Food Sovereignty and the Roots of Migration

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For Occupiers interested in the important topic of food security:

Food Sovereignty and the Roots of Migration: Defending Corn and Culture in Oaxaca

Featured Speaker: Eleazar Garcia, a sustainable agricultural expert from CEDICAM (Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca)

Eleazar Garcia will be discussing the devastating impacts of the North America Free Trade Agreement on the Mexican countryside including abandonment of traditional sustainable ways of life practiced by small farmers and the boom of migration to the United States.

Monday November 14, 2011 at 7:00pm

In Room 106 of the Gallagher Business Building on the U of M campus

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For anyone interested in the broad strokes of the "Food Sovereignty and the Roots of Migration: Defending Corn and Culture in Oaxaca" presentation:

Eleazar Garcia said that in his experience the 2 biggest threats he and his country/community/the global South face are: Monsanto et al and their chemically induced GMO/transgenic crops, and the potential for continued subjugation of the people by the government via capitalist "arrangements" such as NAFTA.

Communities reeling from the effects of NAFTA, such as Garcia's homeland in Oaxaca Mexico, are actively reclaiming their subsistence way of life by coming together to re-learn traditional ways of land cultivation and learning and incorporating new planet benefiting techniques such as natural composting and worm composting techniques. Garcia also said Oaxaca's people are learning and implementing new methods of rain water collection to nourish crops in dry times and irrigation techniques which help to prevent further erosion of the countryside. Erosion is a serious problem in the Oaxaca region of Mexico as it is many areas of the world.

Fun fact I learned:

Oaxaca has over 50 different types of corn cultivated in its region!

Let's help make sure that percious genetic diversity stays in the hands and gardens of the Oaxaca's people and out of the biotech labs and patent controls of evil corporations like Monsanto!!