappointed by the lack of support and solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, where today 90% of Palestinians in Gaza are facing severe food insecurity due to Israel’s use of food as a weapon of war. We were happy to highlight this critical issue and remind others of its connection to the corporate food system we collectively sought to challenge this weekend – and continue to fight against.
