Agriculture and Climate justice

January 31 2008, Brussels – Today, campaigners staged an anti-agrofuel protest in front of the Diamant conference centre in Brussels. Here, the 'European Biofuels Technology Platform' (EBFTP) presented their advise for the EU's research budget and policy on agrofuels to 'stakeholders'. The EBFTP absurdly promotes a target of 25% blending of agrofuels for all transport needs by 2030, in a time where the currently proposed 10% is already highly contested. (with online video report)… verder lezen

High Alert in Paraguay!

The MAP (Agrarian and Popular Movement), a Paraguayan peasant organization, is in a state of alert and requires international solidarity. A camp of landless youths from Pariri is being threatened with eviction, and there is an attempt to frame and criminalize the organization’s national leader, Jorge Galeano. The situation is a clear example of the corruption and violence that accompanies the Paraguay’s model of soybean production, a model which tends to criminalize social organizations as they defend peasant and indigenous communities.… verder lezen

In the morning of March 13 2008 the activist group ‘Agrofools’ blocked the entrance of the World Biofuels Market in Brussels. Visitors to the World Biofuels Market were met by activists, a group of international drummers, banners, and flyers entitled “Agrofuels – No Solution for Oil Addiction”. The human blockade is a protest against the blatant promotion of agrofuels by the World Biofuels Market and the corporations taking part in it. “Massive expansion, reaching into many millions of hectares, of monoculture plantations will cause further damage to biodiversity, human rights and livelihoods”, says activist Remy de Boer. “Agrofuels will exacerbate climate change and will certainly not help to combat it. It is immoral to keep promoting the use of agrofuels like the World Biofuels Market does”, he added.
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“The ugly truth behind the agro-industry, what you eat and what it does to Europe and South America.” During the G8 summit in june 2007 in Germany some actions took place against the meat industry in Mecklenburg, the region where the G8 took place. Here many unscrupulous pigfarmers from the Netherlands, Belgium and North-West Germany profit from the cheap land and weak environmental legislation and build stables for up to 15-thousand pigs. … verder lezen

Thursday April 17th, the international day of farmers struggles, the group Agrocrisis blocked a Cargill company firm in the harbour of Ghent, Belgium. Some 30 activists began the action at around 6h30 in the morning and lasted until after 5 p.m. During all that time, not one truck with soy could enter or leave the firm. Some activists had locked themselves with pipes and bicycle chains at the gate, so it was impossible to open the entrance without brute force. The staff of the firm, scared of bad publicity, chose therefore to let the activists occupy the gate and didn't ask the police to intervene.… verder lezen

This article is published in German in the reader 'Widerstand is Fruchtbar' by the Aktionsbündniss Globale Landwirtschaft zum G8 Gipfel 2007. The text is based on the BUND study “Fleischfabriken boomen – Umweltstandards sinken. Der Boom der Massentierhaltung in Deutschland und seine Folgen fuer die Umwelt”

The production of pork in the EU is increasing rapidly. But while 21,3 million tons are being produced, only 19,7 million tons are being consumed. This translates into an overproduction of almost 10 percent. In order to export this, there are about 200 million Euros in export subsidies for pork in the EU budget. This expresses and proves the power of the Agro-lobby in Brussels and Berlin.
The globalised pig is the main victim of the Agro lobby's attempts to dominate the world market.… verder lezen

With stock-breeding there are animals and feed that those animals are supposed to eat so humans will be able to consume the meat, milk or the egg. This is in general a not very efficient way of producing food, but this is how it has been done for many millenniums. The scale of this process is increasing ever more and on the A SEED website you can find a lot of information about the problems that result from this.

But the developments continue: now there is the Monsanto pig™ that is eating Monsanto feed™. And also The Netherlands is participating with enthusiasm; Hendrix Genetics is one of the world leading companies when it comes to hybrid chicken, pigs and turkeys.
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During the whole month of May a small team of A SEED, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and the Movimiento Agrario y Popular (MAP) will cross through various European countries. Info-evenings, meetings, action and filmfestivals will be held in which there will be a focus on large scale soy cultivation, genetechnology, agrofuels and resistance. Central in this tour is Gilda Roa, representative of the Paraguayan peasant organisation MAP.… verder lezen

On
June 26 2005, Brazilian growers of genetically modified soy, protected
by the police and military, attacked Tekojoja peasant community in Caaguazu, Paraguay. They evicted 270 people and burnt down
the crops and all 54 houses. 2 men, Ángel Cristaldo and
Luis Torres were killed, many were injured and 130 people, many
of them women and children, were arrested.… verder lezen

Until the March 2009, the village of La Gloria in the cactus-filled hills of Mexico’s Sierra Madre was like any other neglected community in the country. However, since April 27 – when Mexico’s health minister told the world that the community of 3,000 was home to the earliest known case of the Mexican flu – events have taken a startling turn.… verder lezen