Not for nothing is gender one of the most frequent tags here at Stuffed and Starved. The modern food system is tilted against women, in everything from land ownership to life expectancy because of poor diet to, now, access to the biofuels market. The road ahead is long. ... read more »

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Posted on 29 April, 2008 - 19:29

"Being a mother, you want to cut back on things for yourself first before you cut back for the family." It's the sort of sentiment we hear a lot of in developing countries, as mothers skip meals so that the rest of their families can eat.

But the latest credit crunch, the recession and the food price rises mean that it's happening in America, too.

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Posted on 22 April, 2008 - 04:37

International women's day commemorates, among other things, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York. Same town, six years later, women were on the barricades again. America's support in the first world war extended to selling food to Europe. This drove up prices. Women organised. Unable to use traditional democratic channels (the nineteenth amendment wasn't passed until 1920), they used street democracy. One protester, at an East Side Jewish Women's League protest put it like this: "with $14 a week we used to just make a living. With prices as they are now, we could not even live on $2 a day. We would just exist." It's a sentiment that would be all too familiar to women surviving today's price rises. ... read more »

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Posted on 9 March, 2008 - 05:17

Photo Credit: Debt Slayer

This is some interesting populist politics. The Indian government has just announced that it will be cancelling all farmer debt by the beginning of next year, at a cost of $15bn. Predictably, this spike in rural funding comes before an election year, and 70% of Indians live in rural areas. Also, the government has pledged to keep food prices under control because, well, many Indians are having a hard time affording it.

So what to think of this? ... read more »

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Posted on 29 February, 2008 - 16:29

A reader writes from the UK with the following observation about Stuffed and Starved.

There is one issue which is scarcely mentioned in the book or on this web-site, and that is human over-population. This seems to me to be the Achilles heel of the political left.

Let’s remedy the omission, because for people who care about food, population is a serious concern. ... read more »

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Posted on 26 November, 2007 - 17:59

Fatima Shabodien, from the Women on Farms Project in South Africa put out this important article in the Cape Times earlier this week. Reposted below, in case you've difficulty accessing it through the link above....

Farmworkers need dignified home in South Africa

November 19, 2007 Edition 1

Fatima Shabodien ... read more »

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Posted on 24 November, 2007 - 16:19

The informative WomensEnews network sends this fine commentary on GlaxoSmithKline's new drug, Alli. Like Olestra, a fine history of which is online at Wikipedia, this is another attempt to make millions off a drug that fuels body-image insecurity, avoids tackling the root causes and, at the end of the day, doesn't even work. Sales are assured.

What I particularly like about this article is the holistic solutions offered at the end - not just 'regulate the unscrupulous drugs industry', but also 'encourage bicycle-friendly architecture'. No surprise - the authors are involved in the excellent Boston Women's Health collective. Now read on... ... read more »

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Posted on 2 July, 2007 - 23:05

ActionAid, one of the UK's best aid organisations, has come out with a new report:

Who Pays: How British Supermarkets Are Keeping Women in Poverty".

Covering nuts, bananas and clothing, the report does a fine job of looking at the chains of exploitation that link British consumers to women workers in the third world. Really top stuff, and a great teaching resource, this.

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Posted on 26 April, 2007 - 06:02

Photo credit :: myberyL

What have TV, lipstick and a can of Coke got to do with each other? Here's a clue from Anne Becker, researcher at the Harvard Department of Social Medicine, whose most recent work on this appears in Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry. ... read more »

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Posted on 28 March, 2007 - 19:41

The Bangkok Post carries two fine articles on Nyéléni : the 2007 World Summit on Food Sovereignty by Supara Janchitfah. Here's Planting Seeds for Mother Earth and below you'll find Unconventional Gathering.

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Planting Seeds for Mother Earth

Women delegates from all continents at the World Forum on Food Sovereignty renewed their commitment to self reliance in food and social justice, writes SUPARA JANCHITFAH

This open-air auditorium served as the venue for delegates from 98 countries to exchange their ideas and formulate their action plans to fight for food sovereignty.
Lamduan Serathong participated in one of the small forums of people from Southeast and East Asia to analyse the problems that farmers are encountering and what they can do about them.

Lamduan Serathong collected some of the African seeds that were left on the stage in front of the auditorium tent after the opening ceremony of the World Forum on Food Sovereignty. The Malian host had offered the seeds and some root crops as an offering to Mother Earth during the ceremony.

"I want to add more varieties of seeds in Thailand's soil. I will plant some on my small plot of land, and if they grow well, I will distribute them to my neighbours and our networks," said Lamduan, a mother of two and a former fisherwoman on the Moon River.

Lamduan had an offering of her own; she had carried with her some sweet tamarin seeds from Thailand and gave them to some of the conference participants and local Malians. She also planted some of the seeds at the training centre where the forum took place.

She showed delegates from other countries how to plant, water and nurture the seeds with organic fertilisers, using a mixture of her native Isan dialect and body language, which was probably more effective than any interpreter.

"I think they understand what I want to say, because most of us are farmers. To us farmers, seeds are very crucial for our lives - not something we have to sterilise and sell, " she added with broad smile.

She was referring to the practices of transnational companies which try to patent seed types and sell sterilised versions so that farmers have to rely on the companies to sell them more seeds for the next year's crop.

Lamduan and other farmers present at the forum were well-acquainted with the poignant experiences of farmers around the world who have little control, or sovereignty, over their own agricultural agendas.

More than 10,000 Indian cotton farmers have committed suicide in a recent years because they could not pay their debts after selling their cotton. Many factors led to this circumstance. The Indian government is under pressure to honour its committments under World Trade Organisation agreements and also international lenders to get rid of official subsidies. For the same reasons, it announced in 2005 that it was no longer committed to procuring cotton from local farmers.

Locals in Mali have their own way of cooking food.

"I feel sad that our seeds are now in the hands of corporations that prevent seed saving. In the past, seeds were a free resource, available just from the practice of farming. Why do we have to buy them? They are forcing us to open up our markets," she said, adding that seed monopolies rob farmers of life.

Another indigenous woman at the forum, Atysheykarin Indigena Arhuaca from Colombia, told another seed-saving story of black slave women in South America.

Dating back around 1600 to 1700, the slaves who worked in the fields were not allowed to save seeds, but many women hid them in the braids of their hair. Some of these women were able to escape and return back to Africa, Atysheykarin explained, and they planted the seeds from South America in their ancestral lands on their home continent.

"To me, seeds mean not only food, but the freedom to grow food," said Atysheykarin.

The story of Nyeleni

At the conference, women from around the world also learned of some of the problems that many African women face. For example, many indigenous women do not have the right to own property, although they are often the ones who must take care of it.

Despite abuse and discrimination toward women and poor people in general, the women who gathered at Mali know that there is no battle they cannot win if they are only willing to fight it.

The story of Nyeleni was told on the first day of the forum, February 22. Nyeleni was an only child, which in her part of Africa was considered a curse. She suffered in her youth from all the mocking she and her parents were subjected to by the men of the village. She secretly resolved to remove this slur that men had cast on her by defeating them on their own ground - farming and working the land.

Nyeleni's first priority was not marriage, as is common for most young women, but to bring honour to her family and to women, all women. She took part in farming competitions and defeated all the champions in her village and in the surrounding region. Her reputation grew. The more arrogant men would still challenge her, but day after day they were all defeated, to their disgrace.

Nyeleni's fame grew beyond the limits of her region, and she earned the respect of people from all walks of life. Her life story became a legend, and according to that legend, she domesticated the fonio, or "angry rice", cereal that many people eat today.

The story of Nyeleni reinforced the spirits of the female delegates who have been fighting against patriarchy - a system that impoverishes life, resources and eco-systems - in their own homelands. They are also fighting against imperialism, neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism and the agents that promote such systems.

Lamduan and the other women at the forum are growing the seeds to foster the care of Mother Earth,. With their earnest commitment to work for their own food producing systems and policies that provide everyone with an adequate amount of healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food, these women hope to regenerate all the friendly ecosystems of the planet.

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Unconventional Gathering ... read more »

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Posted on 20 March, 2007 - 13:50