Food Sovereignty in Practice

Food Autonomy Festival number 5 - online and offline 2021
In one week ASEED facilitates the fifth edition of the Food Autonomy Festival (FAF)!
The horizontally organized festival provides a platform for knowledge exchange, inspiration and mobilization in forms of workshops, discussions and joint action. We are happy to give voice to a variety of actors, groups, initiatives and organizations that fight for food justice and food sovereignty.


We will start on the 4th June with a online opening session, including a Food Journey workshop. If you want to take part in this, make sure to come to the preparatory workshop on Friday 28.5, find out more about it here.


On the 5th and 6th of June, there will be online and offline activities in Amsterdam's Lutkemeerpolder.
Find out more about our varied programme, full of workshops, farming and skillsharing here.

On the 11th and 12th of June, the Festival will move to Utrecht, with a packed programme with everything from talks about Peatlands to practical dumpster diving tours.

Finally, on 13.-14. June, we'll be in Wageningen for our grand finale of the FAF.


If you want to get involved with helping to plan, run technical aspects, keep an eye on hygiene or support this festival financially then please get in touch with us at info(@)aseed.net

For now, enjoy this edition of the ASEED newsletter!

Article on Food Sovereignty

Before the we dive in to the Food Autonomy Festival let's take a look at the history and current practice of food sovereignty. This concept was coined to acknowledge the political and economic power dimensions in the food and agriculture debate.

In our newest article we reflect upon the potential and importance of collective, community-based efforts to encounter consumers’ and producers’ struggle in the current food system and to form a movement for social justice and climate justice in the food and agricultural sector. In the past decades, it is first and foremost the food sovereignty movement which presents an alternative to and combined resistance against the agroindustry and its devastating impacts. Most commonly, food sovereignty is defined as the “right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems“. The efforts and successes of the movement essentially rely on collectivity, community, collaboration and solidarity.

Read here our newest article on the history and current practice of food sovereignty.

Resistance is Fertile

From the Lutkemeerpolder in Amsterdam to the Shell Headquarters in Den Haag to the University of Wageningen - we have been taking action against the power of multinationals over our food system all over the Netherlands!

A wrecking ball in front of the Shell headquarters in Den Haag

ASEED and the campaign #ShellMustFall

On May 18, 2021, the day of Shell’s annual shareholders’ meeting, supporters of Shell Must Fall took action against the fossil multinational in countries including the Netherlands, Nigeria, Ghana, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. ASEED was present in Den Haag, where the first seeds were planted to create a museum for climate justice, a tribunal for climate crimes, and a garden.

This is sorely needed! In the midst of an ecological and climate crisis, global multinationals have no business getting together to celebrate their business model. We, however, do have something to celebrate - years of resistance against Shell's violation of human rights and disregard for the lives and livelihoods of communities from which they extract fossil fuels. That's why ASEED, Je Moeder, Code Rood and XR Netherlands are starting the process of dismanteling the company and rebuilding it with a place to celebrate climate and social justice.

Code Rood showed up with construction workers and a wrecking ball to symbolize the dismanteling of Shell and ASEED created a garden of resistance in front of Shell's Headquarters, being ready for that what comes after the demolition: transformation & regeneration). Their doorstep was filled with roots and fruits of resistance from carrots to moss and we also planted a chestnut forest at their doorstep, which will crack up the asphalt from below.

Why Shell? Shell is a fossil fuel giant and thus plays a crucial part in the agricultural food system - from providing fossil gas that is used to create nitrogen fertilizer in the climate wrecking Haber-Bosch process, to directly impacting farmers in areas such as Ogoniland, where land is damaged beyond repair. In a future with healthy alternatives to industrial agriculture, with organic, community-supported farms and soils that are cared for Shell has no place. We are taking steps together for a future without it.

People sowing seeds in the Lutkemeerpolder

Sowing seeds again in the Lutkemeerpolder

Action has begun again at the outskirts of Amsterdam! More than 200 people gathered in stormy weather to demand all construction activity and preparation to be stopped for good! We planted seeds in the shapes of letters saying "Save our Soils" and also prepared beautiful flower and vegetable beds. From now on, there will be people gardening there every Sunday. Feel free to drop by and say hi!
A person in a tripod in front of the Unileper Construction site. Banners are on the construction fences

Activists demand the University of Wageningen to stop its cooperation with toxic food industries


Recent developments in the Wageningen Universities' collaboration with the private sector reflect a determined step further away from the necessary confrontation with the global consequences of the university's research and education. Multinational companies taking over more and more space on campus is a blatant representation of the neoliberalisation of both our food systems and our university education system.

If the university doesn't listen to calls for more democracy and participation, we take matters into our own hands! XR, University Rebellion and ASEED blocked the construction site of future campus multinational Upfield. This is to show our disagreement with the lack of transparency in the decision-making and execution of this private sector collaboration.
The construction of a destructive food future and the promotion of companies and values that have significantly contributed to the climate, ecological and social crisis that we are facing, is not something that we can accept. Especially when it is promoted by an institution that is supposed to represent a diverse variety of opinions and visions. Find out about more about this action and the background here.
Zapatistas

The Zapatistas are coming!

The group left Mexico in April this year, and it’s on its way to the continent, 500 years after the supposed conquest of what is today Mexico by Europeans. The year 2021 marks 20 years of the March of the Color of the Earth, which aimed at claiming the group’s place in a collapsing Nation. The Zapatistas set sail on their journey to tell the planet that there is room for everyone in the world that they hold in their collective heart – and that that world will only be possible if we unite in our struggles to build it together.
The Zapatistas, since their creation, demand work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice, and peace. ASEED recognizes and supports the struggles of this group and hopes to be able to contribute to their Journey, along with all of you who might be interested in this movement, which just like the waves in the ocean, keeps on growing!
During the last months, several organizations throughout Europe established contact and united in order to receive the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional) in their journey, “La Gira por La Vida”. Several working groups were created and there is a beautiful and extensive solidarity network with volunteers from all different backgrounds, social movements, identities, social classes, languages, and roots.

If you’d like to support the EZLN in the Netherlands, please contact clara[at]aseed.net for more information.

Want to be updated about ASEED's activities and volunteering opportunities?

We now have a Telegram group which you can join if you'd like to stay up to date about our doings and help out in one of our future events. We'll be happy to see you there!
Here is the link.

Upcoming Events

Square image2
29. May Peat-Fest
Peatlands are mystery, magic, life, death, energy, water, earth, creation, disintegration, (hi)stories, past, present, future. Peatlands are alive. They are the space inbetween. They speak to us. Join Peat-Fest 2021, on May 29th from midnight to midnight (BTS). Learn more and sign up here

lutkeBird
30.5. Behoud Lutkemeer Birdwalk
12:00

This Sunday we will meet at the beginning of the nature park (see event photo) for a walk through the polder to see how many beautiful birds call the Lutkemeerpolder home. After the bird walk there will be time to garden (you can come start your own little garden or help out in the community garden spaces!) and even get involved in building up nice things for the community garden space! You can of course just drop by for one or the other of these activities, or just to say hi and get some info about what's happening in the polder at the moment.

Find out more here.
rotterdam
Demonstration 30.5. - Close Detention Center Rotterdam: No One Is Illegal!
13:00 - 15:00

For the last decade this prison - the first correctional facility in the Netherlands built and maintained with a public private partnership - has served as a base for deportations. Dutch and European migration policies costs thousands of lives, while lining the pockets of the rich and arms dealers. This must stop now!

Find out more here.

food journey
28. May Food Journey preparation call
17:30-18:30

This session is mandatory for anyone that wants to join the Food Journey Immersion on the 4th of June, at 6:30 PM.

"It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to the Roots of Nourishment and the changes it underwent as European Imperialsim stripped the Earth of Nurture and replaced it with Colonisation, Exploitation, and Erasure."

Find out more here.
ASEED is a small grassroots collective run mostly by volunteers. We are grateful to have the ability to put time and energy into researching topics around agriculture, climate and social justice! However, in order to keep up structures that support this work, along with organizing events and direct actions we need structural funding. During the COVID crisis it is especially hard to find the kind of funding that pays for our financial administration, small budget for coordination and project fundraising, and rent on our office.
A great way to help us stay structurally funded is to become a monthly contributor! You can do that by visiting the SUPPORT US page on our website.

Want to get involved in other ways? Contact us at info@aseed.net.
facebook website twitter instagram 
MailPoet