Thank you!
We opened the space on Friday at the International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) to around 40 participants including activists and advocacy groups in the urban nodes of The Netherlands and neighboring countries, and agro-ecological farmers in the Netherlands. A collection of ASEED’s close comrades and potential allies.
For two days we sat in circle, opening topics within the web of food autonomy such as undemocratic and dangerous trade agreements, land access and inequality, colonial and racial injustice, genocide, land-grabbing, food as a weapon, working conditions, and migration. In each discussion, we heard open calls to action from groups in the room working on justice in all these different threads. At the same time, we were pulled to analyze our own position and power in the movement: as a group or individual, what privileges do I benefit from? What do I have access to which I could use to fight against oppression in the food system? What does my race, capital, education, citizenship, location, and network enable me to do? and How can I use them to disarm corporate control and fight for social justice for all?
We formed breakout groups, working groups, exchanged resources and contacts, mapped targets and planned for the future. Then rode our bikes to Het Groene Veld.
On Sunday the usual gates of the FAF were opened, and 200 people entered to hear panels on international and local struggles and how to act in solidarity with them. We ‘exhibited’ our strategy-notes in “The Library” amongst flyers and donation points for living projects , such as Mycelia van Hoop, and twinning with Palestinian farmers. And, closed the weekend off with an amazing theater performance of ‘Het Gras is Groener bij de Buren’ from the Forest Theater Collective.
About this year’s FAF…
The Food Autonomy Festival (FAF) is happening again this year on Sunday the 15th of June! If you have been part of previous FAFs, you may be wondering why this year’s edition is only a one-day event. In previous years, we felt that there was not enough time for organisers and groups in the food autonomy movements to interact and learn together. This is why we will dedicate the Friday and Saturday of the FAF to closed sessions focused on collective strategising and knowledge-sharing between groups within the movement. The Sunday however will be open to everyone interested in activism and food autonomy. Join us and get to know the movement through workshops, performances, food and more! In other words: eat well, dig deep and dance!
Scroll down to read more details about the programme!
International perspective: the Philippines, India and Palestine (location: social center)
Presentation: The Filipino peasant struggle for land against feudalism and imperialism
15:00-15:45 – Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS)
FFPS is an international solidarity organization supporting the Filipino people and their revolutionary movement under the NDFP fighting for national and social liberation. It brings together member organization from around the globe to provide the Filipino people with moral, political and material support.
For several centuries the Filipino peasantry, the majority of the Filipino population, have lived under the yoke of United States’ imperialist and feudal exploitation and oppression. Millions of peasants do not own their own land and face displacement due to greed of their landlord and foreign capital, or suffer under increasing militarization by local fascist goons and foreign armies stationed in the Philippines. The Filipino, however, are fighting back. Join solidarity organization Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) for a talk on the struggle of the Filipino peasants for land against feudalism and imperialism.
Presentation: Indigenous Adivasi communities’ struggle against state repression and land dispossession in central India
16:00-16:30 – InSAF India
Join InSAF India to learn about the struggle of indigenous Adivasi communities’ against state repression and dispossession.
Indigenous Adivasi communities in the Bastar region of the state of Chhattisgarh in central India are facing intensified state repression and corporate land grabs due to “Operation Kagar”, a campaign launched by the Indian state to increase militarization in the region under the guise of counterinsurgency. The campaign conceals the mass displacement of Adivasi communities from their lands for the sake of mining activities and in the name of development. The dispossession of the Adivasi communities of their lands is a threat to their food sovereignty and autonomy as indigenous people of the land.
InSAF India is a collective of diasporic Indians from across the globe. InSAF India advocates for collective academic freedoms and building global solidarities with Indian and international peoples’ movements for radical social, economic and ecological justice.
Statement and presentation: Food sovereignty and resistance in Palestine
17:00-17:30 – Union of Agricultural Workers’ Committees (UAWC)
The Union of Agricultural Workers’ Committees (UAWC) is the Palestinian member organization of La Via Campesina.
In the face of the genocide and war waged by Israeli occupation in Gaza, UAWC has launched the #StopGazaStarvation campaign. This initiative is an urgent plea for solidarity to provide tens of thousands affected by bombardment and destruction with food, water, and the essentials of life, ensuring their resilience and continuity despite the harshness of the occupier’s crimes. Through his brother Ismail, we will hear from UAWC member Saad Ziada about the current situation in Gaza and the Westbank.
A conversation with FFPS, InSAF, UAWC: International indigenous and peasant struggles against militarisation and land grabbing
17:45-18:30 – FFPS, InSAF, UAWC
This conversation follows the presentations of the solidarity groups Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle, InSAF India and the Palestinian organisation Union of Agricultural Workers’ Committees. A week before the NATO summit in The Hague, we will come together to talk about militarisation, land grabbing and resistance against oppression everywhere. What are the struggles we are up against, how can we be in solidarity, and where does the hope lie?
Intersectional perspective: the struggle in the Netherlands (location: tent)
Workshop: Reparative Justice with Lutkemeer Clay
15:00-16:30 – Lina, Mattea and Tobia from Toekomstboeren & Agroecology Network
Feel along with Lutkemeer clay as we learn to shape pathways towards reparative justice. With her, we share practices that can tend to the painful histories of the Lutkemeerpolder and dress today’s colonial wounds. What can we learn from clay in a common struggle to break free from whiteness and its relation with land and food? With care and the company of clay and water we try to de-centre ourselves and root deeper. We close with an intimate collective gesture that respectfully supports the leadership of Indigenous diaspora who re-pair people with Mother Earth and call for a Forest of Healing.
Workshop: Exploitation of migrant labour in Dutch agriculture
17:00-18:30 – Migration and Wage Labour working group of the Agroecology Network
Overcrowded housing, homelessness, low pay, wage theft, dangerous work. These are circumstances that are seen in the production of Dutch fruit, vegetables and flowers. We will give some insight into the exploitative situation that many migrant farmworkers find themselves in. We will go into how we as agroecological movement, which is a social justice movement representing all agricultural workers, can effectively organise against this exploitation. Our new Working group on Migration and Wage labour has made relations with migrant orgs, the labour union and migrant workers in order to campaign together.
Interactive Food Autonomy: Explore and Strategise
Workshop: Skill share in the Green Ass Garden: Sensory Foraging, a Bond with the Land
15:00-16:30 – Erika from the Green Ass Garden – location: Green Ass Garden
“Step into our community garden and get in touch with the neighbour (wild) Plants! During this stroll, we will meet some (wild) inhabitants of Green Ass Garden. Apart from naming & identifying, we take some time for closer connection through all our senses. Besides some lore and different (edible, medicinal, material) uses, we might discover why each plant settled here and what qualities/gifts we can share as neighbours! In this mix of edible, medicinal, soil indicating, personal meeting and old lore foraging, we hope to share a sense of exploring and cultivating a bond with the land wherever you are.” (Kids welcome with an adult).
Workshop: Co-creating the epic story of the collapse of the industrial agricultural system
15:00-16:30 – Toekomstboeren – location: Machinegebouw
“Come join us in creating a future that you envision and fight for! It’s 2050, and the agricultural system has radically changed for the better. But how? Was there a trigger point? When we look back at the unsustainable times of our current food system, how did this transformation occur? Did the institutions finally give in? Have we reached the crucial 3.5% of the population on the streets demanding land reforms? Did a new economic crisis create the necessary ‘cracks’ in capitalism that allowed agro-ecological farming to flourish? Did droughts wipe out the monocultures forcing the Netherlands to grow food in resilient systems? Together, we will construct the epic story of how the industrial agricultural system collapsed by 2050. Through mapping our collective actions, and envisioning how these actions can completely transform the current system within a transformative pathway and timeline, we will ultimately co-create our collective theory of change towards an agro-ecological food system. In the workshop, we will make use of radical imagination and storytelling and other fun elements of surprise!!” – With Toekomstboeren
Kid’s Area
Workshop: Crafting with nature
17:00-18:30 – City Plot
Specifically made for kids but adults are also explicitly welcome! Join cityplot and FAF volunteers in making flower crowns and painting with plants.
Evening programme
Collective ritual: setting the circle
19:00-19:15 – Toni Kritzer – location: in front of the Machinegebouw
Like Isabelle Fremaux and Jay Jordan have said so eloquently, “Rituals help to sustain reciprocal relations, they mark and enable change and yet frame the continuity of life, with its repetition and cycles.” This year at FAF, we attune to the cyclicality, that, as people working in and around agriculture and ecology, we know is integral to all life. We find ourselves in a circle, formed by our bodies, framed by planet earth, the solar system and its movements – the circle is us, gathering in a place. The circle made from our bodies forms around what is to be the space for dancing, which we prepare collectively to hold the celebration and our joy.
In this form, we want to ground and center ourselves in where and when we are, at the beautiful moment ADM is dipping into dusk.Using our bodies as compasses, we orient ourselves to the four cardinal directions. We honor the seasons as cyclical, and pinpoint this moment in time in the wheel of the year. We trace the path of the sun towards the solstice with our bodies. And we speculate on cycles of repair: offering this ritual to the hurting earth.
Theater: Het Gras is Groener bij de Buren
20:00-21:00 – Forest Theater Collective – location: Forest
The forest Theater Collective is back in the Netherlands with a physical theatre piece! We bring you a story about two farmers struggling—with each other and with the system. Caught between tradition and innovation, autonomy and laws/regulations, expectations and responsibility, two young farmers wrestle with their visions of farming—which differ quite a bit! What does it mean to be a farmer today? What drives them, what do they hope for, and what worries them? And what can they learn from each other? Join us for an interactive and artistic exploration of these questions and discover whether the grass truly is greener on the other side.
Cost: donation-based
Language: mostly Dutch (with English written translation available)
Poetry: THE GRIZZLED MANTISES
21:00-21:15 – location: Machinegebouw
A decolonial, ecological duo Lyz (they/any) and Isa Bob (they/them) will take you on a path of ancestral stars, cyclicality of seedling love and communal caretaking.
MUSIC & DANCING
21:15-22:00 – Shexpeer – location: Machinegebouw
As the last official programme point we get to dance to the music Shexpeer offers us. ShexPeer seamlessly blends contemporary and traditional Arabic and other Eastern musical influences, encompassing a diverse range of styles and rhythms that promise to shake up any dance floor.
Directions
Het Groene Veld / ADM Noord
Address: Buikslotermeerdijk 95, 1027 GE, Amsterdam Noord
Metro line 52 stops at Noord, 15 minutes walking to the front entrace (G.J. Scheurleerweg 212).
Bike parking is at the front entrance.
Car parking is available via the North entrance for people with disabilities or urgent needs for parking.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to camp. The FAF is a day-time festival and we are only guests at the grounds of the ADM Noord/Het Groene Veld community.
Map of the festival
What is Het Groene Veld and the ADM Eetcafé?
Our policy
We are striving to accommodate everyone and ensure we can all be comfortable and have fun. Here you can find our key accessibility points for navigating the festival. For more general information on accessibility, please read our Safer Space Guide here.
Please reach out to us at info@aseed.net, if you have any additional questions or requests! ASEED is keen to learn how to make spaces and interactions accessible and enjoyable for everyone. If you have feedback on the accessibility of the program content, methods, or space, please let us know during the day or via an email/direct message on our social media. Find an awareness steward in an orange vest, or an ASEED team member at the info stall!
Economic
- Throughout the festival, we will ask for donations to cover the costs of organizing the festival.
- Meals will be available for a donation of €3-€10 per meal, based on what you can afford to pay.
- Economic accessibility also means collecting donations to compensate the caterers and workshop givers who share their time and energy with us. ASEED also relies on donations from the FAF each year to sustain the core functioning of the organization. So while we want to open access to participation to everyone, donations are a valuable part of sustaining this campaign.
Location
- The location is reachable by public transport, by bike and by car.
- Car parking at the festival will be only for people with disabilities / urgent need for parking. These will be clearly marked.
- Outdoor surfaces include: concrete, grass field, gardens, and forest ground. The workshops and eating areas are on concrete and are accessible from the road.
- The gardens are inaccessible for wheelchairs and have narrow, winding paths. This is where the gardening activities will take place.
- The location will be clearly marked with directional signs.
- The wheelchair-accesible toilet is the one at the left of the Machinegebouw. It’s accesible, but narrow, so you might need support.
Cultural Center
- Main entrance is wide, and double doors can open
- No wheelchair-accessible toilet, the next accessible toilet is in the ‘machine room’
- 2 emergency exits
Machinegebouw
- Main entrance is wide, and double doors can open
- All toilets are gender-neutral & we are going to place handles for support
- 4 emergency exits
Eetcafé
- Main entrance is wide and the cafe is also accessible from two side doors
- Food will be vegetarian or vegan and marked with common allergens
Program
- We will have seats reserved at the front of workshop spaces for people with hearing difficulties.
- We invite participants to think about the space they and their privileges take up, leaving room for others and their needs.
- Workshops will be in English (Dutch whisper translation is available if needed)
- We will notify speakers and presenters that they should avoid turning their back to the audience and to repeat audience questions.
Children
- Children are welcome at the festival. There will be an area run by volunteers with workshops, activities and materials for different ages.
- If your child cannot be by themself, a caretaker should be with them.
- There are large water reservoirs with a one meter concrete fence around them. Please be careful with children there.
- Breast-feeding can be done everywhere in the festival, if you need a more private space, feel free to ask an ASEED organizer.
Feeding the FAF#9
De Sering!
Since 2019, De Sering has been a community-driven space where food, culture, and activism intersect, offering 300 donation-based meals daily to ensure food remains accessible to all.
They work to strengthen the community at the heart of effective activism, serving healthy meals on location at actions, and welcoming grassroots groups to meet, imagine, and restore in their space.
Cake! ! Zoe & Alix do not only live together but also bake together and agreed to be our cake caterers! Enjoy their amazing treats and donate directly to them (if you can)!
We’re looking for volunteers!
Would you like to participate in this year’s edition of the FAF? Then join us as a volunteer on Sunday the 15th of june between 14:00 and 22:00 at ADM Noord in Amsterdam and help us bring this grassroots festival to life! ✊🏽🪱
We are still seeking volunteers for Food, Logistics and the Kid’s area:
- Food (2h shift): help with heating up food from De Sering in the beautiful ADM kitchen, serve it to the people, and/or help clean up afterwards.
- Logistics (2-4h shift): help us with setting up and making the festival space look awesome! We’ll be starting on sunday morning from 10am.
- Children’s area (2-4h shift): be present in the kid’s area and facilitate games and activities. No specific skills/materials needed, but some experience with kids and knowledge of Dutch is appreciated.
Please note: We are unfortunately unable to financially compensate our volunteers. As a thank you, we will offer free food and drink tokens to use at the festival. It is also a great way to engage with ASEED and its surrounding community, and learn valuable skills that can be used for organizing other movements in the future.