Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food Systems

Eric Holt-Gimenez and Rosalinda Guilen

Village Books Literature Live, co-sponsored by Community to Community Development (C2C) and Community Food Co-op.

In communities around the world the power of the people is at work regaining control of our ailing food systems. According to the latest book from Food First, the global food movement is diverse, widespread, refreshingly creative and tremendously powerful. Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food Systems brings us the words, insights and vision of the remarkable farmers, workers and consumers from rural and urban communities around the globe as they address the critical question: How can we unite to transform the global food system?

The 21 activists and practitioners contributing to this work write "from the trenches" of the food, fuel and environmental crises have much to say about our food future and the potential of this unprecedented "movement of movements." From the writings of Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved and Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, to João Pedro Stédile of the Brazilian Landless Worke'’s Movement, this insightful book is a window into the thinking and actions of the people committed to bringing us affordable, healthy food in ways that harm neither the planet nor its people.

Eric Holt-Giménez is the executive director of FoodFirst/Institute for Food and Development Policy. Eric is the editor of the 2011 Food First book, Food Movements Unite! Strategies to transform our food systems, the author of the 2009 Food First Book Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice. His earlier book, Campesino a Campesino:

Voices from Latin America’s Farmer to Farmer Movement for Sustainable Agriculture chronicles the development of this movement in Mexico and Central America over two and a half decades. Eric worked with farmers, participated in their farmer-to-farmer trainings, and recorded their triumphs with his camera and pen. This engaging book is the product of that longitudinal participatory research.

Rosalinda Guillén, is a widely recognized farm worker and rural justice leader. She has worked within the US labor movement with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers of America (UFW) and represented farm workers at the Local, State, National and International levels as an elected National Vice President of the Union. She was the UFW’s lead Legislative and political officer for four years leading campaign efforts from Sacramento, CA. Rosalinda brings the voice of farm workers in ongoing dialogues on immigration issues, labor rights, trade agreements and strengthening cross border alliances to build a broader base of support for a just and sustainable immigration law reform and sustainable agricultural policies that ensure equity and healthy communities for farm workers and immigrant families. She is a Board Member of the Bellingham Community Food Co-op, Food First and the Institute for Washington’s Future. Rosalinda works on food justice and farm worker issues in Whatcom County as the Executive Director of Community to Community Development (C2C). A Bellingham based women-led grassroots organization working for a just society and healthy communities. C2C is a leading organization in the US Food Sovereignty Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Agricultural Justice Project and the National Domestic Fair Trade Alliance. For more information about C2C, visit their website at www.foodjustice.org.