Cultures of Resistance

Through our Make Food Not War program, Cultures of Resistance (CoR) highlights efforts to provide food aid to communities in need and seeks out cutting-edge advocates who are defending community-based farming and challenging policies that promote industrial agriculture rather than sustainable community-based farming. For the last three decades, the Oakland-based Food First, also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy, has been on the forefront of the fight for food justice. Through research, analysis, advocacy, and the production of educational materials, Food First simultaneously shapes agriculture policy debates and assists social movements working for food sovereignty. CoR promotes their efforts to help African social movements assert their alternatives to the failed policies of recent decades.

In 2009, Food First published the book Food Rebellions: Crisis and the Hunger for Justice, which traces the roots of and solutions to recent global food crises. Now, in the sequel Food Movements Unite!, Food First lays out a road map for bringing the transformative potential of the world’s food movements together into a force capable of ending the injustices that cause hunger and exacerbate poverty. Watch this short video that previews the book's release.

One of Food First's campaigns that we are particularly proud to bring attention to is the “We are the Solution” campaign. As part of this campaign, groups from Mali, Senegal, and across West Africa will gather at the World Social Forum in Dakar to develop locally-based solutions to the food crisis. The program launch will offer an opportunity for similarly concerned groups to share experiences from local efforts to promote food sovereignty and build a powerful, unified movement. Another facet of “We are the Solution,” carried out by the Women’s Biodiversity Network, seeks to bring the perspectives of the usually excluded voices of local women farmers into international debate.

For more information, subscribe to Food First's biweekly French- and English-language newsletter about agricultural policy in Africa.

The Global Food Crisis of 2011

Food security and the freedom to decide what we grow and eat are an important part of Cultures of Resistance mission. As a result of the brand of globalization we have witnessed over the past several decades, local communities today have less autonomy in choosing what they cultivate and to whom they sell; dwindling crop reserves mean we are less prepared for droughts and other harmful weather events; and devastating soil erosion and oil dependence ensure that food imbalances will worsen if we maintain a food system based on the prerogative of powerful multinational corporations.

Best-selling author Raj Patel, former staff analyst and current fellow at Food First, was interviewed on WNYC radio and discussed the shape of the global crisis around food security that we are now facing. In the interview, Patel explains how rampant food insecurity has struck again, why we are so unprepared to cope with extreme weather events, and what governments must do to prevent these emergencies from regularly occurring.

According to Patel, one in seven human beings now lives in extreme poverty and nearly one billion are undernourished. The combination of the global recession, increasing speculation in food markets, and a misguided demand for biofuels, among other factors, means we cannot uphold the status quo in our agricultural policies. As Patel asks, "Why, when we know the real causes behind the food crisis, does the U.S. continue to support market liberalization . . . rather than the sustainable agriculture that farmers have been demanding?"

Click here to learn more about Food First's work or take a look at their selection of books. Click here to find out about other amazing organizations making food, not war.