ración Darigold con sus productos lácteos.

Despite actions from the UFW, Darigold continues to turn a blind eye to the abuses being suffered by the workers who labor to produce their milk and their profits. Therefore, we call on all people to join with the UFW and Decolonize/Occupy Seattle to demand justice. We will meet at Westlake at 2pm and march to rally at the Darigold Headquarters at 3 pm.

You can make “Darigreed” listen to workers.

Sign the petition TODAY!

Dairy workers at the Ruby Ridge dairy, which provides milk for the Darigold label are going through hell and need your help. More than a third of them have been fired after they dared asked to have a union. They’re suing the dairy for wage and hour violations and even assault. According to workers, the dairy owner, supported by multi-million dollar loan from a major lender, carries a rifle in his truck and has threatened workers.

According to former employee Miguel Cuevas,  the owner told Cuevas, “This rifle is for those people with the union.” While most farm workers aren’t in the urban occupy actions, the fight they are in is the same fight against corporate greed that has led to the occupy movement. They are part of the 99%.

Workers and UFW supporters have repeatedly tried to appeal to Darigold about the reported abuses workers who labor to produce their product face, but Darigold remains silent. At the most recent delegation, Darigold greeted folks with security guards instead of coming out to talk.

Worker Rafael Munoz shared this thought: “By not showing their face, they are showing us that they support the mistreatment of workers. We need the support now of the consumer so that our struggle will become even bigger. The more time that passes, the bigger this will become.”

Help make this bigger. UFW has launched a petition drive. Please add your name to it: http://action.ufw.org/page/s/dgpetition. UFW will present the signatures to Darigold shortly after Thanksgiving

Why Darigold?

Ruby Ridge is part of the Darigold cooperative, a large dairy processing company headquartered in Seattle, WA. The milk the dairy produces is marketed under the Darigold brand.
http://consumer.darigold.com/locations.html

Darigold products include milk, butter, and yogurt. You can see where Darigold products are sold by visiting their website by clicking here.

Campaign Background

Ruby Ridge is a large dairy located in Eastern Washington. An overwhelming majority of workers employed at the dairy signed union authorization cards asking the UFW to represent them. Workers complained about not being allowed to take breaks, eat lunch, and having to drink water out of a hose used to wash cow manure off the dairy floor. They tell us they continue to not to have any benefits above and beyond an hourly wage. They report that owner Dick Bengen has often carried a rifle with him on his large dairy farm that he uses to scare the workers into line. Mr. Bengen made a point of explaining the special purpose of this rifle to worker Miguel Cuevas, when he told him, “This rifle is for those people with the union.”

When the UFW approached Ruby Ridge owners Dick and Ruby Bengen, their good faith offer was flatly rejected. Workers inform us that it was then the Bengens unleashed their retaliatory campaign against workers, firing over a dozen suspected union activists. With the support of the UFW, a number of those workers have filed suit against Ruby Ridge.

Ruby Ridge subsequently filed a SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against both Ruby Ridge workers and the UFW in a blatant attempt to silence workers.

The food and farm bill is moving at such a rapid pace presently, so take action before it’s too late. If the Agriculture Committee fulfills their goal of completing detailed food and farm bill legislation in the next week, you only have a few days left to make your voice heard.

Speak out and oppose any farm bill deal that makes big cuts to conservation and nutrition programs, fails to restore funding for local food and beginning farmer programs, or keeps subsidizing commodity production without strict per farm limits.

WA contacts listed below
Sen. Patty Murray (especially important — she’s co-chair of the super-committee which is holding the purse strings).
Phone:(202) 224-2621 Email

Sen. Maria Cantwell
Phone:(202) 224-3441 Email

Rep. Jay Inslee
District: WA01 Phone:(202) 225-6311 Email

Rep. Jim McDermott
District: WA07 Phone:(202) 225-3106 Email

You can also take action with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition!

SAT Oct 22
10am – 1:30pm
Celebrating Food Day

Founded in 2009 by long-time organizer Dean Jackson, Hilltop Urban Gardens is a community-based urban agriculture and social justice organization. HUG partners with the community to grow healthy food, young people and neighbors. We seek to inspire our community to live with abundance while understanding and undermining the root causes of economic poverty & wealth accumulation and systems of oppression. We believe growing our own food independence is an important strategy in this process. We see food as a basic human right. Everyone deserves access and the ability to produce and distribute fresh, affordable, healthy, clean, sustainable, safe, and culturally appropriate food. We call this FOOD JUSTICE.
Learn more about HUG! www.hilltopurbangardens.com

**Please note, space is limited, so RSVP’s are required. To sign up email Chris at fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org. We will send you directions and details upon receiving your RSVP, as well as information about what to wear and bring. We will be carpooling. All activities will be appropriate for children and we can work out disability accommodations if needed.

TUES AUG 16, 6:30-9PM
Location: 23rd Ave S and Jackson St, 309 23rd Ave S 98144, the NELA Center for Student Success

Teach-Out with Clean Greens Farm!
SAT Aug 20, 10 – 3pm

Join CAGJ for our August Teach-Out at Clean Greens Farm, who has a big need for volunteers right now, so we are returning to this favorite spot!  **Please note, space is limited, so RSVP’s are required. To sign up email Sara at fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org. We will send you directions and details upon receiving your RSVP, as well as information about what to wear and bring. We will be carpooling; please let us know if you can drive, and if so how many people you can bring.  All activities will be appropriate for children and we can work out disability accommodations if needed.

The Black Dollar Days Task Force developed Clean Greens Farm in response to the under-representation of African Americans among the ranks of those farming in Washington, as well as the lack of foods relevant to the African American as well as African immigrant food cultures locally. Operating on 22 acres, Clean Greens produces chemical-free, organic food in Duvall, WA for inner city residents.
(read more…)

Food Justice Project Meeting: Confronting Racism in the Food System and Food Movement

TUES AUG 16, 6:30-9PM
Location: 23rd Ave S and Jackson St, 309 23rd Ave S 98144, the NELA Center for Student Success

Teach-Out with Clean Greens Farm!
SAT Aug 20, 10 – 3pm

Join CAGJ for our August Teach-Out at Clean Greens Farm, who has a big need for volunteers right now, so we are returning to this favorite spot!  **Please note, space is limited, so RSVP’s are required. To sign up email Sara at fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org. We will send you directions and details upon receiving your RSVP, as well as information about what to wear and bring. We will be carpooling; please let us know if you can drive, and if so how many people you can bring.  All activities will be appropriate for children and we can work out disability accommodations if needed.

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Come learn and share what you know about food politics – and see how you stack up against fellow players.

How many chickens can you keep in Seattle? What’s a “brassica”? What food products in the Farm Bill receive the most subsidies? What Brazilian movement has reclaimed unused land in for small-scale farmers? Come find out answers to these questions, and much more!

Play for CAGJ swag and prizes!

Trivia Night is a fundraiser for the second edition of “Our Food, Our Right”, and will be hosted by the fabulous Hopvine Pub – Seattle’s Neighborhood Pub on Capitol Hill, 507 15th Avenue East.

Email us if you can help organize, or with any questions! fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org

Overall, it was a great experience and it certainly felt like a “food movement” focused on justice, equity, and sovereignty was growing, along with the pains that accompany such growth.  The opening plenary was phenomenal, with Jaron Browne from POWER San Francisco, Saru Jayaraman, from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, Rodrigo Rodriguez from South West Organizing Project and Feed The Hood, and Kolu Zigbi of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation. They all brought stories of amazing organizing going on around food in varying locales and communities, recognizing the connections, and inspiring us to move forward to change the way our food system operates so everyone can participate and live well.  

The plenary, focusing on organizing and stories of change led by people of color, also highlighted the issues of representation, diversity, and racism in the politics of food that would become a common theme throughout the weekend.  Multiple workshops and sessions focused on issues of race and inclusive organizing – from diversifying your Food Policy Council to organizing models that are empowering, inclusive, and engaging to all people.  Problems of representation and engagement in food policy, especially in the realm of councils, seemed to confront most communities (many of who, like our Puget Sound Regional Food Policy Council, are in their first 6 months of existence).  Models to engage more voices in the Food Policy Councils, as well as those that stress community organizing alongside the Council process, are starting to evolve and we were excited to hear all about so many of them and make connections with organizers in other cities and towns!

The CFSC is still in the process of determining how to move forward with organizing for change to the Farm Bill, and it’s exciting to see how the Coalition can come together to confront a bill representing so many powerful interests.  There were attempts to gauge and take direction from conference attendees for CFSC’s Farm Bill priorities, yet many participants also seemed to be waiting on CFSC for that direction, being new to the politics of the Farm Bill (and what it means for local food, access, justice, sustainability, and so much more) and therefore not feeling ready to set priorities one way or another.  This really highlighted the importance of education and activism around the Farm Bill, which CAGJ, the Food Justice Project, and the NW Farm Bill Action Group have been central to organizing around in our region, and the Seattle Farm Bill Principles being a good first step towards tackling this huge issue.

One plenary speaker in particular ignited the audience and hit home the need for connecting struggles in the “food movement”: Saru Jayaraman, from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said she often felt like she was making a stretch in connecting food and restaurant workers’ rights to local and community food access issues.  But no longer:  “If workers’ rights aren’t a local food issue, then I don’t know what is”, said Jayaraman.  As CAGJ continues to educate and agitate across communities to build a movement for food sovereignty, we can take inspiration from that revelation and take note of the critical role CAGJ needs to play in order to make those kinds of connections.  As one of the only globally-focused organizations, we tried our best to bring to the conversation the problems of multi-national corporate power, trade agreements, global ramifications of US food policy, and the struggles of small-scale farmers, the food insecure, and others worldwide.

Paul K. Haeder / Down to Earth NW Correspondent

For Janae Choquette, it’s a no-brainer to support small-scale agriculture because solutions are local-based and then set into motion through local experts.

She’s co-chair of AGRA Watch, a program organized by Seattle’s Community Alliance for Global Justice, which is monitoring and trying to grow public support for using smaller-scale, sustainable farmers in the Alliance for a Green Revolution instead of larger multinational corporations.

The 22-year-old has pitted herself and AGRA Watch against the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Monsanto, which are both promoting the very noble concept of bettering the world’s food supply.

Choquette recently shared why she’s involved in this effort and why different ways should be found to get smaller farmers involved.

Not many 22-year-olds want to work part-time for no or little pay to focus on social and environmental justice. Any advice for teens interested in this path?

Organizing has shown me that people are powerful when they come together, and being an organizer has helped me find my own power to effect change. Here, I’m surrounded by community, something that’s been eroded in our society, which supports me in my growth and evolution as a human. I am constantly developing skills and gaining new understandings from the inspiring people around me. By dedicating myself to the liberation of all peoples and living things, I am accountable to my privilege as a direct beneficiary of many forms of systemic oppression.

Give an ‘elevator speech’ about AGRA Watch.

The Gates Foundation’s Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, or AGRA, is a package of “solutions” to hunger, poverty, and climate change being imposed on the African continent by outsiders with almost no public knowledge or participation. Besides the fact that this is undemocratic, these solutions more likely will make things worse. For example, the industrial model of agricultural development promoted by AGRA, while profitable for transnational corporations, has failed farmers, consumers, and the environment here in the U.S.

What do you see yourself doing with regards to social justice in the next 10 -15 years?

I see all of the crises we face as being inter-connected and rooted in a systemic crisis of capitalism, so it’s hard to focus on any one facet. While I’m concentrating on food right now, in the past my organizing targeted U.S. militarism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine. No matter what my specific focus, it’s important to continue making connections between seemingly disparate issues and to position anti-oppression at the heart of my work.

Social justice colleagues in other countries put their necks on the line, and fight in the streets, or at least protest and are ready to be jailed. Why can’t we see this here with youth and others?

In many ways, the stakes are much higher for other regions, where resisting the continued colonization and exploitation of their lands and peoples is a matter of life and death.

In the U.S., though our “development” has come at the expense of the rest of the world and marginalized communities in our own country, we have been able to largely distance ourselves from the violence of neoliberal globalization. It doesn’t help that we don’t have a mainstream culture of dissent to begin with, or that our anger is often manipulated and misdirected (i.e. anger over the recent economic crisis being funneled into racism, Islamophobia, and anti-immigrant sentiment).

The ‘message’ is being silenced, and controlled by fewer mainstream and corporate ideologues. Is that a place AGRA Watch needs to finesse?

Beyond corporate control of the media, the growing power of industry to define academic and scientific research agendas and bury results they dislike, as in genetic engineering, is alarming. We are paying attention to the Gates Foundation’s heavy funding of media in recent years, from U.C. Berkeley’s journalism program to the Guardian and ABC. While AGRA Watch tries to access mainstream media coverage, we are aware of the limitations, and emphasize grassroots, creative avenues of outreach in our campaign and shifting public discourse.

What makes you cynical? Hopeful?

We’ve reached a crossroads in human history. The global economic crisis is being compounded by a looming environmental crisis of unfathomable magnitude, and capitalism is beginning to collapse under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Though some might not agree with my analysis, I think very few people would dispute that change is going to happen.

What makes me cynical is that the dominant system and ideology that brought us to this point of crisis is so deeply entrenched at every level. Our minds are thoroughly colonized, and shifting public consciousness is generally a gradual process. At the same time, the imminent threat of widespread ecological devastation we face as a species makes slow change utterly inadequate, and I’m afraid we won’t act fast enough to avert catastrophe or at least be poised to rise from the ashes.

Yet as foreclosures forge brutally ahead, unemployment rises, and food banks struggle to meet skyrocketing demand, many in the U.S. have been shaken by our current situation, by failures of a system they trusted, and are looking for different answers.

Whether we can effectively provide these is another question, especially as fear is cultivated to keep people divided, but I believe love is stronger than fear, and that the vast majority of people are united by a common interest in transforming systems that fail to meet our most basic physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is a powerful basis for building a movement toward a better world for all, if only we can tap it.

“The Color of Food report is a  broad survey of the food system, to map out the race, gender and class of workers along the supply chain.

The Applied Research Center recently embarked on a broad survey of the food system, to map out the race, gender and class of workers along the supply chain. Our findings, detailed in the new report “The Color of Food,” were sadly not surprising. Download report here.

• People of color typically make less than whites working in the food chain. Half of white food workers earn $25,024 a year, while workers of color make $5,675 less than that. This wage gap plays out in all four sectors of the food system, with largest income divides occurring in the food processing and distribution sectors. Women working in the food chain draw further penalties in wages, especially women of color. For every dollar a white male worker earns, women of color earn almost half of that.
• Few people of color hold management positions in the food system. Whites dominate high-wage professional and management occupations; three out of every four managers in the food system are white. Almost half of white men working in the food chain were employed as managers, while less than 10 percent of workers of color held comparable positions.
• People of color are concentrated in low-wage jobs in the food chain. According to the 2008 Census, people of color make up 34.6 percent of the population (that percentage is expected to rise as 2010 Census data becomes available). But workers of color are represented at a level almost one and a half times that in sectors of the food chain. For instance, 50 percent of food production workers are people of color. This includes farm workers, 65 percent of whom are Latino.”