Dearest friend, comrade and supporter,
Winter is here, the sky is grey and the air crisp. Leaves have turned yellow and fallen to the ground.
The new year is approaching and for us at ASEED this means:
🌱A new year to fight industrial agriculture.
🌱A new year to support agroecological farmers in their fight against agribusinesses.
🌱A new year to be active in the conversations around gas, agriculture and climate justice.
We continue with our Fossil Free Agriculture campaign, dismantling colonial, patriarchal, destructive food systems that destroy life!
Enemy nr. 1 remains, of course, YARA, Europe’s biggest nitrogen fertilizer company that is greenwashing their dirty practices more than ever.
Enjoy reading our newsletter, and we hope to see you soon at one of our upcoming events!
Love & Rage,
the ASEED team
ASEED is a grassroots and volunteer-based organisation.
Would you like to become involved as well?
Then feel very welcome to join one of our upcoming events & meetings!
If you would like to know more or join us in the movement to protect our veggies and our planet, check out our website, or just contact us at info@aseed.net!
Join our campaign!
🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱 LOOKING BACK 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌱
💥 What happened at COP27? 💥
Big Polluters and large-scale agribusinesses team up with governments to reinforce their business-as-usual approach to the climate crisis!
Continue reading to learn more about the most important takeaways from this year’s greenwashing summit!
1. A new Loss and Damage Fund has been created to motivate affluent nations in the Global North to compensate climate-vulnerable states for weather-related disasters. BUT the details of the agreement are unfinished, and it was (of course) strongly resisted by the EU and US in the first place. This deal is a symbolic act for public goodwill instead of the real climate responsibility and solidarity that the world urgently needs.
2. For the first time(!!!), the UNFCCC has included agriculture in the final text in a deal called the Koronivia Package. That food production is finally considered relevant in addressing climate and social justice is a crucial improvement. But the solutions presented to large-scale systemic issues were centred around the topics of technological optimisation and innovation within the existing destructive industrial framework, rather than allowing space to be critical to the underlying capitalist, oppressive structures of domination. And, as expected, small-scale farmers were vastly underrepresented compared to big agribusinesses.
3. Europe’s largest producer of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, YARA, was given a platform to greenwash their destructive, business-as-usual practices. YARA is currently focusing their narrative on a co-optation of regenerative agriculture, where synthetic fertilizers, etc., are argued to be an irrefutable necessity through precision farming. The fight for true regenerative agriculture is lead by “Black indigenous, peasant and Majority World farmers and food workers” and ASEED denounces the appropriation of this term into capitalist, oppressive agendas.
4. Fossil gas was heavily marketed as a transitional fuel at COP27, and the conference was rife with new gas deals. “Natural” gas is a fossil fuel that creates greenhouse gas emissions on a scale that is irreconcilable with a liveable future, and it should be phased out completely and immediately. Cementing gas dependence in industrial agriculture is a catastrophic trajectory away from sustainable and socially just food systems and must be denounced loudly and widely.
5. Once again, there have been no binding commitments to improve the half-hearted and failing attempts of the worst polluting countries at changing the current, unacceptable, and disastrous path towards a global 2.8-degree warming. This can be explained by the disproportionality between representatives from big polluters and the Global South: “The influence of fossil fuel lobbyists is greater than frontline countries and communities. Delegations from African countries and indigenous communities are dwarfed by representatives of corporate interests directly at odds with the level of systemic change needed to slow the climate crisis.” – Kick Big Polluters Out
This year, we have lost the only real element of progress that the COP provides – everything that usually happens outside the actual COP. There were few to no grassroots movements and civil resistance present at Sharm el-Sheik to call out the greenwashing, corruption, and oppression. “This summit is going well beyond greenwashing a polluting state; it’s greenwashing a police state.”- Naomi Klein
Stay tuned on our website & social media for a more in-depth look at what happened at this year’s COP, and, most importantly, what you can do about it!!!
An intercultural team from Abya Yala, West Africa, Western Europe and Asia, have been working together to promote Indigenous Cacao and denounce harmful practices around Cacao plantations in West Africa. The port of Amsterdam, the largest importer and processor of Cacao beans in the world, has an important role in the narrative around Cacao.
With the original and migration stories of cacao as the facilitator and connector, they presented 3 storytelling performances with ancestral recipes of cacao, and a final Fiesta to the residents of Amsterdam, in order to heal the wound perpetuated by centuries of exploitation, by honouring the traditional plants and food, remembering the wisdom of our ancestors, and celebrating LIFE together.
All the sessions that were organized by our comrades were done with Cacao directly sourced from Indigenous Peoples reclaiming their autonomy from the Sierra Nevada in Colombia, and from Zapatista land in Mexico.
The funds raised from solidarity meals directly support indigenous communities to buy back and liberate ancestral land within their territory on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia.
Click here to learn more about these communities & how to support them!
🌱🌱🌱🌱 UPCOMING EVENTS 🌱🌱🌱🌱
02/12/22, 20:30-00:00
[@De Onderbroek, Nijmegen]
🌱 Reclaim the Seeds: Fundraising Party 🌱
This Friday December 2nd, our comrades at Nijmegen organise a Fundraising Party for the 2023 edition of Reclaim the Seeds with a banger line up at De Onderbroek!
To keep Reclaim the Seeds independent and to give it a head start for next year’s seed swap in Nijmegen with workshops, discussions, art, music and more, feel free to join the benefit party!
[Click here for more info!]
Learn more about ‘Reclaim the Seeds’ here!
07/12/22, 19:00-22:00
[Plantage Doklaan 8-12, 1018CM Amsterdam]
✊ Culture of Resistance Film Screening ✊
Burkinabe Bounty – Agroecology in Burkina Faso
Come join ASEED for a documentary screening on Wednesday December 7th to learn more about the agroecological resistance and fight for food sovereignty in Burkina Faso. Together we will watch “Burkinabè Bounty: Agroecology in Burkina Faso” by Culture of Resistance Films, a collective creating and distributing films on social and economic justice. The film looks at how the Burkinabè people are reclaiming their land and defending traditions against corporate agribusiness. The event is in collaboration with Taste Before You Waste, so you can enjoy a donation based rescued meal while you become inspired by the creative tactics to take back control of food, seeds, and futures.
Find out more about the Cultures of Resistance Network here!
08-09/12/22, Flanders (Belgium)
🌱 Invitation to join Boerengroup to a trip visiting Agroecological farms 🌱
Our comrades from Toekomstboeren are organizing a trip to Flanders on the 8th of December. The goal is to visit agroecological farms and to talk about seeds, seed sovereignty, and autonomy of agroecological farms. The first farm that will be visited cultivates and sells their own seeds and they’re involved in a farmers’ seed network. At the second agroecological farm, there will be discussions around autonomy of agroecological farms together with a neighbouring farm. Afterwards, there will be a collective Potluck!
The event will be in Dutch, however whisper translation can be arranged.
Click here to find out more and sign up!
10/12/22, 10:30-17:30
[Gorsselse Enkweg 6]
🍃Places of Hope & Resistance: Pilot#2 with Kapitaloceen🍃
Welcome to Places of Hope & Resistance from Toekomstboeren (agroecological farmers’ organization), Boerengroep (a foundation connecting research and agroecological initiatives worldwide) and ASEED. We would like to invite you to our second pilot!
This initiative aims to bring agroecological farmers, activists and a broader interested public closer together. It is sometimes difficult for agroecological farmers to leave their farms and find time for activism outside of work, and activists (as well as many others) are very likely to overwork themselves. Both could use a place and some company to regenerate. Places of Hope & Resistance would like to create this place, with the goal of all going home stronger. However, since this is only the second meeting, there will be an open conversation to get your input on exactly what you need or want from this project.
For this event, we are invited to join David & Dido of Kapitaloceen and CSA “De Tuinen van de Egel” in Gorssel (near Zutphen) on Saturday, December 10. They have a few larger tasks for which they could use some extra hands, and would also like to show you what is being done there to ensure that this piece of land protects and regenerates the climate and biodiversity.
Learn more about the event here!
16/12/22, 19:00-01:00
[Vossiustraat 16, 1071 AC, Amsterdam]
💥 Feel the BEET with ASEED! 💥
ASEED is hosting a solidarity party to properly wrap up 2022!
Come help us with our finances while dancing the night away, meeting nice humans, enjoying agriculturally themed drinks and funky tunes. Have the chance to win amazing prizes for your knowledge on food systems, and get all your aggressions against greenwashing agribusiness out of your system.
Come find us at the new squat at Vossiusstraat 16 on Friday December 16th to celebrate the end of this amazing year together!
Stay tuned for more details to come!
Learn more about the new squat here!
21/12/2011 – 08/01/2023
❄️ ASEED Winter Break ❄️
All activists need to take a break to rest, regenerate and spend more time with their loved ones (even if most of us pretend that we don’t most of the time), in order to come up with more radical ideas on how to smash the system and build amazing alternatives.
The ASEED team will be out of office and spread a bit around the world, so this means that we will only be answering very urgent emails!
If you want to help out at our events, send us an email at info@aseed.net!!!
🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱 🌱
Unfortunately, revolution is not for free…
Last year, YOUR support helped us to continue our fight, and we want to thank you all for that! With a fresh team, ambitious plans and lots of energy we go into this new year, having a clear focus on the connection between gas and industrial agriculture.
But in order to do so, we need YOU.
As a small, non-profit grassroots group it is always a struggle to cover our core costs. Much of our work is voluntary work, which is why we depend on individual donors supporting us!
If you can, please make a donation now and spread the word among your friends and contacts. When donating to ASEED, you can be sure your money will be spent well: it will go directly to actions, materials, office equipment and to team members for their hard work.
🌱 How? 🌱
1.Make a donation now.
Small or big, every euro counts. You can use iDeal or SEPA with this link. To make a donation by credit card, you can also use the Patagonia Action Works page, where you can pick the currency of your choice.
Another option is to do a manual bank transfer to the following account: IBAN: NL47 TRIO 0254 7289 52
BIC/SWIFT: TRIONL2U
Name: Stichting A SEED Europe
Bank: Triodos
To arrange a donation in cash, please contact us at donor@aseed.net.
On our website, you can also pick the option to become a monthly donor.
2. Forward this email to 5 (or more!) friends, family members or contacts with a personal message. You can help us tremendously by spreading this call for donations.
3. If you celebrate Christmas, tell your close ones to make a donation to ASEED instead of buying presents.
4. Spread the word on social media, if you use them.
Find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.]
Thank you for your ongoing support!
The ASEED crew
