Living Democracy, Feeding Hope

Originally published by TIME on 11/26/2015 Just five years ago, many would have considered it impossible to pass a $15 minimum wage in this country. Today, nine cities, counties or states have passed policies for $15 an hour or more. Many others are contemplating similar measures. Several years ago even the most diehard labor activist would have considered it pie-in-the-sky to imagine mass action by the low wage workers of Walmart, the largest corporation in the world. This Black Friday, thousands of Walmart workers and their supporters will take to the streets again to demand $15 an hour and full-time hours. As we gather around the table today, we are connected to this movement whether we realize it or not. Paleo or vegan, gluten-free or omnivorous, your dinner has been brought to you by likely hundreds of the 20 million people who work along the food chain: from meat packers to truckers, grocery clerks and farmworkers. Perhaps no other day is so clearly a reminder of how out of whack are the values of our food chain. While healthy, safe, affordable food is likely high on all of our lists of important things, those making sure such food is on our tables are among the most exploited, overworked and underpaid. According to research from the Food Chain Workers Alliance , a national network of 25 food worker organizations representing over 300,000 workers, 86 percent of all food workers are either paid below the minimum wage or below a living wage. A full 23 percent of food workers are paid less than the minimum wage with tipped employees receiving a trifling $2.13 an hour under federal law. It’s not just poor wages; it’s also dangerous working conditions. Workers on conventional farms are exposed to a barrage of toxic chemicals, many of which have been associated with a variety of cancers and hormonal and neurological problems. Studies published by the California Cancer Registry have found that farmworkers have higher risks of lymphomas and leukemia , as well as brain, stomach, prostate and cervical cancers. Workers across the food chain are at risk. Meat processors, for example, are injured on the job at two and a half times the rate of the national average—a reality that has gotten worse as the industry has pushed out organized labor and workers have lost protections. In his devastating book The Chain , journalist Ted Genoways details the dangerous conditions on pork processing floors in the Midwest where line speeds force workers to work harder and faster, leading to a range of health concerns. It’s no surprise to us that worker protections are key to food safety. We have seen time and time again that workers who don’t have union protection are afraid to speak up about food safety violations for fear of losing their jobs. And in one survey of Alliance members , 53 percent reported going to work sick because they lacked paid sick days or protection for an illness-related absence. In fact, four out of five workers surveyed reported either not having paid sick days or not knowing whether they did—which generally means they do not. The call for higher wages for food workers is often met with concern about skyrocketing food prices. We understand the worry. After all, 45 million Americans—that’s more than the entire population of Canada—rely on government support to feed their families. But data shows meaningful improvement in worker wages need not translate into significant increases in food prices. In one study from UC Berkeley , if Walmart raised its minimum wage to $12 per hour, the cost to the average shopper would be just 46 cents per trip. In another study, researchers found that a 40 percent increase in restaurant workers’ minimum wage raised prices by less than 3 percent. When the Coalition of Immokalee Workers secured a big win for its Florida tomato pickers, they were able to double members’ income with only one penny more per pound of tomatoes. Even if growers passed on the entire raise to consumers, we believe most would be willing to pay a penny more per pound for fairness. How can we know workers are paid and treated fairly? There are more and more ways to do so. The national network Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and RAISE, an association of industry leaders, are developing a cadre of “high-road” restaurants championing living wages, basic benefits and fair promotion policies. The new label, Food Justice-Certified , will be another tool to assure worker fairness. And while the organic certification is not a labor standard—there are no provisions for wages or working conditions—choosing organic-certified food does guarantee that farmers and farmworkers aren’t exposed to toxic pesticides in the field. As we dig into our meal today, we do so at a moment when there is a sea change afoot in food, from a system built on exploitation to an emergent one built on respect and fairness. One day soon, we hope, all of us will be able to dine with the peace of mind that everyone along the food chain was treated with dignity. To get there will take all of us: food workers and concerned eaters, united together. As workers take to the streets and diners nationwide call for higher wages, we’re more confident than ever that we will.

Drawn from World Hunger: 10 Myths, by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. It’s a “protein factory in reverse!” I declared more than forty years ago in Diet for a Small Planet . In my outburst, I was targeting livestock—especially cattle. But little did I imagine in 1971 just how this “factory’s” capacity to shrink our food supply would multiply. Today, worldwide, three-fourths of all agricultural land, including pasture, is used to produce animal products. But from all this, what do we get? Just 17 percent of our calories. That’s what I mean by “shrink.” To understand why humans get so little, consider livestock’s “take”: About half the world’s calories from crops don’t go to people. Instead they go primarily to feed livestock—which consume a third of the world’s grain and 85 percent of soy—as well as into agrofuel production and other industrial purposes. Let this sink in. Then note also that all livestock are not created equal in their capacity to shrink our food-resource potential. Beef wins the inefficiency prize: Of the calories that cattle eat in feed, humans get a measly 3 percent in the beef we eat. The following table reveals the big differences in the capacity of livestock to convert what they eat into calories we eat. Dairy, for example, is about thirteen times more efficient than beef, chicken about four times. Given this extreme inefficiency, it shouldn’t surprise us that livestock-centric U.S. agriculture—viewed by many as the pinnacle of efficiency—actually feeds fewer people per hectare, 5.4, than the less meat-focused Chinese, 8.4, or Indian, 5.9. What a contrast to the presumption of America’s great agricultural superiority! But, of course, livestock were not always shrinking our food supply. Throughout human evolution animals have converted grass and other things we don’t eat into high-grade protein we do eat—a big boon for humans. But over time we have remade livestock into nutrition disposals. This we can change. Worldwide, converting just half of crops fed to livestock into crops for humans could yield enough food for two billion people or be converted to carbon-storing forests. Looking at the impact of what we eat from another angle, what would be the result of shifting modestly from beef to other animal foods? Replacing even a fifth of the beef eaten globally with the more efficient pork or poultry would reduce the total agricultural area needed for all to eat in 2030 by about the same amount—a fifth—find scientists at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology. “Water Guzzlers” Beyond this loss of potential food energy, there’s another waste built into livestock production that’s taking on ever greater importance: water waste. Just as climate change is making water more precious, livestock production is using ever more of it. First note that nearly 70 percent of freshwater used by humans goes into irrigation, and much of it is used on crops and pasture for livestock—the big water guzzlers. In drought-plagued California, for example, meat and dairy account for almost half of the state’s entire water footprint. Nearly a fifth of its irrigation water goes to just one feed crop, alfalfa. So even as water scarcity worsens, every year 100 billion gallons of California water in the form of alfalfa go to China for meat production there. In all, a pound of beef uses : •almost fifty times more water than growing a pound of vegetables •about forty times more water than potatoes and other root crops •about nine times more water than grain. More than half of water used in the entire Colorado River basin, reaching six states including California, “is dedicated to feeding cattle and horses,” reports the Pacific Institute. Or consider this: One could bathe daily for more than a month with the water used to produce a pound of beef! Why would a smart species actively shrink its food supply and waste ever-more precious fresh water? Originally published by Huffington Post on 11/10/15

I’ll be in Mexico City September 3-5th for the first Global Conference on Money in Politics . Knowing that almost $400 million has already been raised for our presidential election that’s still a year away, I’ll be all ears. Spending in the U.S. presidential race alone almost doubled from 2000 to 2012 and is predicted to double again next year, reaching over $4 billion. So I want to find out how other countries are fighting for democracy against its corruption by powerful private interests. My learning began in a conversation with Secretary General Yves Leterme of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) , a Stockholm-based organization of 28 member states. It is a co-sponsor of this historic conference with the Mexican Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary, OECD and others. From your global perch, in what recent breakthroughs do you see significant democratic progress? The balance between citizens and leaders is going in a positive direction. People just don’t accept cheating with the rules anymore! Social media is playing a big role in creating more transparency. Consider Tunisia. It is a difficult time for this new democracy—bordered by Libya, Algeria and challenged by terrorists—but despite a backlash, the country is trying to give rights to women and to stabilize its democracy after successful electoral processes . Tunisia is a true democratic breakthrough to emerge from the “Arab Spring.” Also, a number of countries are experiencing the peaceful transition of leadership as a normal part of life for the first time. Think of Nigeria and Senegal. And in Burkina Faso citizens stood up against an unconstitutional extension of mandate. Next may be Myanmar, where we’re working with both citizens and the government to make possible a smooth, peaceful transition. And in the opposite direction, what are the biggest democracy setbacks you see? Terrorism, clearly, is undermining democracy by forcing too many democracies to focus on security rather than furthering democratic development. But in the US and Europe, it is disengagement and disenchantment with the political process that threaten democracy. Democracy loses legitimacy because of money in politics. US election spending per capita is estimated to be 20 to 30 times more than in Germany, for example. Campaign spending is increasing in other countries, too. In the UK, political spending has increased three fold since 2010. Yet, the US is still the outlier. Another problem is that citizens are no longer engaging in democracy through traditional institutions. Lower voter turnout is a sign of disenchantment. Even among Croatians, voter turnout was only 20 percent in the first European Parliamentary election after the county joined the European Union in 2013. Also worrying is the trend of lower voter turnout among younger voters. I have learned from International IDEA that, unlike the US, there are rules democracies are enforcing to remove, or at least blunt, the influence of private wealth. What are these means? Many countries use a range of measures to ensure that private wealth and corporations do not determine electoral outcomes. However, private contributions also play a positive role and therefore, IDEA promotes enforceable rules that set maximum limits or enhance transparency. For example, most European countries ban anonymous donations, and worldwide almost half of countries limit the amount that can be donated to political parties and candidates. Two-thirds of countries also provide direct public funding to political parties. Of course, there are many ways to have a democracy, and IDEA is a non-prescriptive organization, meaning that we do not tell people how to do democracy in their countries. What do you think of the approach of governments offering citizens vouchers or tax credits to encourage citizens to contribute? Might this approach help to reconnect citizens to the electoral process? In our House of Representatives, a bill with a provision for citizen tax credits has 150 co-sponsors. Yes, the approach you mention can work. In general, public funding is effective if there are limits on what citizens and companies can donate. That way individuals can know they have real influence. However, such measures are only effective as part of comprehensive reform addressing other aspects of electoral democracy. I know International IDEA works primarily with governments, particularly emerging democracies. You also work with citizens, but how? An example is our work with citizens using IDEA’s democracy-assessment tools . Our Assessment of the State of Democracy enables citizens to evaluate the quality of their democracy, from service delivery—such as child care or sanitation—to avenues for citizens to hold elected officials accountable. Some governments are themselves encouraging citizen engagement. I was just in Mongolia where government is working to raise awareness that democracy is more than elections and has encouraged citizens to put these tools to work. Malawi is another example. Municipalities are also using these tools. Paris, for example, involves citizens in “participatory budgeting” where citizen assemblies can decide on how a share of the municipal budget is spent. The goal is inclusion and involvement in the administration of democracy. I am impressed by IDEA’s emphasis on gender equity as a key element of democratic equality and your encouragement of gender quotas as a means. It’s striking to me that the US Congress is only 20 percent female, which is below the world average of women in national legislatures and only half the share of many established democracies. What specific actions are enabling the move toward greater gender equity? No nation can thrive while putting aside 50 percent of the capabilities of its population. The under-representation of women in politics is a result of multiple forms of discrimination, often implicit, that women encounter in private and public spheres. Quota systems are very important. Also, in parliamentary systems, where candidates appear on lists for voters, a “zipper list” system mandates that every other person on the candidate list is a woman. In Tunisia, citizen pressure has produced a program for gender equality for the first time. While in some countries it can take a long time before these efforts see results, quota systems help to accelerate the change. In Bolivia and Rwanda already about half of elected politicians are female, partly thanks to this system. Please tell me more about how you see the role of civil society in helping to build and support true democracy? The quality of democracy depends on civil society not just standing outside and criticizing government. Civil society organizations need to truly interconnect with government. Citizens’ use of our assessment tools is an example. In some countries trade unions representing workers interconnect well with governments. Also, social movements sometimes become political parties. In India, for example, in Delhi state a social movement became the Aam Aadmi (Common man) Party and gave voice to a lot people for the first time. It turned out the established party. In Spain, Podemos, a movement against inequality, became a political party last year and already has the second largest membership among parties. These are positive developments. Finally, Secretary General, what is the most urgent message about money in politics that you believe the world needs to hear right now? That the equality of citizens is the essence of democracy and the role of money undermines that equality. Money in politics is endangering the legitimacy of democracy. Images courtesy of International IDEA and the UN Originally published by Huffington Post on 09/02/2015

Originally published by Triple Crisis Blog on 10/14/2015 In 2009, the government of Mozambique put a moratorium on large-scale land acquisitions, a belated response to a wave of protests triggered by so-called “land grabs” by foreign investors. The moratorium, which lasted two years and restricted only land deals larger than 25,000 acres (10,000 hectares), calmed tensions while the government sought to resolve the inconsistencies between the great land giveaway and the country’s progressive land law, which recognizes farmers’ land rights even when they do not hold formal titles. Some of those investors were from the United States, and it is a wonder that they didn’t sue the Mozambican government for limiting their expected profits. They could have under the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between the United States and Mozambique. As U.S. trade negotiators herd their Pacific Rim counterparts toward the final text of a long-promised Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the investment chapter remains a point of contention. Like the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and most U.S. trade agreements since, the TPP text includes controversial provisions that limit the power of national governments to regulate incoming foreign investment and give investors rights to sue host governments for regulatory measures, even those taken in the public interest, that limit their expected returns. A host of BITs with a far wider range of countries, including Mozambique, contain similar provisions. The impact of such agreements on land grabs and land governance has received scant attention until recently. As new research from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) shows, the kinds of investment provisions in the TPP and in most BITs can severely limit a government’s ability to manage its land and other natural resources in the public interest. They can also interfere with the implementation of newly adopted international guidelines on land tenure. As GDAE’s research shows, there are alternatives to such restrictive investment rules. Mozambique, for example, could withdraw from its BIT with the United States and instead draw on the less constraining investment provisions offered by the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The Threats to Land Governance GDAE’s new background paper, “Trade Agreements and the Land,” by Rachel Thrasher, Dario Bevilaqua, and Jeronim Capaldo, examines the implications of proposed agreements, such as the TPP, for regulating land grabs. Lorenzo Cotula of IIED, in his report, “Land Rights and Investment Treaties: Exploring the Interface,” looks beyond land grabbing to consider other important aspects of land governance, including land redistribution. Both identify key provisions common to U.S. investment treaties that constrain land governance. Perhaps most well known is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process whereby private investors can sue states in a private arbitral tribunal – a glaring exception to the traditional sovereign immunity granted to states. Land grabs have not yet been the subject of dispute under these treaties, but other land conflicts show how they might in the future. Beyond the onerous ISDS provisions, investment treaties universally require compensation in the case of expropriation. Traditionally, that compensation must be “prompt, adequate and effective.” Countries have faced claims for expropriation in a wide variety of land-related cases – mostly in response to state efforts to correct past injustices or reform land tenure. Zimbabwe, in the wake of its fast-track land-redistribution program, Albania’s privatization in the transition from socialism, and South Africa’s mining legislation to benefit disadvantaged groups after apartheid all faced investor disputes claiming expropriation. The standard for compensation in these treaties is often based on the market value of the investment and does not take into account a fair balance between interests. Indeed, in the draft TPP several negotiating countries have explicit footnotes and annexes specifying that the compensation must be at market value (Art. 11.7, Annex II-C). As Cotula points out, investors can demand such compensation even if they got the land at low prices and even if government action simply interferes with or delays their profit-making activities. Treaties also often require that foreign investors be treated with “full protection and security.” In some cases, where domestic individuals or groups have taken action against foreign investors, the countries have been on the hook for not acting with “due diligence” to protect them. Many investment agreements also demand “fair and equitable treatment” for foreign investors. In investment jurisprudence this has come to include the “legitimate expectations” of the investor based on negotiations with governments. Any promise of access to land and resources, or even the speedy handing over of such land, can be disputed as a violation by investors. Sometimes, even before an investor enters the country, these investment treaties threaten land governance by extending the “right of establishment” to investors from partner countries. This means that under the TPP and most modern BITs, host countries must treat foreign investors on par with domestic investors, giving no priority to nationals even in sensitive areas such as land, minerals, and other natural resources. These investment provisions can have a marked “chilling effect” on governments. Cotula points out, for example, that many provisions of investment treaties would conflict with efforts by a government to implement the Voluntary Guidelines on the Governance of Land Tenure (VGGT) from the FAO, now the gold standard for appropriate recognition of land rights. The guidelines call for the restitution of land to those from whom it was taken and the redistribution of land in land reform efforts. To the extent those efforts impede the profitability or expected profitability of a foreign investment, the government may find itself liable for unaffordable market-rate compensation in settlements that can include the recouping of expected profits by investors. Such agreements therefore make it more difficult for governments to implement this groundbreaking new international land tenure agreement. Notably, many of Cotula’s recommendations involve ways that governments can protect themselves by legislating the VGGT in national law and ensuring that investment treaties recognize such obligations. TPP – No Way Forward The TPP is expected to be finalized in the coming months. For countries like Viet Nam, which was not previously bound by any international investment treaties, this could create large unexpected obstacles to domestic land regulation. Currently, the United States is negotiating investment treaties with what amounts to 80 percent of global GDP. Between the TPP, the TTIP, and BITs with India and China, U.S. style investment treaties are poised to become the de facto international legal regime for the treatment of foreign investors. As GDAE’s background paper shows, there are other investment treaty models out there. The Southern African Development Community drafted a model BIT with some of these threats to governance in mind. Its Model BIT begins by explicitly recommending that countries not extend rights to investors before establishment. Instead, countries are encouraged to admit investments in a good faith application of their laws. The model also limits ISDS provisions, recommending either that disputes should be kept between States, or at the very least, that States should be able to bring counterclaims against the investor in the same tribunal. Expropriation is approached differently as well. Rather than a standard of non-discrimination and “prompt, adequate and effective” compensation, it acknowledges that almost all expropriations are discriminatory and suggests a “fair and adequate” standard for determining compensation. This is more in line with other approaches looking to create an “equitable balance” between interests in deciding how much compensation is owed. Finally, the language of “full protection and security” and “fair and equitable treatment” is downgraded such that it requires only “fair administrative treatment.” By doing this the SADC text emphasizes that this is a procedural, rather than a substantive standard and reserves the rights of states to make regulatory changes in response to important public policy. As Cotula concludes, “Protecting the land claims of some, without also taking action to protect different and potentially competing land claims, can entrench imbalances in both legal rights and power relations. In the longer term, solutions should lie less in legal arrangements that insulate foreign investment from shortcomings in national legal systems, and more in establishing fair and effective land governance that can cater for the needs of all.”

Published in Canadian Food Studies Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.9-16 (September 2015) The 2007-8 food price crisis provoked renewed policy debate on a wide range of important matters long sidelined from mainstream consideration—the role and value of smallholder agriculture, the need for public investment in the sector, the importance of public agricultural research, the value for developing countries of growing more of their own food, the dangers posed by climate change in an era of thin global commodity markets, and the potential value of food reserves for both food security and price stability. Some policies and funding priorities have shifted, but powerful market actors have driven those policies in a familiar direction, toward expanded industrial production of agricultural commodities in financialized markets. If the progressive realization of the right to food is our goal, this “productionist” response—emphasizing increased agricultural production and yields as the solution to hunger—fails to address the challenges posed by the price crisis. As the poet Robert Frost (1916) observed in “The Road Not Taken,” when two roads diverge, a decision must be made. The food price crisis brought the consequences of our past choices into stark relief. The road “more travelled” in food and agricultural policy has brought rapid growth in production of a few staple commodities, but hunger and malnutrition persist, as do environmentally unsustainable production practices. Seven years after the 2007-08 food price spikes, global and national policy-makers remain reluctant to change course. They are intent on following that well-worn path, ignoring the folk wisdom: “If we don’t change direction we are going to get where we’re going.” ... Full Article Text Available Here

Originally published by Down to Earth on 12/12/2015 Photo: Thinkstock As we approach the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial on December 15-18 in Nairobi, India is leading a group of developing countries insisting that the development goals promised in Doha in 2001 be achieved. On the other hand, the US, European Union (EU) and Japan have called for a “recalibration” of that agenda, one that leaves agriculture largely off the table. India is right to lead the fight for reforms in developed countries’ agricultural policies. Cotton should be at the centre of those reforms. A recent study suggests that US subsidies under the 2014 Farm Bill will continue to suppress global cotton prices. Recognising this threat, Africa’s so-called Cotton 4 (or C-4) – Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Chad – tabled a proposal in October calling on the US and other WTO members to make good on the longstanding commitment to address the cotton issue. India should take the lead on cotton in Nairobi. The C-4 countries need a strong ally now that Brazil has abdicated that role, and India’s cotton farmers stand to lose a devastating US $800 million per year due to US’ price suppression. Cotton, a litmus test Cotton is by now a litmus test for the WTO. In 2002, Brazil filed the US Upland Cotton case in the WTO, with Africa’s C-4 supporting it. The Dispute Settlement Body eventually ruled that US cotton subsidies violated the agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, suppressing global cotton prices by conferring an artificial comparative advantage in international trade that impeded other countries’ cotton exports and reduced revenues from cotton by lowering international prices. The US was then, and still remains, the world’s largest cotton exporter, despite having far higher production costs than other parts of the world. The WTO ruled in 2009 that if the US did not remove its trade-distorting cotton subsidies, Brazil could retaliate with more than US $800 million in countervailing tariffs and trade measures on US products. After bilateral negotiations, Brazil held off on retaliatory measures until the US could reform its cotton programmes under its next Farm Bill revision in 2013. The US government agreed to pay the Brazil Cotton Institute US $147 million per year as compensation for the delay. Based on the reforms to the Farm Bill, which was finalised in 2014, Brazil agreed to settle the cotton dispute, taking a one-time US $300 million payment. The Brazilian government accepted the argument that the elimination of programmes found to violate WTO rules had adequately resolved the price suppression issue. Price suppression despite US reforms According to a recent study by researchers at the University of California , the US Farm Bill has done no such thing. The 2014 legislation, which took effect in the most recent cropping year, makes special provisions on cotton, in part to respond to the WTO ruling. Direct and countercyclical payments were eliminated for all crops, and in cotton, no subsidy remains to compensate producers based directly on low prices. Instead, cotton farmers are eligible for subsidised crop insurance, marketing loans, and a new revenue insurance programme, the Stacked Income Protection Plan (STAX). This new subsidy insures farmers against drops in revenue rather than directly compensating them for low prices. As the US researchers showed, that may well be a distinction without a difference when it comes to price suppression. Using a partial equilibrium economic model, they estimated the impacts over the five-year life of the Farm Bill of removing such cotton subsidies, at a variety of market price scenarios. Using US $.70/lb as their assumed cotton futures price, they estimated that the annual subsidy payments would be US $1.5 billion, more than 40 per cent of the value of production. They projected that elimination of these payments would reduce US land in cotton by 20 per cent and would cut US cotton exports by 29 per cent, offering significant openings to other cotton exporters. Perhaps most importantly, they found that international cotton prices would be seven per cent higher without US cotton subsidies. The cost in lost revenues and markets to other cotton producers in the world would be US $3.3 billion per year, or US $16 billion over the five-year life of the Farm Bill. At higher market prices, the price suppression was found to be even more severe, with annual costs to other producers topping US $6 billion. High stakes for India and Africa The stakes for India and the C-4 couldn’t be higher in Nairobi. Based on their shares in global production, the C-4, as a group, stands to lose US $80 million per year – US $300 million over the life of the Farm Bill – in cotton revenues. With an estimated 10 million low-income producers, this group of world’s least developed countries should not be asked to continue suffering from such trade distortions. More so, 10 years after the US and other WTO members agreed at the Hong Kong ministerial to resolve the cotton issue “ambitiously, specifically and expeditiously”. In Nairobi, the C-4 will no longer have the support of the emerging market and G-20 leader, Brazil, which has increasingly allied with the rich countries in the Doha negotiations. India should become the new champion of Africa’s C-4 on cotton, building on the development cooperation the Indian government has provided to the C-4 in recent years. It would be in India’s economic interests to take up the leadership role. As one of the world’s largest cotton producers and exporters, India stands to lose a staggering US $800 million per year due to US price suppression and market distortions in cotton. That is US $4 billion over the five-year life of the Farm Bill, a price tag that will be borne by India’s six million small-scale cotton farmers, who are already suffering from faltering yields, high debt cycle, and a devastating 30 per cent drop in cotton prices over the last two years. The C-4 has tabled a constructive proposal on cotton. So far, the US has taken a hard line in the run up to Nairobi, ruling out not only negotiations on cotton, but even any mention of past ministerial commitments on the issue. Speaking to the Bridges Trade Weekly , C-4 coordinator, Aya Thiam Diallo from Mali, struck a positive but firm position when asked if the C-4 would file a case in the WTO: “Although we favour negotiations… the C-4 does not exclude any means that could be successful,” he said. India should consider joining such an offensive trade strategy if the US and other developed countries succeed in further derailing the Doha Development Agenda. Even without Doha reforms, the US may well be in breach of its WTO commitments.

Back from the first global conference on money in politics in Mexico City, I’m bursting with stories that might carry messages of possibility that Americans need right now. Sure worked for me. In Spain, with one-fifth of its population jobless, the Indignados movement—that paralleled our Occupy— erupted with protests in 2011. But instead of fading from sight, by early 2014 the Indignados had set the stage for the birth of a new political party: Podemos , “We Can.” In only a few months, Podemos surprised everyone by winning 8 percent of the Spanish vote for the European Parliament, giving it five of 54 Spanish seats. One year later, in coalition with other grassroots movements, Podemos won mayor’s races in Barcelona, Madrid and other cities. Today it is Spain’s third largest political party. “Unprecedented” declared the pundits. The Party’s aim has been to “capture a desire for transparency and participation in politics” stirred by the Indignados movement, Miguel Ongil, 35, Podemos’ point person on finance and transparency explained to me. During the Mexico City conference, I scribbled furiously as he laid out three ways his new party stands against corruption and for social equity. “ Crowdfunding .” Miguel described the Spanish system of public campaign financing in which parties typically take out bank loans to pay their bills that are largely refunded later by the government based on the parties’ showing at the polls. “But when the parties don’t get the expected results, they cannot pay back their debts,” Miguel explained later, so the banks then “get more credits to pay for credits...” In effect, these Spanish banks become “shareholders of political parties,” another conference attendee quipped to Miguel. But not Podemos. It wants no “bank donors” to whom it might feel an obligation, Miguel told conference attendees. His new party relies instead on “microcredit” from citizen supporters who are later repaid with public funds. This is our “innovation,” he wrote to me later: “how to make your way around without state funding or bank credits, and our answer is simple: collaborative finances, crowdfunding and fresh ideas.” “ Radical transparency .” The party publishes all its accounts online in real time, Miguel told his audience which represented several dozen nations. Plus, “we are the only party with three external control mechanisms: the Court of Accounts, a second formal external audit, and citizens’ control.” “Citizens’ control”: What does that mean? I asked. Podemos’ “accounts include so much detail, including the actual tickets, that an external audit wouldn’t really be required,” Miguel wrote later. “Anyone can do it, and they do. One of our publications of accounts had 138,000 views. Newspapers have been trying to nail us. We have so much citizen supervision it becomes a control mechanism in itself.” " Radical equity ." Miguel didn’t use this term but for me it fits: Podemos requires that none of its elected representatives—from the local to the European level—earn more than three times the minimum wage. Any income above this level goes to the Party, where we “spend 50 percent in the Party and 50 percent goes to a fund to which anyone can apply for social projects. The sympathizers of Podemos decide in a 100 percent-participatory mechanism which projects are to be funded. ”Clearly, commitment to participation runs deep in Podemos, and that includes some direct guidance from citizens. Podemos uses, for example, web tools to enable people collectively to develop its key documents, with party “synthesizers” weaving together the final versions. At their height about a thousand Podemos “circles” connected citizens and their party in regular, horizontally-organized, local meetings. Miguel notes that in growing as a party, Podemos is working to find a new balance between in-person and virtual participation, “including electronic mechanisms of direct democracy.” For example, citizens have the “possibility to propose ‘legislative citizen initiatives,’ which require the support of a minimum number of votes or circles. These give circles some weight.” Aligning action with its philosophy, another Podemos touch boils down to postage stamps. The head of the party is long-term activist Pablo Iglesias whose campaign letters were hand delivered to mailboxes, with this explanation: This letter did not reach you by post, because mailing a letter like this all over the country costs over 2 million Euros. Ask the parties who sent you an election letter by post where they got the money to do so and in exchange for what. “We don’t ask for favours from bankers or corrupt [politicians]... If you are reading this it is because someone who lives near you wants to change things for real. Podemos policy positions range from strengthening the public health system to halting evictions over mortgage defaults to promoting clean energy. But, “underlining the entire platform is a proposed change in political culture, bringing transparency and participative democracy to all institutions,” notes what’s called a “ Dummies Guide “ to Podemos—making it as much about how we do politics as about any specific issue. Since it’s the takeover of our democratic process by big money that makes most Americans angry, Podemos is a story from which Americans could take heart. Saying good-bye to Miguel, I sensed his determination and clarity of purpose. I felt fortified to do everything I can to pick up where Occupy left off and to help build a passionate US democracy movement . Now I hear Miguel whispering in my ear: The Indignados “created a new social majority that no party was able to represent.” And now Podemos is determined “to turn that new social majority into a new political majority.” Even three years ago, he could not have foreseen how far Podemos has already come. Hmm. Maybe it’s not possible to know what’s possible. Originally published by Huffington Post on 09/23/2015

Originally published by Al Jazeera on 11/23/2015 On a drizzly April day in Washington, D.C., 60 food workers and labor organizers from across the country gathered in an office building downtown. There was an African immigrant street vendor from New York City; a black apple picker from upstate New York; a white, 20-something former bartender from Cincinnati. There were Latino farmworkers from California’s Central Valley; Walmart workers from Oakland; a food-processing worker from Brooklyn. The diversity of the workers gathered for the fifth annual summit of the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) reflected the diversity of food workers nationwide. The “food movement” is complex and often misunderstood. Read snarky Slate articles and you might be led to believe the movement is a white, elitist phenomenon whose poster child is a Lululemon-wearing, latte-sipping Whole Foods shopper and whose de facto guru is Michael Pollan. In other words: out of touch with working Americans. But the people on the frontlines of the struggle to make healthy, sustainable, local food accessible to all Americans defy this stereotype. At its heart, the movement includes the workers who harvest the peppers, raise the chickens, process the pork, bus the dishes, take the orders, check out the groceries, truck the wares and more. These food workers now have a unified voice through the growing FCWA. Started in 2009 by nine organizations to unite workers across the food sector, the FCWA has since expanded to 25 member groups, representing over 300,000 workers. “What is exciting is seeing all these groups come together to fight for a shared vision,” says Diana Robinson, the FCWA’s campaign and education coordinator. The FCWA is based on the principle that a farmworker picking apples and a clerk stocking shelves at Walmart share many of the same struggles. The 20 million workers in the U.S. food sector are disproportionately poor. Food workers use food stamps at a rate more than 50 percent higher than the average American worker, according to FCWA research, and food workers suffer food insecurity at almost twice the national rate. Workers in this sector, encompassing production, processing, distribution, retail and food service, not only face low wages, but also hardships such as a lack of paid sick days. “In our national survey of food workers,” says FCWA Co-Director Joann Lo, “we found a full four out of five workers who harvest, process, distribute, sell or cook our food don’t have paid sick days or don’t know if they do, which most likely means they don’t.” Building up the power of these workers is what inspired the founders of FCWA. The food industry has long understood the benefits of vertical integration — the wonky term for owning enterprises up and down the supply chain. In the chicken business, for example, vertical integration means control over not just the raising of chickens, but also the production of their feed and the processing needed to get them to market. In 2008, food worker organizers started to have a conversation about what it would look like to have vertical integration in worker power: connections between the formerly disparate elements of worker organizing across the food chain. The FCWA was born a year later. Since then, the group has contributed to big victories, including an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers in New York State and paid sick days for workers in New York City. “One of our biggest victories,” Lo says, “is the leadership role we played in the development and adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Policy in Los Angeles and getting Mayor [Rahm] Emanuel to endorse the policy for Chicago.” The policy in L.A. is translating into over $130 million in annual municipal and school food purchases made with workers and sustainability in mind. At the summit in Washington D.C., the FCWA was coming together to decide on joint campaigns and policy priorities for the coming year, and to join in solidarity rallies, such as a demonstration outside a Walmart store near Union Station. I’d come with a recording team from StoryCorps to capture one-on-one worker conversations for Voices of the Food Chain , an initiative recently launched with the FCWA. Most of these workers were only just meeting each other at the summit, but all of them would come out of the small recording room with big smiles. “I had no idea,” Ruth Faircloth said to me, wiping away her tears, “that our struggle was the same.” Faircloth, a former farmworker from upstate New York who works with the Rural and Migrant Ministry, draped her arm around Velia Perez, a former farmworker and current food processing worker, and said, “This is my sister.” Again and again, I would hear these workers express a sense of connection and an understanding of their shared fate. In these conversations, it was also clear that the workers were coming together not only to secure better wages and conditions for themselves, but also to promote greater sustainability, animal welfare and resilience across the food system for all of us. These workers were as passionate about fighting for humane, local, sustainable food as anyone with a dog-eared copy of “ The Omnivore’s Dilemma ” on their bookshelf. As for the stereotypes of foodies? We hear they don’t care about workers like these; that they care more about the terroir of their turnips or the heritage of their turkey than the workers who harvest their vegetables or slaughter their livestock. But what I have seen on the frontlines of the food movement is a different story: The foodies I know care as deeply about protecting food workers as they do about the provenance of their vegetables or their meat. All across the country, I’ve been hearing a call for better wages and better food — from eaters and from workers. It’s getting harder and harder to write off foodies as uncaring fancy fennel lovers and food workers as only caring about their paycheck. In this we’re-in-it-together spirit, there is real power. Uniting eaters with workers holds enormous potential to shift the food system toward what we all want to see: greater sustainability, animal welfare and better working conditions. Of course, it won’t happen overnight, but I’m thrilled to report the conversation has started.

Originally published by Civil Eats on 11/18/2015 When Eric Schlosser pitched Fast Food Nation to publishers in 1999, they balked. No one would buy a food book that didn’t include recipes, they said. Schlosser eventually found a publisher willing to take the leap and today, 15 years and more than two million copies later, Fast Food Nation has proven that there’s an appetite for powerful investigative reporting about the journey our food takes to get to our plates. Schlosser, who has since published three nonfiction books and has been working on a book about the American prison system for over a decade, remains connected to the food world. He continues to speak on the issue, and just last year he served as an executive producer of the documentaries Food Chains and Hannah Ranch . I spoke with Schlosser recently by phone about food workers and the movement for fairness in the food chain. Tonight, he will join Joann Lo from the Food Chain Workers Alliance and food worker leaders in a conversation as part of the Voices of the Food Chain launch at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California. You’ve spent a lot of your career focused on labor issues. Is there one front where you feel like food workers are winning? Alternately, where are they losing? I got involved with labor issues in the food system in 1994—that was my introduction to America’s industrialized food system. That was when I followed workers through the strawberry harvest in California. It was my interest in labor issues that lead me to write Fast Food Nation a few years later. I’m most encouraged by the victories of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Florida. Because as bad as things were in the strawberry fields of California, what’s been going on in Florida is as bad as anywhere in the United States in terms of the low wages and working conditions, including sexual harassment, and even slavery , in Central Florida. The ability of this one small farmworker organization to force the food corporations of the U.S. to adopt an enforceable code of conduct has been amazing and encouraging to watch. The CIW is incredibly disciplined, sticks to the facts, and is willing to tolerate defeat after defeat in order to eventually gain victory. What I am most discouraged about is the exploitation of meat packing workers. I’ve seen no improvement whatsoever in the years since Fast Food Nation came out: the job is much more dangerous. The crackdown on immigrants in the U.S. has only made it more difficult and has only increased the risks for those immigrant workers who want to speak out and protest those conditions. Why do you think the CIW has been effective in securing victories when other farmworker organizing has not? I think the CIW recognized how the power structure has changed in American agriculture in the last 30 years. In the era of Cesar Chavez, there was effective organizing against the growers, but in the 21st Century, the real power lies with the multinational corporations which are purchasing these commodities. The growers are increasingly trapped and squeezed by this system as well. The thing about a right-to-work state like Florida is that it doesn’t have a great tradition of labor unions; the CIW was in a very difficult position in trying to figure out how to help these poor workers. So instead of creating a union—which has become all the more difficult because of the large proportion of immigrant workers in agriculture and the fear that some of these immigrants have of being deported—the CIW decided to go after those with the greatest power: Burger King, McDonalds, Walmart. They have succeeded in a way that other worker groups and other industries can now emulate. Thirteen years went by between the CIW’s launch of its Campaign for Fair Food and Walmart’s decision to sign on to their Fair Food Program in 2014 . And their code of conduct only protects relatively few farmworkers. What do you say to those who say that was a lot of work for not much change? Well, change has to begin somewhere. Ideally, you’d have the U.S. government on the side of farmworkers simply enforcing the labor laws that exist, increasing the minimum wage, penalizing growers who are engaged in wage theft and companies that are connected to wage theft and minimum wage violations, etc. But in the absence of this, communities are going to have to do it. You can see the triumph of the CIW as a form of community organizing and there’s no reason why communities throughout the U.S. can’t do the same sort of thing. You have said: “One of the problems with our food system … is it’s ultimately based on the exploitation of poor workers, mainly recent immigrants.” How do you respond to people who say paying food workers fair wages will result in food that is priced out of reach for most Americans? Well there are two answers: We’re paying the price for this food anyway, it’s just that the price isn’t reflected at the checkout stand. The cost of having this inequality and poverty in our midst is huge. We’re paying for it—not just in quality of life—but in all kinds of services that state and local governments and the federal government have to provide. So this is a way for the agricultural industry to shift its external costs on to the rest of society. When I did my investigation of the exploitation of farmworkers in the U.S., and did a rough calculation of what it would cost to provide a decent income to every farmworker in the country, I found it would increase the annual food bill of a typical American family by between $35 and $50 a year. So for less than it costs a family of four to go to the movies and buy popcorn, you could eliminate poverty among migrant farmworkers. It’s a solvable problem. How would you define today’s food movement? Where are you seeing the movement flexing its muscle or having an impact? The food movement I’m proud of is a subset of a larger movement for social justice in this country. The food movement that is about status—about finding narrow distinctions between olive oils and one-upping one another with obscure ingredients or the latest trend in restaurants—I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever. I really liked the proposed national food policy Mark Bittman and others put together. I have profound admiration for the success of the CIW. And I have profound admiration as well for Alice Waters and the Edible Schoolyard and the movement to bring nutrition into the classrooms of the U.S. in a way that is tangible and meaningful. There are so many people whose work I really admire. What is missing in our national discussion about food? I think one of the issues that isn’t discussed enough in the context of our food system is racism . I think racism plays a central role in the exploitation of workers throughout the food system. It’s an unpleasant topic, but I think it’s one that we all have to confront to understand why things are as bad as they are at the moment. The greatest outcry about the exploitation of farmworkers in the U.S. occurred during the only decade in the last century in which most of our farmworkers were white. After the publication of The Grapes of Wrath and the powerful photographs of the farmworkers in California in the Great Depression, there was enormous interest in the plight of farmworkers. But that was really an anomaly. For more than a century, the people who have harvested our food have belonged to racial and ethnic minorities. When you look at the United States right now, in meatpacking, in farm labor, increasingly in the restaurant industry, you see people of color—and that’s one of the reasons why this society is abusing and exploiting them. That’s a major issue that we need to address. These are the people who feed us. What do you think of the new, somewhat stricter pesticide exposure regulations the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just passed? The pesticide regulations to protect farmworkers are absolutely essential. One of the main reasons to eat organic is not because there may be some minor pesticide residue on the food that will harm you, but because farmworkers are being poisoned on a monumental scale. There are thousands of injuries each year due to overexposure to pesticides. Having the regulations in place is terrific. What’s even more important is enforcement. So many of the consequences of pesticide exposure aren’t apparent for years afterwards. People shouldn’t be poisoned in order to feed us. Next week is International Food Worker Week. Do you have any suggestions about how readers can help support food workers? The most important thing we can do is increase the minimum wage so it’s a living wage. Restaurant workers, migrant farmworkers will be helped enormously by this and other low-wage workers throughout the economy will as well . All the wages at the bottom will go up if the minimum wage is increased to $12 or $15 an hour. Secondly, educate yourself and, to the degree you can, buy food from companies that are treating workers well. Help boycott companies that are treating workers poorly. The last thing is fight against the demonization of immigrants in this country. Speak out against the demagogues who are trying to get votes by scapegoating some of the poorest and most hard-working people in the United States.

Originally published by AllAfrica on 10/09/2015 In the 2013 WTO Ministerial in Bali, India stood mostly alone as the rich countries tried to isolate the government for its stockholding and food security program. But India is far from alone in recognizing the value of public food reserves as insurance against price volatility, emergency food in the event of shortages, and stocks for anti-poverty programs. In fact, many African countries, including Kenya, Egypt, and Zambia manage such initiatives. They would be deluding themselves to think that the WTO measures taken against India will not be used against them. Most of these countries have exceeded, or are on the verge of exceeding, the de minimis limits set by the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), tripped up by the same loophole that has snagged India. That technicality, which artificially inflates the calculation of subsidy levels, must be resolved in Nairobi along with additional progress on outstanding agricultural issues in the long-running Doha negotiations. To put the Doha Round in perspective, suffice it to say that even if the entire round was concluded to the satisfaction of the developing countries, it would not address any of the issues of food sovereignty that are raised by social movements in the Food and Nutrition Watch 2015, released today at FAO in Rome. It is, thus, from the perspective of social movements, a minimalist package facilitated by the WTO - an agency that they believe does not have the legitimacy to deal with issues of agriculture and food security, and which ultimately seems to favor corporations and profit interests of the most powerful States. U.S.: Divide and Conquer The AoA allows the rich countries to retain their farm subsidies while preventing developing countries, from providing similar level of subsidies to poor and marginal farmers. All attempts by the G-33 countries to push through their proposal on food security at the WTO, by treating public stockholding programs as allowable Green Box subsidies, have been stymied, particularly by the US and the EU. On the other hand, issues like the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) where developed countries stand to benefit the most, continue to be pushed at breakneck speed, pushed aggressively by the WTO Chair, Roberto Azevedo. Tragically, the US manages to have its way at successive WTO ministerials because of the divisive politics it plays. At Bali, it was the Least Developed Countries (LDC) package that was used to divide the developing countries. At Nairobi the tactic that is most likely to be used is to divide developing countries by trying to carve out an entirely different category of "Low Income Developing Countries" (LIDC). The goal is to split them from the "emerging" economies, primarily the BRICS countries, then argue they are now too developed to receive the same special and differentiated treatment (S&DT) mandated for developing countries as a whole. This divide-and-conquer strategy seems to be taking effect, as the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries presented a recent paper at the WTO, which argued precisely for separating off the emerging countries. This plays directly into the US designs for creating divisions at Nairobi. Making the "First African WTO Ministerial" Meaningful The Tenth Ministerial is already being touted as the first "African" Ministerial, raising the stakes for host Kenya to produce an agreement. Failure, of course, is defined as the rich countries not having their way, yet again at the cost of some of the hungriest people on the planet. By all indications, the US and other developed countries are not prepared to offer any concessions in key agriculture negotiations. They are likely to push for an end to the Doha Development Round (DDA) without comprehensively addressing all the issues that were agreed upon as part of the Doha framework. This would enable the developed countries to introduce new issues at the WTO including the so-called Singapore issues such as services, competition policy, and investment, which had been put on the back-burner by member states until the DDA was comprehensively negotiated. They also want to target state-owned enterprises in the developing countries. While Kenya, in its eagerness to host a successful Ministerial could possibly break ranks with the developing countries and call for a premature closure to the Doha round, the implications of doing so for other African countries are serious. Consider just four of these. First, all developing countries would lose the policy space to be able to hold reserve food stocks without being hauled up before the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO for distorting trade. Even under the peace clause that India managed to negotiate at Bali, only existing programs are covered, so no new programs are allowed. As pointed out earlier, many countries in Africa including Morocco, Kenya, Jordan, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tunisia, have either breached the limits that they are allowed to subsidize or are likely to do so. Continuing U.S. Cotton Subsidies Second, U.S. negotiators are offering only minimal concessions to address the long-running issue of its cotton subsidies suppressing prices in international markets, at great cost to other cotton exporters in the world, including Africa's C4 cotton countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Chad). The U.S. and Brazil settled their dispute over the programs, in part because the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill enacted special provisions on cotton. But a recent study estimates that those reforms in no way ended the price suppressing effects of U.S. policies. In fact, researchers estimated the cost to the world's other cotton producers at $3.3 billion per year in the coming years, as U.S. subsidies lower the price of U.S. cotton on international markets. The C4 countries are projected to lose about $80 million per year (Burkina Faso - $33 m; Mali - $26.5 m; Benin - $16.5 m; Chad - $3.3 m). India's losses are projected at more than $800 million per year. Third, the biggest concern of developing countries in seeking to reduce U.S. domestic support is to end unfair competition and eliminate the dumping of agricultural commodities on developing countries. The recent years of relatively high prices have given the world a reprieve from such cases, but there is evidence that we may be entering a new era of low crop prices and renewed dumping unless stronger domestic support caps are agreed in Nairobi. The United States is already exporting maize at prices below the costs of production, in part thanks to a projected $6 billion in subsidies to U.S. maize producers. Finally, U.S. negotiators are trying to undermine provisions that facilitate access to life-saving medicines. They are proposing to terminate the existing moratorium on applying what are called "non-violation compliants" (NVCs) in the TRIPS agreement. Such a termination, which serves the interests of multinational drug firms, would make developing countries subject to trade disputes as and when they want to implement such public health measures. Developing countries have tabled an alternate proposal asking for NVC complaints to be made inapplicable to the TRIPS agreement. On all counts, poor countries have much to lose in Nairobi if the US and other developed countries, backed by the WTO Secretariat, have their way at the Ministerial meeting. This is not the time for African negotiators to accept the tacit abandonment of the development mandate embodied in the Doha Declaration.

Drawn from World Hunger: 10 Myths, by Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins. Being “free” sounds great—like being free to eat or to have a job at a living wage; so surely a “free market” is the way to ensure these important human freedoms. Right? Unfortunately, what we call a free market can’t protect essential freedoms because it’s trapped in six enduring fictions. So let’s free ourselves, one fiction at a time. One: A “free market” works best to meet human needs. If by “free market” we mean one unbounded by rules, it does not exist. All market economies are governed by rules. In ours, no one is allowed to sell babies, trade with terrorists, or sell liquor across the street from your kid’s school. While market rules are plentiful, one key, unspoken rule drives most economies today: Do what brings highest return to existing wealth—what garners the corporations’ executives and shareholders the greatest immediate gain. By this rule, wealth accrues to wealth until we end up in the United States with inequality more extreme than in Turkey or India; and in a world with two-thirds of adults trying to survive on 3 percent of global wealth. In such a world, no matter how much food we grow, hunger is inevitable. Two: Government necessarily impedes a vital market. In truth, a market economy cannot thrive without government. Think of the essentials to economic success that government provides, from legal structure to infrastructure. As for government being bad for business, this can hardly be true if in economies ranking among the world’s most successful, government spending contributes a big part of the GDP. Take three of the five countries deemed most economically “competitive” by the business-oriented World Economic Forum: Switzerland, Finland, and Germany. In each, government spending accounts for about a third to more than half of the country’s GDP. And in the United States, which ranks fifth in global competitiveness, make that 40 percent . A lot of government spending directly benefits an economy. Take Brazil. Each month, the government transfers a modest sum to poor women, if they keep their kids vaccinated and in school, directly addressing hunger. Every dollar spent on the program generates almost twice that amount in economic activity. Three: A free market serves individual freedom. In the 1980s, at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to debate perhaps America’s most celebrated “free market” champion, the late Milton Friedman, coauthor of Free to Choose . He claimed that the market serves freedom by enabling people to make choices based on their values. I then pointed to the obvious. If true, the market serves human freedom only on one condition : that people have purchasing power to express their values in the market. Thus freedom, using Friedman’s own definition, actually expands as societies set rules ensuring that wealth is widely and fairly spread. By the same logic, a market operating without rules to prevent wealth from amassing at the very top denies most individuals’ “freedom to choose.” And, in many societies that includes the freedom to choose to eat. Four: A free market gives us all the choices we need. Before we celebrate too much, let’s consider some choices our market economy denies, illustrated in a metaphor borrowed from political philosopher Benjamin Barber: In our market economy, we get to join a giant cafeteria line with plentiful dishes where— if we have the money—we can grab whatever appears appetizing. Great choices! But notice what we don’t get to choose. We cannot enter the kitchen and select the menu. For example, we don’t get to say, “No, it’s not more choices among processed foods that I want. I want more plentiful, and less expensive, fresh fruits and vegetables.” True, our supermarkets typically carry thirty thousand items. Wow. But without “menu making” power via democratic government providing citizens a voice in public decisions, my choices—including those protecting my family’s health as well as healthy soil and water—are extremely limited. Five: A free market maximizes a nation’s efficiency. Few would call it efficient to put up new walls using stones plucked from the foundation, yet our farming practices result in almost two billion tons of topsoil being washed or blown away from U.S. cropland each year. Here and in too many other ways, our food economy is destroying the essentials our progeny will need tomorrow. Or ponder the extreme inefficiency of a world food economy in which only 3 percent of the calories in feed going to cattle end up returning to consumers in beef. If we define efficiency as getting the most benefit from resources, human and natural, while ensuring their ongoing health, most modern-day economies are not “efficient.” Six: The market is “value neutral.” In the United States we say we value “democracy” and “life.” Yet, we leave access to food largely to a person’s capacity to buy food in a market that drives purchasing power into ever fewer hands. Thus 48 million Americans, lacking in purchasing power, live in households facing food insecurity. But wait! Democracy means a voice for every citizen, and no one chooses uncertainty about where her or his next meal is coming from. Logically then, hunger and food insecurity belie democracy as a core value of our society. In America we also say we value “life,” but we then tolerate a market with wages so low that poverty is implicated in a death rate of US babies more than twice that of several Western European countries. A society’s market is an unmistakable expression of its values. So here we are, trapped in six dangerous fictions creating a highly un free market, one that leaves many of us denied freedom, the freedom to realize our full potential on a healthy planet. They blind us from understanding that a well-functioning market—one able to end hunger—is impossible without democratic government. Ironically, the market-is-all-we-need dogma ends up destroying the very conditions necessary to realize the market’s prized strengths—openness, competition, and transparency. In large part as a consequence of this dogma, now spreading far and wide, one-quarter of humanity now suffers nutritional deprivation in world of vast food abundance. This is what I mean by “dangerous” fictions—ideas that are literally killing us that we can crack open and leave behind. Originally published by Huffington Post on 11/03/2015

World leaders in Paris are in the midst of critical climate negotiations toward the first enforceable agreement in two decades. We hope that two giant questions—too often missed or downplayed—will be a focus: Can our food system—now speeding climate change while leaving a quarter of humanity suffering nutritional deprivation—reverse course? Instead of a climate curse, can our food system become part of the climate cure, while at the same time producing nutritious food that’s accessible to the world’s poorest people? Big changes! But evidence of their possibility mounts. First, however, the big obstacles. Our industrializing food system—from land to landfill—has become a big climate troublemaker, estimated to account for up to 29 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Most startling, these emissions are growing so fast that, if they continue at current rates, in thirty-five years those from our food system alone could nearly reach the safe target set for all greenhouse gas emissions. To get a fix on how big the problem is, take in these fast facts: Agriculture alone contributes nearly a fifth of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions; and industrial agriculture (that using manufactured inputs) releases two to three times more carbon dioxide per unit of land than does organic farming. Since the industrial era began, humans have removed a third of the Earth’s carbon-absorbing forest cover largely to grow crops, a shift that can reduce soil carbon per unit of land by more than 40 percent . That’s an area roughly the size of South America. Increasingly, that land is growing feed or fuel, not the basic foods of the planet’s poor majorities. Soils treated with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers hold about 30 percent less organic carbon compared to organically managed soils. The current model of industrial agriculture—only about 70 years old—has already proven to be a dead end. But, by adopting ecological practices, farming would emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions and store more carbon. And now to my second question—food accessibility for those who most need it? Ecological practices free farmers from expensive corporate-controlled inputs, so they especially benefit small-scale farmers and farmworkers, who also are the majority of hungry people . Some of these beneficial practices are: Composting—returning to the soil decaying organic material from plant and animal wastes. Just one ton of organic material can result in storing almost 600 pounds of carbon dioxide. Agroforestry —integrating trees on farms. It improves crop productivity and yields additional food and fodder from the trees . Globally, says the World Bank , among a range of ecological farming practices, “agroforestry by far has the highest sequestration potentials.” One study found that this approach in the EU, combined with other ecological farming practices, has the technical potential to sequester GHGs equivalent to 37 percent of its 2007 emissions. Biochar —a form of charcoal generated by controlled smoldering of organic material, including waste, such as common weeds. Its efficacy varies widely, but biochar can increase the soil’s capacity to store carbon and enhance crop yields. Its estimated long-term carbon-sequestering capacity is huge . Holistic livestock management —careful movement of herds to prevent overgrazing avoids carbon loss from bare soils. In Namibia , herders shifting to this method reduced soil degradation, improved soil-surface cover, and conserved water, concludes a report co-sponsored by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Planting multiple types of crops in the same field is another climate-saving farming practice . Together, and combined with afforestation and other earth-healing practices, these approaches could potentially sequester carbon equal to a fifth of global carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions annually, reports a leading world authority, Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University. Lal describes this big-picture possibility not just as technically feasible but as “attainable.” Farmers helping to meet the climate challenge are also those addressing the roots of hunger. In the West African country of Niger, small farmers have nurtured the regrowth of 200 million trees on 12.5 million acres, securing the food supply for 2.5 million people. Most of us don’t think “trees” when we think of food and hunger. But Trees help conquer hunger as they reduce soil loss, retain soil water content, and often provide fruit, nuts, and fodder. In China, where many see only unmitigated ecological disaster, the government has worked with poor farmers on its north-central Loess Plateau to transform“moonscape”-like erosion in an area two-thirds the size of Massachusetts. In an area known for widespread hunger, small farmers limited destructive grazing, built wider terraces, and planted new fruit trees. Not only did the orchards flourish and crop yields increase by 60 percent, but incomes also more than doubled, all improving diets and spurring new schools, roads, and local enterprises. In Rwanda, since independence in 1962 almost two-thirds of its forests have been wiped out. But visiting China’s Loess Project, Rwandan forestry officials were inspired. Rwanda has since committed to increasing its current forested area 50 percent by 2020. The country connects its fight to conquer hunger and poverty with its goal of reversing completely the degradation of the country’s soil, water, land, and forest resources by 2035. In southern India, the state of Kerala, home to thirty million people, in 2010 officially declaredthe goal of becoming 100 percent organic within ten years. By 2013, fifteen thousand farmers were in the process of securing organic certification. Elsewhere in southern India, 5,000 women of the Deccan Development Society have created food security in 75 villages. Overall, in two southern India states, two million farmers are moving toward ecological practices. These farmers—and others like them around the world—are both our real climate heroes as well as hunger-conquerors. May global climate talks embrace the immense contributions toward solutions to be found in remaking our food system. The result could be the inseparable advancement of food security, ecological health, and climate mitigation. Originally published by Huffington Post on 12/02/15