Living Democracy, Feeding Hope

Free speech… if you can afford the megaphone! (Image: Mike Keefe InToon.com ) Originally published on Common Dreams, March 1, 2019 Americans may disagree about many things, but most of us come together in loathing the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United . We know it helped degrade our democracy as it opened the floodgates to independent, corporate campaign spending and enabled additional rulings that have led to Super PACs, along with ever-more “dark money.” Three-fourths of us want Citizens United overturned. I’m certainly one, and I’d long assumed I knew everything I needed to know about this unfortunate ruling. But I was in for a big surprise. Buried in the 1976 Supreme Court decision that first equated political spending and speech, unleashing “big money” in politics—and cited one hundred times in Citizens United—is an argument against the Court’s own findings, and one that crystalizes a key purpose of the First Amendment. That opinion is Buckley v. Valeo. In it, the Court makes clear, citing two earlier rulings, that the First Amendment’s intent is not just to protect individuals against government control of speech. It is also to serve a vital public function: “to assure [the] unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people”; and “to secure ‘the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources.’” Yet, the Roberts Court has continued to betray this public function, as legal scholar Tim Kuhner makes clear in “ The Market Metaphor, Radicalized .” Reclaiming it begins with grasping the consequences of the Court’s move to interpret free speech narrowly as an individual or group right to spend unlimited sums blasting viewpoints across the political airwaves. One result is that little bandwidth remains for those without big bucks—thus, denying the First Amendment right, defined in Buckley, to free exchange of ideas using information from diverse and opposing sources in order to achieve the policies we citizens want. In stressing “interchange” and “diverse” sources, here the Court captures what I conceive as the essential “conversation of democracy.” In it, as in all conversation, participants must not only be able to speak but also to be heard. Sadly, however, in both Buckley and Citizens United the Court’s decisions belie its own articulation of these precepts. The Court argues in Buckley that capping individual or group political spending “necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” But, think for a moment, isn’t the opposite true? Take the “number of issues discussed.” In 2016, one-half of 1 percent of donors contributed two-thirds of funding in federal elections. With most campaign messaging financed by such a tiny minority, the “number of issues discussed” is likely to be more “restricted,” not less, narrowed to matters this elite can leverage for political outcomes in its interest. And as to the “depth” of issues’ “exploration”? In 2016, with money flooding the electoral process, campaigns spent almost $9.8 billion on advertising alone, shrinking complex issues to emotional sound bites. Shallowness, not “depth,” is the result—especially in a campaign’s final days when ads can become misleading or worse . And the size of the “audience reached”? Surely $9.8 billion can buy large audiences, but the term “audience” connotes one-way communication, not “interchange.” Thus, we Americans end up with the right to speak but zero right to be heard. I feel as if I’m invited to an auditorium for a political dialogue, but only a few of those assembled can afford pricey, electronic megaphones. Quickly I get it. Yes, I can speak, but only the handful with megaphones can be heard. Feeling useless and belittled, I head home. Clearly, without both the right to speak and to be heard we cannot attain the “changes desired by the people,” a goal of the First Amendment embedded in Buckley. Yet, despite this huge, Court-imposed, boulder in the path of democracy, millions of citizens are uniting their voices to make themselves heard. Pursuing democracy-strengthening reforms—including victories in the 2018 midterms —they are building a political framework for robust “interchange” to realize “political and social changes desired by the people.” In leading the charge on such reforms as fair voting districts and elections funded by the public and small-donors, citizens are fostering the essential conversation of democracy—one not drowned out by megaphones of great wealth. Ironically, these engaged citizens are being faithful to our First Amendment rights as once spelled out in the Court’s own logic.

Publisher Betty Ballantine--she believed in the power of ideas, and was willing to take risks to bring new ones to light. (Credit: Richard Ballantine/Kathy Ballantine 1980, via Associated Press) Originally published on Common Dreams, February 2, 2019 It’s 1970. In my VW bug, I pull up in front of the Durant Hotel on the edge of the UC Berkeley campus and sit. I’m waiting for Betty Ballantine, and all I know is that she’s a big-time New York publisher. So, of course, I imagine her appearing in sleek suit, high heels, and full-on makeup. But soon, approaching my car with a smile is a slightly graying gal in sneakers and flowered cotton pants. Her warmth immediately puts me at ease. Little did I know that this person, who passed away February 12th, would set the course of my life. Her obituary appeared today in the New York Times. Betty had asked if she could meet with me on her way to Stanford to talk with Paul Ehrlich about his recent book The Population Bomb. Wow, I’d thought. He was already famous, and me? I’d had never published even so much as a letter to the editor, and, truth be told, I’d gotten a D on my first college English paper. But curiosity had gotten the best of me, and soon, leaving behind my doubts, I knew I had to answer a huge question: Why are so many people going hungry in our world? I dug in at the university agriculture library and drafted a little booklet to share with friends in the Bay Area. I was excited that my search had unearthed some great news: Hunger is not inevitable. There’s more than enough food for all. I called the booklet Diet for a Small Planet. Earlier, I’d been approached by a local “politically correct” alternative publishing group who’d tried to scare me, telling me that Ballantine was mafia connected and would shred any book remainders and dump them into the Bay. That morning, we drove to my home in Pt. Richmond, where I prepared a simple vegetarian lunch for us. All I remember is her sincere interest in my research, and her final words at the door: “Frankie, whoever publishes your work, I’ll buy it.” Note that Betty and her husband Ian Ballantine are considered among the founders of paperback publishing in America, making books vastly more accessible. After their marriage in 1939, the two were sent to New York by Penguin in the UK to create its US arm. Six years later they helped create Bantam Books. Then, in 1952 the couple formed Ballantine Books, known for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and so much more. Betty was pure heart, no hard sell. After meeting Betty, the warnings of the other publishing house seemed highly implausible, even ridiculous. So, my choice had been easy, and soon I was under contract with Ballantine for a 1971 release. It was Betty’s brilliant idea to add recipes illustrative of my lessons about the personal and planet-advantages of a plant-centered diet. And soon I was at work with gram scales in my kitchen weighing ingredients for the best balance of protein sources and then enlisting friends to test my results. Jump forward to a few years ago, and I’m on way from Boston to visit Betty at her long-time residence in Bearsville, New York. I’d not seen her in decades, but we’d stayed in touch as the book continued to sell, ultimately millions in multiple languages and three editions. I’d decided it was high time for a formal expression of gratitude, so I brought along a bouquet and carefully pondered my words of thanks. After hours of talk and laughter, finally I had the nerve to ask, “Betty, why did you take a chance on me? I’ve never published a thing.” Without a moment’s hesitation and grinning big, Betty said: “Frankie, it was the ideas! I figure if you couldn’t write it, I could do that.” And, I believed her. Such confidence in me (and herself!) had opened the way for a lifetime of work: I recently published my nineteenth book. (To heck with that “D”!) Clearly, Betty Ballantine was a publisher for one reason: She believed ideas could change the world for the better. Over the years, to make this point about her, I’d mention that the Ballantines in 1970 had published Defoliation, describing US actions creating long-lasting harm in Vietnam. Never meant to be a big seller, I’m sure. So, let’s take a moment to celebrate Betty Ballantine and all who believe in the power of ideas, and are willing to take risks to bring new ones to light. Thank you.

On February 6, 2019 some 200 students, faculty, activists, and community members crowded into Tishman Auditorium at The New School in New York City to hear Vandana Shiva , Mark Bittman , and author Timothy A. Wise discuss the battle for the future of food. Wise, director of the Land and Food Rights Program at Small Planet Institute, was in New York for the release of his new book, Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food . In Eating Tomorrow , Wise explores humanity’s continuous challenge to ensure that everyone can eat today, as well as the complications posed by climate change, which only make more daunting the challenge of eating tomorrow. The book, which has won early rave reviews, was released by The New Press the previous day. “The way we are producing our food, on chemical-intensive, industrial-scale farms, is quite literally devouring the natural resources – soil, water, seeds, climate – on which future food production depends,” explained Wise as he faced the audience in New York. “I wrote this book because, with 30 years in this field, I wanted to understand why policymakers were ignoring the low-cost solutions all around them, demonstrated by their own small-scale farmers.” This book launch event, co-sponsored by the Food Studies Program at The New School , The New Press, and the Small Planet Institute, featured a public talk, reading, and on-stage conversation, followed by a book signing. Joining Wise on stage were Indian activist and author Vandana Shiva and food writer Mark Bittman. Shiva is a Delhi-based scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, and author of more than twenty books, including Who Really Feeds the World? Bittman is a former columnist for the New York Times, as well as the author of 20 acclaimed books, including the How to Cook Everything series. After an introduction by Bea Banu of New School’s Food Studies Program, Bittman opened the conversation, introducing Wise by pointing out the senselessness of a food system in which big industrial farms consume a vast majority of land and water resources to produce a minority of the food in the world. Wise took it from there, pointing out that “we” in the industrialized countries, don’t feed the world. “Some 70% of the food consumed in developing countries, where hunger levels are high, is grown by farmers in those countries, most of it on small farms.” “If we want to ensure that everyone enjoys the right to food, that everyone can eat tomorrow, we need to place family farmers at the center, helping them feed their families, their communities, and their countries while they nourish the planet,” explained Wise. Elaborating on the influence of agribusiness, Wise regaled the crowd with stories from Eating Tomorrow: land-grabbing by foreign investors in Mozambique; unproductive government subsidies for commercial seeds and chemical fertilizers in Malawi; the danger of cross-pollination between Monsanto’s genetically-modified corn seeds and native corn varieties in Mexico; and the monoculture-rich, factory farm-dotted landscape of Iowa. Everywhere he went, Wise said, governments ignored the low-cost, soil-replenishing innovations of their family farmers in favor of policies that enriched large-scale agribusiness corporations. “In the battle for the future of food, these firms are the main obstacles to change. Recapturing our democracies from corporate influence will be crucial to winning that battle.” Despite this bleak picture of global agribusiness, Wise said, “I conclude my book with optimism and my optimism is genuine. Because, despite the enormity of these challenges, farmers and their allies are showing us the way forward. I saw it all over the world.” Vandana Shiva led the on-stage conversation that followed, drawing on her long history fighting GMOs and corporate agriculture in India and promoting sustainable alternatives. She reminded that crowd that the Indian state of Sikkim is the first in the world to declare itself 100% organic. Following the event, audience members filed towards Wise, Shiva, and Bittman, eager to get their books signed. If the audience response provides any indication, this event suggests strong public interest in the analysis and solutions in Eating Tomorrow . After all, as Wise concludes his book, in the battle for the future of food: "All are striving for the same thing: the right of everyone to eat safe and healthy food today while ensuring that we steward our natural wealth so we can all eat tomorrow.” *To order Eating Tomorrow, visit https://www.smallplanet.org/eating-tomorrow *To stay up-to-date with Eating Tomorrow and related speaking events, follow @TimothyAWise on Instagram and Twitter * Sign up here for updates on upcoming events for Wise’s Eating Tomorrow .

Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) honored by NYC Dominican Parade Association and CHCA workers march in the parade (8/14/16) In our capitalist economy, business enterprise is controlled by capitalists, of course, and structured to bring highest return to shareholders. We’re all supposed to love this set-up because competition among companies gives us ever cooler products and always better deals. Right? But, wait a minute…where the competition? Over just the last 15 years, mergers have proliferated so quickly that in twelve major industries just two companies now control more than half the market . Economists warn us this level of concentration kills competition — not to mention bringing with it an erosion of wages, as monopoly weakens competition for workers too. Since monopoly power compromises capitalism’s supposed virtues, it’s time we ask: Are there better ways to structure business? Clearly, business driven by highest return to existing wealth leads inevitably to concentration and, consequently, to ever-worsening inequality. In America today, three people control as much wealth as the bottom half of us, says Forbes . So, are we stuck in this deadly spiral toward ever greater concentration of economic power? No, we can do better. We know we can because some of us . Americans in all walks of life are creating companies with business models driven by social purpose, not just their own pocketbook priorities. Sixty-four thousand companies in the U.S., for example, are structured as “cooperatives” set up to benefit workers, members, consumers, and the broader society. In early 1993, for example, I interviewed one such “cooperator,” Florinda DeLeon, who just a few years earlier had been a single parent raising three children in the Bronx on welfare benefits. Then, her life changed radically: DeLeon became one of 170 co-owners of a then-new cooperative called Community Home Care Associates (CHCA). Soon thereafter she enjoyed decent pay, health benefits, and paid vacation. “Being a worker-owner means we decide what’s best for us,” she told me. I’ve never forgotten DeLeon’s story, and certainly have hoped all these years that her coop had survived. Then, last week in Wisconsin I was treated to a huge surprise. At a gathering focused on the value of cooperatives, I met CHCA’s current director, Adria Powell. I learned that her home care coop now has over 2,000 workers, making it the largest worker-owned cooperative in the country. I was amazed. Other CHCA brag points? Not only do CHCA’s workers earn superior wages (roughly twice the market rate) compared to employees of private home-care agencies, but they hold on to their jobs longer, as turnover is only 15 percent, compared to the industry average of 40 percent . Clearly, home health care is a tough job, especially without adequate pay and benefits. At the same gathering in rural Wisconsin, I was reminded a second time of my failure to foresee the breakthrough success of another non-capitalist enterprise: Organic Valley dairy cooperative, the organizer for the event. In the 1980s, many Midwest farms were going under and there had been a rash of farmer-suicides . In 1988, near where we were meeting last week, I’d huddled with a handful of farmers who wanted to help themselves and their struggling neighbors. The goal? A dairy cooperative that could help extend organic farming practices while helping buffer farm families from the ravages of the farm economy. I thought, “Oh, how sweet…these guys care enough to help their neighbors in trouble.” A bit condescending? Yeah, I’ll admit it. Now, three decades later, I feel downright silly. I failed to imagine what this cooperative would become. The courage, compassion, and vision of these determined dairy farmers would build a billion-dollar business, today benefiting more than 2,000 family farms in thirty-five U.S. states, and beyond . Many people reading this might think that cooperatives are positive but almost irrelevant in light of the power of the dominant capitalist model. To those people, I urge you: Don’t fall into the trap I did. Worldwide, one in ten employed people works in coops; and one billion in ninety-six countries are members of coops--no doubt a number greater worldwide than those who own shares in publicly traded companies. Or consider that the total sales of co-operatives worldwide comes to about $3 trillion, a sum that is equal to the total equity ownership of the five global tech giants : Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. In one of Italy’s most prosperous regions, Emilia Romagna, roughly 30 percent of the economy is generated by cooperatives. With almost 4.4 million people, this region enjoys one of the highest per capita GDPs in Italy. Co-ops are hardly niche. Beyond cooperatives, US entrepreneurs are creating additional forms of values-driven enterprise. For instance, roughly 5,400 companies are now incorporated under a new legal structure, the “Benefit Corporation,” Outdoor clothing giant Patagonia is an example. While Americans throw out 81 pounds of clothing each year--almost all of which could be reused--Patagonia commits to repairing and taking back any item it sells. Of course, I’m not suggesting that these emerging businesses will end the devastation of brutal capitalism, now leaving 1 in 5 Americans with no net worth to fall back on . We must reclaim the lost tradition of “trust busting” and enforce other anti-monopoly rules, remove obstacles to union organizing, seriously address tax-law injustices and much, much more. What I suggesting is that we celebrate that the profit-driven-only capitalist enterprise is not the only game in town. And, in our economic lives, we can actively support those enterprises accountable not to wealthy shareholders, but to their workers, the environment, and the community. As citizens we can step up to ensure changes in the rules that govern our economy, enabling the possibility of an economic democracy.

French protesters wear yellow vests as they march in Paris against rising oil prices and living costs near the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees. (Image: Olivier Coret/News Pictures/REX/Shutterstock 11/24/18) Originally published on Common Dreams, January 4, 2019 Most coverage of the Yellow Vest movement in France—lasting seven weeks and drawing hundreds of thousands onto the streets—misses a key question, and one at the heart of our own nation’s journey. We’re told the diesel tax hike was the “last straw” for the rural, working poor unable to make ends meet, while the underlying cause of the uprising is resentment at the worsening inequality. But wait. If the stress of making ends meet and economic inequality were the distinguishing causal forces, shouldn’t Americans have been the first to hit the streets? In France the top fifth of all earners receive almost five times more than the bottom fifth. Sounds extreme. But here that gap is eight-fold. Such contrasts in economic inequality carry with them real differences in the depth of human suffering. Consider that American babies die at a rate 80 percent higher than French babies; and disparities in death rates between babies in poor and wealthy neighborhoods is more significant in Manhattan than in Paris. Moreover, our lives are on average three years shorter than those of the French. In education, American college grads are burdened with student-loan debt averaging almost $29,000 , whereas in France the cost of higher education is negligible . So, what’s to explain the relative quiescence of Americans confronting more extreme violations of basic fairness than their French counterparts? Many factors, of course. But I’m convinced that in part it’s that we Americans have more thoroughly absorbed the notion that our fate is our fault. Americans have bought into a particularly virulent version of social Darwinism —dismissed by science more than a century ago. We cling to the belief that in our dog-eat-dog world, ruled by an infallible “free market,” the best rise to the top. So, we’re set up to feel demeaned if we are struggling to get by. And, on top of that, we feel trapped because in our collective psyche there’s no fix to inequality that wouldn’t wreck the market’s magic. Yes, France also has a capitalist economy, but deep within its culture are values at the heart of its 1789 revolution—“liberté, égalité, fraternité.” They are not viewed as tradeoffs but as essential to one another—and written into the 1958 French constitution. For the French, equality is a positive value; whereas here at home calls for greater equality are fought by evoking fear of creeping “communism” and—with racist undertones—the coddling of the “undeserving” poor. In both nations inequality has gotten worse. For decades after World War II both France and the United States experienced lessening inequality. But in the early ‘80s things changed. In France the trend reversed, and by 2007 the share of income going to the richest 1 percent had grown by about half , reaching 12 percent. A similar shift went much further in the U.S., where by 2016 1 percenters reaped 39 percent of income. My hunch is that, though mild relative to our extreme, inequality in France violates core values and thus provokes less shame and greater anger. There, struggling to get by is not itself seen as demeaning. The Yellow Vests express dignity in their demands. “We’re human, too, for God’s sake!” shouted one Yellow Vest. Perhaps because of such cultural attitudes, more than 70 percent of French people approve of the movement’s demands. And, if we listen closely, these French protesters could carry a liberating lesson for us as well: To achieve real democracy and basic fairness requires that we, too, claim our dignity. We can reject any notion that there is shame in announcing that we are struggling to get by in America’s brutal form of capitalism. Why should we feel shame when the scales of our economy are so tilted? Within a market driven by corporate America’s one-rule obsession (i.e. do what brings highest return to existing wealth), sadly we end up with more extreme inequality than in roughly 120 countries, including—believe it or not—India and Mali. Listening to the Yellow Vests, we can reject the lie that a market works on its own for the good of all. As citizens step up in the rising Democracy Movement, they are striving not only to fix our broken political democracy but to work for a democratic economy as well. Citizen-led campaigns in the midterms increased the minimum wage in two states . Senators Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren are leading the push for legislation giving workers the right to elect representatives to corporate boards. In this good work, Americans are rejecting the false “tradeoffs” frame as we come to understand that achieving greater economic equality furthers other values we hold dear, including economic and social vitality and, ultimately, life itself.

Mary Tembo displays her homegrown organic seeds at her farm in Chongwe, Zambia. (Timothy A. Wise) Originally Published on Food Tank, Friday, December 21, 2018 On December 17, the United Nations General Assembly took a quiet but historic vote, approving the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working in Rural Areas , by a vote of 121-8 with 52 abstentions. The declaration, which was the product of some 17 years of diplomatic work led by the international peasant alliance La Via Campesina, formally extends human rights protections to farmers whose “seed sovereignty” is threatened by government and corporate practices. “As peasants we need the protection and respect for our values and for our role in society in achieving food sovereignty,” said Via Campesina coordinator Elizabeth Mpofu after the vote. Most developing countries voted in favor of the resolution, while many developed country representatives abstained. The only “no” votes came from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Israel, and Sweden. “To have an internationally recognized instrument at the highest level of governance that was written by and for peasants from every continent is a tremendous achievement,” said Jessie MacInnis of Canada’s National Farmers Union . The challenge now, of course, is to mobilize small-scale farmers to claim those rights, which are threatened by efforts to impose rich-country crop breeding regulations onto less developed countries, where the vast majority of food is grown by peasant farmers using seeds they save and exchange. Seed sovereignty in Zambia The loss of seed diversity is a national problem in Zambia. “We found a lot of erosion of local seed varieties,” Juliet Nangamba, program director for the Community Technology Development Trust, told me in her Lusaka office. She is working with the regional Seed Knowledge Iniatiave (SKI) to identify farmer seed systems and prevent the disappearance of local varieties. “Even crops that were common just ten years ago are gone.” Most have been displaced by maize, which is heavily subsidized by the government. She’s from Southern Province, and she said their survey found very little presence of finger millet, a nutritious, drought-tolerant grain far better adapted to the region’s growing conditions. Farmers are taking action. Mary Tembo welcomed us to her farm near Chongwe in rural Zambia. Trained several years ago by Kasisi Agricultural Training Center in organic agriculture, Tembo is part of the SKI network, which is growing out native crops so seed is available to local farmers. Tembo pulled some chairs into the shade of a mango tree to escape the near-100-degree Fahrenheit heat, an unseasonable reminder of Southern Africa’s changing climate. Rains were late, as they had been several of the last few years. Farmers had prepared their land for planting but were waiting for a rainy season they could believe in. Tembo didn’t seem worried. She still had some of her land in government-sponsored hybrid maize and chemical fertilizer, especially when she was lucky enough to get a government subsidy. But most of her land was in diverse native crops, chemical free for ten years. “I see improvements from organic,” she explained, as Kasisi’s Austin Chalala translated for me from the local Nyanja language. “It takes more work, but we are now used to it.” The work involves more careful management of a diverse range of crops planted in ways that conserve and rebuild the soil: crop rotations, intercropping, conservation farming with minimal plowing, and the regular incorporation of crop residues and composted manure to build soil fertility. She has six pigs, seven goats, and twenty-five chickens, which she says gives her enough manure for the farm. She was most proud of her seeds. She disappeared into the darkness of her small home. I was surprised when she emerged with a large fertilizer bag. She untied the top of the bag and began to pull out her stores of homegrown organic seeds. She laughed when I explained my surprise. She laid them out before us, a dazzling array: finger millet, orange maize, Bambara nuts, cowpeas, sorghum, soybeans, mung beans, three kinds of groundnuts, popcorn, common beans. All had been saved from her previous harvest. The contribution of chemical fertilizer to these crops was, clearly, just the bag. She explained that some would be sold for seed. There is a growing market for these common crops that have all-but-disappeared with the government’s obsessive promotion of maize. Some she would share with the 50 other farmer members of the local SKI network. And some she and her family would happily consume. Crop diversity is certainly good for the soil, she said, but it’s even better for the body. Peasant rights crucial to climate adaptation We visited three other Kasisi-trained farmers. All sang the praises of organic production and its diversity of native crops. All said their diets had improved dramatically, and they are much more food-secure than when they planted only maize. Diverse crops are the perfect hedge against a fickle climate. If the maize fails, as it has in recent years, other crops survive to feed farmers’ families, providing a broader range of nutrients. Many traditional crops are more drought-tolerant than maize. Another farmer we visited had already planted, optimistically, before the rains arrived. She showed us her fields, dry and with few shoots emerging. With her toe she cleared some dirt from one furrow to reveal small green leaves, alive in the dry heat. “Millet,” she said proudly. With a range of crops, she said, “the farmer can never go wrong.” I found the same determination in Malawi, where the new Farm-Saved Seed Network (FASSNet) is building awareness and working with government on a “Farmers’ Rights” bill to complement a controversial Seed Bill, which deals only with commercial seeds. A parallel process is advancing legislation on the right to food and nutrition. Both efforts should get a shot in the arm with the UN’s Peasants’ Rights declaration. The declaration now gives such farmers a potentially powerful international tool to defend themselves from the onslaught of policies and initiatives, led by multinational seed companies, to replace native seeds with commercial varieties, the kind farmers have to buy every year. Kasisi’s Chalala told me that narrative is fierce in Zambia, with government representatives telling farmers like Tembo that because her seeds are not certified by the government they should be referred to only as “grain.” Eroding protection from GMOs As if to illustrate the ongoing threats to farm-saved seed, that same week in Zambia controversy erupted over two actions by the government’s National Biosafety Board to weaken the country’s proud and clear stance against the use of genetically modified crops. The Board had quietly granted approval for a supermarket chain to import and sell three products with GMOs, a move promptly criticized by the Zambian National Farmers Union . Then it was revealed that the Board was secretly drawing up regulations for the future planting of GM crops in the country, again in defiance of the government’s approved policies. The Zambian Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity quickly denounced the initiative . The UN declaration makes such actions a violation of peasants’ rights. Now the task is to put that new tool in farmers’ hands. “As with other rights, the vision and potential of the Peasant Rights Declaration will only be realized if people organize to claim these rights and to implement them in national and local institutions,” argued University of Pittsburgh sociologists Jackie Smith and Caitlin Schroering in Common Dreams . “Human rights don’t ‘trickle down’—they rise up!”

Founding members of the new Tsakane Farmers Association in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, where they have applied for their own land after resisting a large-scale rice plantation. (Credit: Justiça Ambiental) Originally Published on Food Tank, Friday, October 26, 2018 (also available in Portuguese) On July 26, 2018, farmers in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, achieved a milestone. They met to formalize their new farmers’ association, elect leaders, and prepare a petition to the local government for land. The association, christened Tsakane, which means “happy” in the local Changana language, was the culmination of six years of resistance to a Chinese land grab that had sparked protest and outrage. The association now has a request pending for its own land. With the Chinese rice plantation floundering, the Tsakane farmers offer a vivid demonstration that perhaps the best way to grow more food is to give poor food producers more land. The rise and fall of a land grab I first visited the vast rice fields of Xai-Xai, three hours up the coast from the capital city of Maputo, in 2017. Since 2008, Mozambique had been one of the leading targets of large-scale agricultural investment projects, widely denounced as land grabs by critics. Community resistance had halted most such projects in Mozambique, including ProSAVANA, the controversial Brazil-Japan initiative, which was intended to be the largest land grab in Africa . This one had taken hold. The Wanbao Grain and Oil company had taken over a Chinese “friendship farm” in 2011 with a 50-year lease on a 50,000-acre concession from the Mozambique government as part of the Lower Limpopo Irrigation District (RBL for its Portuguese name). With Chinese state financing, the company contracted the farming to four Chinese agriculture groups, developing 17,000 acres into rice fields fed by rehabilitated colonial-era irrigation canals. On paper, the Wanbao Africa Agriculture Development Limited (WAADL) promised what large-scale foreign investment in agriculture might offer to a poor, hungry, underdeveloped country like Mozambique. Here was desperately needed capital invested in underutilized fertile land, rebuilding productive infrastructure and bringing in modern agricultural practices. Wanbao was training local farmers in its modern farming methods and setting them up as contract farmers with a stake in the project. What’s more, the project wasn’t growing cash crops, it was growing food. And not for people back in China, as the land grab stereotype suggested; it was growing rice for the Mozambican market. Heavily promoted by Mozambique’s president at the time, Armando Guebuza, the rice was marketed under his recommended brand name, “Bom Gusto,” meaning Good Taste. That wasn’t the taste left in the mouths of women who had lost their land, then fought to get it back. No consultation or consent The difference between a large-scale agricultural development project and a land grab is consultation and consent, and this one had neither. Some 7,000 farmers had moved onto the irrigated lands along the Lower Limpopo River in the 1980s after a state farm ceased operations. Farmers there told us they were encouraged to do so by the local government. Many crossed a small bridge built for them by the government to farm rice, maize, and vegetables or to graze their cattle. Mozambique’s Land Law is one of the most progressive in Africa, recognizing the land rights of peasant farmers whether or not they can show formal title, as long as they have been farming the land for 10 years or more. That applies not only to community or village land, it applies to estate land for which the government holds the formal land title. Once Wanbao got its land concession, it wasted no time ignoring the Land Law. The bulldozers were there by early 2012. Gizela Zunguze, Gender Coordinator from Justica Ambiental (JA), the Friends of the Earth affiliate in Mozambique, took us to meet some of the farmers affected by the project. In the dusty courtyard under the shade of a mango tree in the neighborhood of Brutela, Meldina Matsimbe told us she and other farmers had gone down to their lowland fields in January 2012 to find tractors opening roads and irrigation ditches across their fields, planted in maize, cowpeas, and vegetables. “They plowed right through ripe maize,” Matsimbe told us through a translator. Two other women from the village nodded. There had been no consultation with the community, no warning, and no environmental impact assessment, as required by Mozambican law. With JA’s support, the community protested to the company and the local government authorities. The bulldozers stopped, and government authorities returned most of the land—250 acres used by about 60 families in the community. But some 12 acres still had not been returned. What did they eat that year after their crops had been destroyed? “We had nothing to eat,” Matsimbe said. “We had to ask our neighbors for food.” Angélica Moyane told us a similar story in the neighboring village of Kana Kana. One Sunday in July 2013, a tractor came in unannounced and plowed right through the community’s fields, destroying her garlic, lettuce, maize, onions, and cabbage along with the ripe crops of some 500 other farmers. “We could not even identify our own farms after the Chinese came through,” she said. Zunguze said JA found Mama Angélica and other farmers camped outside a government office in Xai-Xai demanding answers. Wanbao withdrew its machines a few days later and farmers returned to their ravaged fields. As in Brutela, the company offered no compensation for the destroyed crops, so crucial to small-scale farmers who live from one harvest to the next. Frustrated by Wanbao’s repeated incursions, the communities organized a march past the Wanbao offices and through the town on May 20, 2014, to the state governor’s office to present a formal petition demanding the return of their land with compensation. Zunguze said the protest was tense, with 400 angry community members marching toward the provincial offices behind a “No to Wanbao” banner. Placards, most hand-written, demanded an end to land grabbing. “We demand respect for our rights,” read one woman’s simple plea. Police tried to halt the march, but after a three-hour standoff, the marchers proceeded to the governor’s office where Mama Angélica presented the petition. The farmers never got a formal response, but the company land grabbing slowed. The farmers could certainly take pride in resisting this land grab, but their hard lives were no easier now. Failure to Yield For better or for worse, Wanbao seemed to be failing, like so many other large-scale agriculture projects in Africa. In 2013, just as the project was bringing more of its acreage into production, floods destroyed 12,500 of the company’s 17,000 acres of rice. The Chinese government canceled a loan in 2015 after concluding that the flood risks were too high. Climate change added insult to injury when a 2016 drought slowed the recovery from the flooding. In April 2017, the only rice being produced was by contract farmers and some Indians who were subcontracting land. Even the outgrower farmers were dropping out. Wanbao had trained 68 local farmers and had gotten the more successful of them producing on 5 to 10 acres each. But the company ran the outgrower scheme as a commercial operation, charging for services like plowing. They provided credit but required a 50 percent up-front cash payment for inputs, which was difficult for many farmers to afford. Farmers were obligated to sell to the company, and Wanbao paid a fixed and low price for the farmers’ rice, regardless of market prices. Contract farmer Boavida Madonda of Chimbonhanine told us that Wanbao paid well below market prices, was unreliable in getting seeds and inputs to them on time, and even expected farmers to arrange their own transportation to get inputs to their farms. “It really isn’t worth it,” he said. He told us he wouldn’t care if the project failed. “It was better before. I was my own boss. We had enough to eat.” When I returned in October 2017, Wanbao still had not secured financing, though there were always rumors of new money. But the project seemed to be failing. That would be a victory of sorts for the communities, but a hollow one. What would the community have to show for another failed project? Zunguze was quick and firm when I asked her what the farmers wanted: “Give all the land back to the communities.” Let farmers grow food Lost in Wanbao’s struggle to finance the project and the Mozambican government’s continued commitment to it was an obvious question: Wouldn’t the land feed more hungry Mozambicans if the company left and local farmers were organized to grow rice and other food crops? I’d seen exactly that, in fact, in Marracuene, just two hours down the highway toward Maputo. There I saw 7,000 farmers, mostly women, organized into 19 cooperatives and using rehabilitated colonial-era irrigation to grow food and cash crops year-round. Those women-led coops, affiliated with the National Peasant Union of Mozambique (UNAC), were growing food while improving the land with the adoption of intercropping and other agro-ecological practices. (See earlier articles here and here .) Instead of giving all the best land and infrastructure—particularly irrigation—to foreign investors who then displace local farmers, why not give the land to those farmers? Help them organize into marketing cooperatives, water use associations, and credit unions. With the formal recognition of the Tsakane Farmers’ Association, the Xai-Xai farmers are planning to do just that. They hope to get collective land title to 750 acres of good land for their 300 members. “If the associations are registered and the farmers have collective rights to some land, maybe the land grabbing can stop,” Zunguze told me. Association leaders planned to visit neighboring National Farmers Union cooperatives to learn how agro-ecology could help them grow more food for their families and communities.

Farm leader Rocío Miranda speaks at the September 11 farmers’ movement press conference in Mexico City against the new NAFTA agreement. (Timothy Wise) Originally Published on Thursday, September 13, 2018 by Common Dreams (Also available in Spanish .) The smooth ride to a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may have just hit the bumpy roads of rural Mexico. On Tuesday, leaders of Mexico’s farm ovement strongly condemned the new agreement announced between the United States and Mexico, calling on the new president they supported in recent elections to get involved and slow the race to the new agreement. “We need to push our new president to stop the signing of this agreement,” said farm leader Gerónimo Jacobo in an interview. “This is life or death for us. With NAFTA it will be a slow death. Our national sovereignty is at stake here!” On August 27, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had reached a deal with the Mexican government on a new version of the NAFTA. In a garbled televised phone call, the president congratulated lame duck Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, claiming he had fulfilled his campaign promise to “replace NAFTA” and christening the new deal “The U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.” For his part, Peña Nieto, whose party was trounced in July 1 elections, claimed the agreement as his legacy. No one, though, could claim they actually had a new NAFTA. Canada, NAFTA’s other commercial partner, was left out as President Trump rushed to meet a self-declared deadline that would allow the agreement to be signed by Peña Nieto, before Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office December 1. Canada was offered the opportunity to join the agreement, though negotiations continue. Surprisingly, representatives from the incoming government of López Obrador (also known as AMLO) participated as observers and endorsed the new agreement. Jesús Seade, López Obrador’s designated NAFTA negotiator, raised a few small issues in the last days of the negotiations, but publicly supported the deal, a stance widely seen as trying to ensure financial stability in the transition to his new government. It was surprising because the incoming president had been a strong critic of NAFTA in the past. Farmers: Not so fast! What was surprising to Mexico’s energized farm movement were the anti-agriculture biases in the negotiated text. The movement had gone all-out for López Obrador and his Morena party, turning out more than 50% support across rural Mexico, unprecedented in a country in which the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party tightly controlled the rural vote. They did so because the candidate had publicly signed on to their radical program for farm reform, the Plan de Ayala 21st Century, after Emiliano Zapata’s original rural reform program early last century. ( See my previous article .) The new program called for support for small-scale farmers of maize and other staple crops as part of a campaign to restore food self-sufficiency in a country that now imports some 46% of its food, mostly from the United States. The Plan de Ayala also called for a renegotiation of NAFTA to stop U.S. farm products from flooding Mexico with cheap, subsidized crops. The new agreement fails to allow Mexico to protect staple crops from such U.S. agricultural dumping. New research from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy shows that U.S. maize (corn) has been exported in the last three years at prices 10% below what it cost to produce. Wheat has been exported 33% below the costs of production, and rice as also seen a dumping margin. All three crops are priorities for López Obrador’s new Office of Food Self-Sufficiency, to be headed by longtime farm leader Victor Suárez. At Tuesday’s press conference, farm movement leaders rejected the new deal and called on the current government not to sign it, deferring the decision to the new president with his overwhelming mandate. (His party won 53% of the vote in a five-person race and took majorities of seats in both the House and the Senate.) In a statement, leaders said NAFTA is responsible for the impoverishment of small and medium-scale farmers. They denounced the new agreements on biotechnology as a backdoor way to force genetically modified maize and other crops into Mexico. López Obrador has been clear since the election that his administration will no longer allow the use of GM maize and soybeans. Farmers fear the new NAFTA could compel him to do so. Similarly, there are rumors that an annex to the agreement would bar Mexico from putting labels on food packaging warning consumers about fattening, sugary, and unhealthy food. In other countries such measures have proven effective, and Mexico faces a growing obesity epidemic attributed significantly to imported processed food and sodas. Another provision could make it difficult for the new government to pay support prices to small-scale farmers as a way to stimulate local production. With the actual text of the agreement still secret, farm leaders demanded that the full text be made public and that the new congress hold hearings on the agreement before it is signed. “We have ghost towns because of NAFTA” “Peña Neto shouldn’t sign it,” farm leader Rocío Miranda told me. “He has presided over a terrible increase in hunger. We have ghost towns in rural Mexico because of NAFTA.” Miranda said she is very optimistic about the government’s commitment to small-scale farmers. “The new government represents the people harmed by NAFTA.” But she hopes López Obrador will step in to ensure that the new NAFTA does not contradict his ambitious rural agenda. “The farmers’ movement is concerned,” she said, as negotiators wait to see if Canada will sign on before the end of September. “The new NAFTA could undermine our efforts to regain our food self-sufficiency.” * Timothy A. Wise is a Senior Researcher on the Land and Food Rights Program at Small Planet Institute and a researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University.

SPI’s Timothy A. Wise, director of the Land and Food Rights Program, just returned from Mexico, where he was following the promising new rural development initiatives of incoming president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador and his Morena Party swept presidential and congressional elections July 1. The new congress was sworn in September 1 while López Obrador takes office December 1. The victory, which was partly the product of unprecedented support in rural Mexico, has raised hopes for policies that reverse 25 years of neglect by successive governments. (See Tim’s article on the election.) Already, López Obrador has named farm leader Victor Suárez to the new post of Subsecretary of Agriculture for Food Self-Sufficiency, promising to “grow what we eat” and to reduce the country’s rising dependency on imports. Last year, Mexico earned the dubious distinction of becoming the world’s largest importer of maize (corn), the national staple. In Mexico, Tim met with farm leaders, government officials, and civil society groups. López Obrador has vowed to ban the cultivation of genetically modified crops, a key issue Tim has followed since 2014, when an injunction halted experimental planting by Monsanto and other seed companies. (See articles here and here .) The incoming president has been more muted on the negotiations toward a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the draft of which has raised concerns among farm leaders that it will hamstring the new government’s food self-sufficiency efforts. Tim briefed farm leaders on those threats in Mexico City September 4 and was interviewed in the daily La Jornada on the issue. The online Imágen Agropecuario also interviewed Tim about the ways the draft treaty could hamper the new government’s regulation of GM seeds. The new commitment in Mexico to smallholders, sustainable agriculture, and food self-sufficiency represents just the sorts of policies Tim argues for his forthcoming book, Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food (New Press, February 2019). The book includes two chapters on Mexico, in addition to others based on Tim’s field work over the last four years in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, India, and Iowa. Follow Tim on Twitter (@TimothyAWise) for updates on the book and the issues he covers. Tim will be back in southern Africa soon to follow up on land grabbing, seed policy, and agro-ecology.

Originally published on Common Dreams, July 12, 2018 Democracy’s essence is dignity—knowing that we count and have a real voice, in the voting booth, yes, but also in other dimensions of life, including the economic (Photo by Sam Morris/Getty Images) We sure hear a lot today about external threats to our democracy, whether it’s Russia’s election “meddling” or North Korea’s nuclear expansion. But a home-bred threat might run deeper still. Consider this. More than a third of Americans polled by the finance company LendEdu say they’d forfeit the right to vote in exchange for a 10 percent raise. Whoa…I had long assumed that such a sad choice would be tempting only in the poorest societies. Learning that so many Americans would trade their voice for bucks could help wake us up to one simple truth: Political democracy, i.e. elected government answering to the people, is always vulnerable when citizens feel economically powerless. Put another way, political democracy without citizens’ economic empowerment can’t endure. By “economic empowerment” I mean two things. First, when casting a vote, we feel confident we can choose representatives who will pursue public policies protecting us, and that includes guarding us from exploitative wages as well as shady corporate practices, including those costing millions of us our jobs and savings in the 2008 Wall Street debacle. Second, “economic empowerment” is what some of us experience first-hand in workplaces protected by a union, for example, or in the thousands of US cooperatives , such as Ace Hardware, or in the 2,500 firms American incorporated as “ B corporations ” whose charters commit a firm to considering workers’ well-being, among other social goods. Yet on Election Day 2016 many voters—likely feeling neither form of economic empowerment—settled for a “strongman” who promised protection but, as we have now seen, lacked commitment to the rules and norms of democracy required to secure our interests. If indeed many voted out of a sense of desperation, it’s easy to understand. Workers’ wages have barely budged in almost half a century and poverty is so deep that half our newborns depend on public aid to eat. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared sixteen-fold . So, while there’s vast evidence that our money-driven politics along with voter manipulation help to explain the 2016 election, our rigged economy, denying most Americans a voice in their economic well-being, also helped give Trump an edge. Bottom line: Political democracy is forever in danger absent an understanding of what democracy requires well beyond politics. Democracy is a culture that lives or dies on whether it’s creating three conditions throughout our public lives that have proven to bring forth the best in our species and to keep the worst in check: One, the wide dispersion of power; two, transparency in public affairs; and, three, a culture of mutual accountability in contrast to the blame-the-other culture fomented today. Yet America is rushing headlong in the opposite direction. Consider democracy’s first condition, widely distributed power. It’s increasingly absent in both political and economic arenas. One-half of 1 percent of the population contributed about two-thirds of the $6.4 billion cost of the 2016 election. And now, just three Americans control more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of us do. And, how did we arrive at such obvious affronts to democracy? Long taught by market-fundamentalists of the Right that seeking the public good is risky because all we can count on is our selfish nature, many believe our only choice is to hand over our fate to a “free market” driven by self-interest. It, we’re told, will sort winners and losers—fairly. But wait…in our extreme version of a market, one rule drives all: Do what brings highest return to existing wealth. So, wealth accrues to wealth accrues to wealth. Yet the myth of a free market hangs on. It tells that if we don’t make it, it’s our fault; bringing on a culture of blame and shame: All that’s needed to set us up to embrace a president telling us whom to blame. So, what’s the big lesson? Democracy’s essence is dignity—knowing that we count and have a real voice, in the voting booth, yes, but also in other dimensions of life, including the economic. Thus, the denial of dignity is arguably greatest threat to democracy. And the good news? A grassroots democracy movement focused on creating fair political rules is now becoming a “movement of movements,” uniting economic, political, racial justice, and environmental dimensions of our lives. Take Democracy Initiative for example. In just five years, it’s already brought together nearly 70 organizations representing roughly 40 million Americans, from the AFL-CIO to NAACP to Sierra Club. Their diverse core passions, and those of so many more, are uniting to fight for democracy, as it touches all parts of our lives. Or jump to a state…gutsy North Carolina. Building on earlier organizing, the Moral Mondays movement developed what it calls “fusion politics,” uniting 200 organizations representing two million citizens around a 14-point agenda—including both voting rights and economic empowerment through, for example, livable wages. Now the approach is taking hold in a dozen other states and has gone national as the Poor People’s Campaign . And in cities, too, this weaving together of our lives is underway. Across the Bay from San Francisco, citizens of Richmond, CA, 80 percent of whom are people of color, had lived for more than century under the heel of Chevron Oil, notorious for denying citizens a real voice by stacking the city council. That is, until the Richmond Progressive Alliance drew together United Steel Workers with immigrant rights and environmental justice activists into a local “movement of movements.” By 2004 the Alliance was strong enough to win council seats. Ten years later, its city council slate with a few hundred thousand dollars defeated the three-million-dollar, Chevron-backed candidates . With unity among diverse citizen interests, the Council has been able to lift Richmond’s minimum wage to among the nation’s highest and to enact public financing for its seats. Weaving together democratic political and economic advances, these three stories offer real hope that it’s possible to address the desperation showing up at the polls in 2016. Thus, the lesson at the heart of our current crisis? Democracy can’t be sliced up into parts because human beings cannot be—that is, we cannot trust that we have a real voice at the polls while feeling voiceless in our economic lives. Dignity is dignity. From this commonsense premise, we can unite to address the biggest internal threat to democracy.

Every movement needs a hand sign, right? So, what’s the sign of the Democracy Movement? At the Small Planet Institute, that question bugged us…until one of our staffers, a Millennial named Ashley Higgs Hammell, came up with a great idea. "Why not use the American Sign Language symbol for the letter 'd'?" she asked. To form the sign, you rest all your fingers on your thumb except for the index finger, which is raised. Then lift your arm into the air. The first time I tried it, I immediately heard myself saying inside: “I have something to say!” or “One person, one vote!” or “I count!” or “democracy now!” The sensation and these messages align, I found. I thought I’d test out Ashley’s suggestion. And soon I had a big chance. In 2016, I took part in the Democracy Spring march from Philadelphia to the steps of the capitol in Washington, D.C. We were demanding basic democracy reforms to get money out of politics and to protect voting rights. As we sat for hours waiting to be arrested, I had plenty of chance to try out the new hand sign. It felt so good! I knew a fist in the air was not what I wanted. I wasn’t protesting, I was demanding something positive that the vast majority of Americans want. My hand sign fit perfectly with my message and my feelings. Try it and let us know what you think. We have stickers with the sign that look good on a shirt or the back of your laptop. We can send you a PDF of a page of stickers you can print out on sticky paper. We are eager for your thoughts and other suggestions! Email us at info@smallplanet.org . Frances Moore Lappé

Originally published on Food Tank, July 6, 2018 The victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his Morena party in Sunday’s Mexican elections has stunned international observers. The center-left insurgency received an estimated double the votes of its nearest rival in a multi-party presidential race, winning more than 50 percent of the vote, several important governorships including the first woman to run Mexico City, and an absolute majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. However the final tally ends up, López Obrador has a resounding mandate for change. ​​ Many observers have interpreted the results as a vote against rampant corruption; given the pervasive graft and influence-peddling in Mexico, López Obrador’s clean, austere reputation was certainly a factor for voters. But economic factors also motivated many voters, especially farmers. The majority of Mexicans have been left behind in a failing strategy to hitch the country’s fortunes to open trade with the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As one recent report summarized, “Poverty is worse than a quarter century ago, real wages are lower than in 1980, inequality is worsening, and Mexico ranks 18th of 20 Latin American countries in terms of income growth per person in 21st century.” It is hard to imagine worse outcomes in a country with privileged and historic access to the largest capital and consumer markets in the world—the U.S. Among those rejoicing now over López Obrador’s victory are Mexico’s farmers, who have been largely abandoned by the government while unregulated imports of below-cost maize, wheat, pork, and other agricultural goods flooded Mexican markets under NAFTA. (See my report .) After the agreement took effect in 1994, maize farmers endured a 400-percent increase in imports of U.S. maize priced 19-percent below its costs of production, resulting in a punishing 66-percent drop in producer prices. Producers of other farm goods faced similar pressures, forcing many to become migrant workers in the strawberry fields of multinational growers or migrate to the U.S. without documentation. Many placed their faith in López Obrador after he endorsed the Plan de Ayala 2.0 , a radical platform put forward in early 2018 by a revitalized farmers’ movement. Echoing the platform, López Obrador on the campaign trail called for a return to self-sufficiency in maize and other basic food crops, a reduction in import dependence on the U.S., a shift away from chemical-intensive industrial agriculture and genetically modified crops toward more sustainable practices, and a decisive reorientation of government farm subsidies toward small and medium-scale producers. No wonder rural communities turned out in droves for Morena. What Farmers Expect A mobilized farmers’ movement will expect and demand action on key planks in their platform to revitalize rural Mexico. Soon after López Obrador takes office on December 1, they expect quick action on several key issues: Food self-sufficiency. López Obrador has promised to have farm subsidies directed to small and medium-scale farmers (those with fewer than 50 acres), a radical shift from programs that have overwhelmingly favored large farms. He can make good on that promise by shifting ProAgro subsidy payments to those farmers and making credit and crop insurance available to them. Support prices for key crops. López Obrador has promised minimum support prices for key food crops, to give farmers stable and remunerative prices so they can invest in their farms and raise productivity. He can act immediately on that promise. Expanding public procurement. One proven way to support local farmers and provide healthier foods is to expand public purchases for schools and other public institutions. Redirecting funds to support native maize farmers. The MasAgro Program, a government-funded effort to increase small-scale maize and wheat production, is ineffective and seeks to replace native maize varieties with commercial seeds on some 12 million acres of maize land. That is at odds with López Obrador’s pledge to support native maize and tortillas. Reforming MasAgro would be a good place to start. Investing in national seed research and production. López Obrador can address transnational monopolization of Mexican seed markets by restoring the nation’s capacity to breed and produce its own seeds. Successive neoliberal governments have reduced support for INIFAP, the national agricultural research institute. Withdrawing Mexican government support for genetically modified (GM) maize. The current government has supported Monsanto and other seed companies in their campaign to grow GM maize in Mexico. Citizen groups and the courts have prevented the controversial move citing threats to Mexico’s native maize varieties. (See my earlier article.) López Obrador can end the controversy by withdrawing government approval of the companies’ permits. Whither NAFTA? In the campaign, López Obrador was careful, never threatening to pull out of NAFTA and vowing to continue negotiations to improve the current agreement. Since his election, he has vowed to stay the course on negotiations. That won’t sit well with his farmer base. Massive, unregulated imports of cheap U.S. commodities, dumped on the Mexican market at prices below the costs of production, are incompatible with López Obrador’s commitments to food self-sufficiency, food sovereignty, and investments in small farms and native crops. There are a number of measures he can take immediately: Slap retaliatory tariffs on maize and other key food crops. López Obrador can announce his intentions to include maize among the products on which Mexico retaliates after President Trump’s unilateral duties on aluminum, steel, and perhaps cars. That would send a strong message that he stands with his maize farmers, and it would give producers relief from dumping-level prices while the government puts in place its full policies for food and agriculture. Impose countervailing duties for U.S. dumping. Mexico can justify duties on U.S. crops dumped at below the cost of production. Maize has been coming into Mexico at 12-percent below production costs, justifying a commensurate tariff on imported maize. Regulate GM maize imports under the Cartagena Protocol. Mexico can more closely regulate imports of U.S. maize, which is almost all GM, by invoking the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, which allows importers to require strict labeling and other control measures. Of course, López Obrador can also call President Trump’s bluff on ending NAFTA. The farmers’ movement has called for Mexico to withdraw from the agreement unless there are meaningful improvements, and not the kind Trump wants. Mexico may well have less to lose from such a move than the U.S. Mexican farmers certainly wouldn’t shed many tears if their new president could once again protect them from dumped U.S. exports. For once, Mexican farmers have a lot to look forward to.