Resistance is fertile
Action day global agriculture 3 rd of June in Rostock
Every year, 30 million people all over the world die from starvation or malnutrition. Diverse processes like the forced opening of markets, price dictation by supermarket chains, or the export subsidies for food production systematically destroy the existences of numerous small farmers, especially in poor countries. Monocultures and factory farming have catastrophic consequences for natural resources like the soil, water, or biodiversity. Also, the quality of food suffers significantly. Multinational corporations from the North like Monsanto and Bayer are taking over the genetic resources of the South by using 'intellectual property rights' and try in this way to gain control of food production. But in the industrialised countries, there are ruinous price pressures and massive concentration processes in agriculture also. Contrary to the rhetoric of fighting poverty and hunger that accompanies every G8-summit, the rich, industrialised countries are pursuing destructive, extremely neoliberal agricultural and fishing policies that lead to more displacement, hunger, and rapidly growing inequality. The profits of these policies go mainly to multinational companies and large commercial farmers. All over the globe, small farmers, farm workers, and the landless are organising themselves in order to struggle for their interests against large land owners, corporations, governments, and international institutions. They occupy land, fight against the privatisation of water, burn down GMO-fields, and create cooperatives and projects to protect their traditional seeds. They fight for their food sovereignty- the right to decide themselves about their agriculture and nutrition. In solidarity with this global resistance and because food and agriculture are a basis of life for everyone, we are taking our protest to the G8-summit in Heiligendamm.
The action day on the 3 rd of June wants to invite as many people as possible to be part of the diverse forms of action. It begins with a protest march with tractors and large puppets through the inner city of Rostock and ends with an event at the 'Agro-Bio-Technikum,' which operates the GMO trial fields in Gross Luesewitz, 15 kilometres east of Rostock. There will be a rally passing through several information and action points. Representatives of small farmer associations, farm worker organisations, and GMO-critical networks from North and South will be participating (Via Campesina, Conféderation Paysanne, and others).
Info and contact: Aktionsnetzwerk G8 und Globale Landwirtschaft, www.g8-landwirtschaft.net
