A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.

Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

The post The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis appeared first on Real Food Media.

For decades, data on pesticide exposure has been vague and non-existent. Anna Lappé talks to the researchers who have put hard numbers to unintentional pesticide poisonings and fatalities globally.

Last December, four researchers from Germany, Malaysia, and the United States published the results of a systematic review estimating the number of unintentional pesticide poisonings and fatalities globally. The conclusion was startling: An estimated 44 percent of farmers, farmworkers, and pesticide applicators experience at least one incident of acute pesticide poisoning on the job every year, and 11,000 die annually from accidental pesticide poisoning.

We’ve been hearing more and more about the impact of pesticides on insects, other wildlife, and ecosystems, but this research puts a magnifying glass on another huge concern about the explosive use of pesticides around the world: their impact on people.

When I learned about this study, I thought: finally. For years, I had been tracking the global estimates for pesticide poisonings and fatalities. Over this time, I had noticed something strange—the numbers I saw reported in various outlets had stayed the same, about 1 million pesticide poisonings and about 200,000 fatalities, annually. The fatality figure made headlines most recently in 2017 when the United Nations released a report on pesticides and human rights, and one article after another repeated the figure like it was breaking news: “U.N. report estimates pesticides kill 200,000 people per year,” read one headline.

But dig behind these headlines and you would find these numbers were old—really old. The poisoning and fatality estimates that we’d been hearing for years actually came from a 1990 World Health Organization (WHO) report. In other words, we have not had solid global data on how many people are getting sick and dying every year from pesticide exposure for decades—and even that 1990 figure was more back-of-the-napkin math than systematic review.

This new study—based on a review of more than 170 studies from 140 countries—finally provides up-to-date estimates for occupational pesticide poisoning incidents and unintentional fatalities. The conclusions should alarm us all and kick policy makers into gear on long-standing commitments to crack down on the world’s most toxic pesticides, like the insecticide chlorpyrifos still widely used even though it’s a known brain-damaging chemical with no safe level of exposure for children.

I had a chance to dive into the study with two of its authors, Wolfgang Boedeker, an epidemiologist and board member of Pesticide Action Network-Germany, and Emily Marquez, a staff scientist with the Pesticide Action Network-North America. Boedeker shared what this study reveals about how widespread pesticide poisonings are and Marquez helped highlight what can do about it, particularly in the United States.

Let’s start with a definition: systematic. Your paper looks at unintentional acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP). What qualifies as a UAPP?

Boedeker: WHO defines acute pesticide poisoning as when one or more symptoms—such as headaches or dizziness, developing a rash, or feeling dizzy or nauseous—have been reported by workers or farmers within 48 hours of contact with these chemicals. In most cases, these poisonings are experienced as unspecific symptoms after you’ve used pesticides in your field. They may show up a couple of hours after applying pesticides, then be gone again.

What you found about the prevalence of UAPPs was shocking: You estimate that 44 percent of all farmers are poisoned by pesticides every year. But what about the person who may ask, “So what? A farmer feels a little sick in their field, why should we care about these illnesses—and not just mortality?”

Boedeker: If you get intoxicated by pesticide poisoning, you get sick, you often can’t work, you lose income. And, every acute exposure can lead to long-term, chronic disease. Acute intoxication is an unacceptable sign of an exposure to dangerous chemicals. We have to take it very seriously. This is one of the key messages in this paper: not just to look to the fatal intoxication, but enlarge our perspective to the non-fatal intoxication because these poisonings are an expression of dangerous exposure to chemicals.

Many of these acute exposures can lead to chronic illnesses, like cancer. We didn’t include an investigation into that literature because it would have made this study much more complicated, but we need a systematic review on the chronic effects of pesticides, too. And while in this study, we didn’t include the public health effects of the uptake of pesticides via food either, we know there are residues in food and drinking water—and that’s another important issue that needs systematic review. systematic

You estimate 11,000 fatalities every year from unanticipated pesticide poisonings, a much lower figure than the previous one from WHO, but notably, yours does not include fatalities from intentional poisoning. And, your paper notes how widespread that is: An estimated 14 million people have died by suicide using pesticides since the advent of the Green Revolution in the 1960s.

Boedeker: Right. Our fatality figure is lower but as you say we don’t include suicides. Suicides by pesticide poisoning have been investigated for a long while now, and yes, the numbers are alarming.

One reason for the number of poisonings is that pesticide use has skyrocketed: up 81 percent in the past 35 years. In certain regions, you note, that increase has been dramatic. South America saw almost a 500 percent increase while Europe saw just a 3 percent bump.

Boedeker: Yes, the profile of pesticide use has changed dramatically in these 35 years. The amount of pesticides used has grown and the size of rural populations has become larger, so more people are being exposed to more pesticides.

What did you find in terms of geographic hotspots for pesticide poisonings?

Boedeker: Countries in the Global South are most affected, which is to be expected: Not only are these regions where pesticide use is high, but also where there are fewer protective measures against exposure.

What did you hope for the report’s impact?

Boedeker: Our first aim was to have a more reliable figure on pesticide poisoning. The old figure was still cited in every policy paper when it comes to the public health impacts of pesticide use. We wanted to widen the scope beyond fatal poisoning. Secondly, our hope was to show that even after decades of policy interventions, pesticide poisoning is still a big problem. While our number of fatalities is smaller than the old figure, our UAPP figure is so much higher. Our analysis shows that this is a big public health problem and there is urgent need to address it.

What are policy approaches that could address this crisis?

Boedeker: There was a push years ago to stop the export to the Global South of highly hazardous pesticides, or HHPs, but then it got quiet. [There are nearly 300 HHPs on the market, these are pesticides that are known to be highly toxic to humans, linked to cancer or endocrine disruption or those that have shown to be particularly damaging to the environment]. We have a new push for this discussion based on this data. In Germany, for instance, we have governmental discussions on the prohibition of the export of HHPs and we are hoping to see this throughout Europe.

Marquez: Pesticide Action Network-North America got its start campaigning on the export of HHPs banned in the United States but sold in other countries where they weren’t banned. It’s important to keep watchdogging this, as PAN Germany, PAN Europe, and other partners in PAN International like Public Eye do with their “double standards” campaigns.

Right, there’s been organizing around HHPs for a long time. In your paper, you mention a 2006 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recommendation for a progressive ban on highly hazardous pesticides, so what happened?

Boedeker: We haven’t seen more progress on this ban, I believe, because of successful international lobbying by the chemical industry, which has made sure these recommendations have not come far. There is a United Nations ethical code of conduct on pesticide use and management with clear messages that these pesticides—which are dangerous and not to be used in certain conditions because they need to be applied with protective measures—should not be exported or used in certain countries. We hope this study will help policy makers realize how getting these codes of conduct in place, and putting real restrictions on HHPs, is an urgent public health issue.

What are national policy priorities that you think could make a difference?

Marquez: In the United States, I think we could do a lot more to prevent pesticide poisonings in agriculture by strengthening protections for farmworkers. Every year in California, for example, there is news about farmworkers—sometimes large groups, all at the same time—getting poisoned while they’re working. Another very important way to get at this problem is transitioning off agriculture that depends so heavily on pesticides to manage the system. Research on nonchemical alternatives to pesticides is really important and it doesn’t get as much funding as it needs.

And what can we do as individuals?

Marquez: As a voter, I would pay attention to what your representatives have to say about farmworkers, supporting small farmers, and research initiatives on non-chemical alternatives to pesticides—especially if you are from a state that has a lot of agriculture. You can also engage your local representative and ask them what they’re doing about pesticide poisonings. Any place where pesticides get used has the potential for people to get poisoned.

There are other policy processes you can engage in—some states have taken the step of banning or phasing out a particular pesticide, for example, as with action around the insecticide chlorpyrifos in Hawaii, New York, and California. Five other states are now pursuing regulatory action on the insecticide. There are other processes, too, like participating in comment periods in your state or county or weighing in during comment periods from national agencies. Our organization, Pesticide Action Network, provides updates on key comment periods for public engagement, helping people around the country engage in these important policy battles.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The post New Study Shows the Growing Risks of Pesticide Poisonings appeared first on Real Food Media.

In paired chapters, authors present a problem arising from corporate control of the food system and then recount how an organizing campaign successfully tackled it. This unique solutions-oriented book allows readers to explore the core contemporary challenges embedded in our food system and learn how we can push back against corporate greed to benefit workers and consumers everywhere.

On this episode of Real Food Reads, we’re going to take a look at labor. Long-time friend, partner, and movement ally Jose Oliva joins us to to discuss his chapter, co-authored with Joann Lo, “Food Workers versus Food Giants.” 

Listen to the companion Foodtopias episode, Laboring in a Pandemic. 

The post Bite Back: People Taking On Corporate Food and Winning appeared first on Real Food Media.

If you are able, consider donating all or part of your stimulus check to an organization that is working to address immediate needs and build long-term power around the US. Support a group in your community or check out our suggestions below: 

Alianza Nacional de Campesinas

The first national, women-led, farmworker women’s organization is working closely with member organizations and farmworker advocacy groups to address the challenges and needs specific to farmworker women around the nation. 

DONATE

First Nations Development Institute’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund

The Navajo Nation has the third-highest coronavirus infection rate. Native communities that have been consistently divested from are suffering from a lack of access to resources as basic as clean water. 

DONATE

Food Chain Workers Alliance

People who work all along the food chain have lacked access to paid sick leave, living wages, job security, and other foundations of safe, dignified work. The Food Chain Workers Alliance works with grassroots labor organizations across the US to fight for fair working conditions.

DONATE

National Domestic Workers Alliance Coronavirus Care Fund

Caregivers across the spectrum, from in-home caretakers to house cleaners—many of whom are immigrants and most of whom are women of color—are without a safety net during this time. 

DONATE

National Black Food & Justice Alliance Mutual Aid Fund

This mutual aid fund will re-grant money to Black farmers and land stewards ramping up food production for communities across the country. 

DONATE

One Fair Wage Emergency Fund

With many workers earning only the federally mandated minimum wage of $2.13 for tipped workers, tipped workers were struggling before COVID-19—and things have only gotten worse. This fund provides cash assistance to those who need it most.  

DONATE

Restaurant Opportunities Center United Disaster Relief Fund

By one estimate, 75 percent of restaurants could go out of business during this crisis. ROC United put together a disaster relief fund to support restaurant workers in danger of losing their jobs.

DONATE

Soul Fire Farm

Soul Fire Farm has been inspiring BIack, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) farmers around the world by decentering whiteness in agrarianism (check out the Real Food Reads book and podcast episode, Farming While Black). During the crisis, they’ve held regular virtual convenings to assess needs and build solidarity, as well as provide food for members of their community.

DONATE

The post Use Your Stimulus Check to Support Farmers & Food Workers appeared first on Real Food Media.

ICE officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants on August 7, arresting 680 mostly Latin-American workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in over ten years.

The raids happened just as Donald Trump was arriving at El Paso, Texas, the majority-Latinx city where a white nationalist linked to the white supremacist theory of a “Hispanic invasion” was charged in a shooting that left 22 people dead in the border city.

Coordinated attacks by 600 ICE agents took place in Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Morton, Pelahatchie, and Sebastapol. Family and friends watched as arrested workers filled several buses at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in Morton, 40 miles east of Jackson. They were taken to a military hangar to be “processed”, i.e. be interviewed about their immigration status and have their identification documents reviewed.

Entire communities are reeling in pain today as loved ones are torn from them violently and permanently. Mothers will go to bed tonight without their children, brothers and sisters will not know whether they will ever see each other again, and children are left without parents to care for them.

For a community already under attack by informal white supremacist organizations, to have ICE and the full power of the executive branch of the US government targeting them is devastating.

Despite the fear and shock brought to all of our immigrant and indigenous migrant communities, food system workers, farmers, and organizers nationwide unite in solidarity with the workers in Mississippi. Our siblings working to put food on their table and your table in Mississippi are the latest casualties of a system that attempts to destroy our will. But we will not only survive —we will thrive as our resolve becomes focused on “our inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

• We demand an immediate moratorium on all immigration enforcement activities until Congress approves a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
• We demand that all workers captured in today’s raids be immediately released.
• We demand that all camps where children are being held be immediately shuttered and the children reunited with their families.

Until this is done we are all in a state of siege and none of us is safe. FCWA and HEAL have established a “bail fund” to help food workers and their families when they’re arrested by ICE.

Click here to visit HEAL Food Alliance and see the full list of signatories.

Donate to the Emergency Fund for Detained Workers 

The post Joint Statement: Defending Immigrant Workers Means Defending Us All appeared first on Real Food Media.

The post Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont appeared first on Real Food Media.

In Food Fight! author Paloma Martinez-Cruz takes us on a Chicanx gastronomic journey that is powerful and humorous. Martinez-Cruz tackles head on the real-world politics of food production from the exploitation of farmworkers to the appropriation of Latinx bodies and culture, and takes us right into transformative eateries that offer a homegrown, mestiza consciousness.

The hard-hitting essays in Food Fight! bring a mestiza critique to today’s pressing discussions of labeling, identity, and imaging in marketing and dining. Not just about food, restaurants, and coffee, this volume employs a decolonial approach and engaging voice to interrogate ways that mestizo, Indigenous, and Latinx peoples are objectified in mainstream ideology and imaginary.

The post Food Fight! Millennial Mestizaje Meets the Culinary Marketplace appeared first on Real Food Media.

Many of us have been or will be food workers at some point, working for tips or low wages, working while sick or without health insurance, and even experiencing harassment or other abuses. Many of the workers who tend and harvest crops and cook and serve food can’t even afford healthy food for themselves and their families. It doesn’t have to be this way.

This May Day, as we head to the streets to support workers’ rights and protect the gains of past labor organizing (little things like the weekend and 8-hour work day) we’re also excited to launch our Building Power With Food Workers organizing toolkit. It’s the first of three organizing toolkits we’re rolling out to help you get active and inspire others to come together for healthy, fair, and sustainable food.

The toolkit includes educational materials, short films, discussion questions, activities, recipes, a glossary, and more, to explore on your own or with a group. It also includes resources to help you organize a fun and engaging film screening event around food worker justice. Check out the toolkit here.

We can transform the food system by standing up—as workers and with workers.

Get the Building Power with Food Workers toolkit 

Header photo: Fibonacci Blue

The post May Day Launch of Our Food Workers Toolkit appeared first on Real Food Media.

Header image: Fabián Tomasi, photographed by Pablo Piovano in Basavilbaso, Entre Ríos province, Argentina, 2014

This article originally appeared on Medium

The post The Death of Fabián Tomasi appeared first on Real Food Media.

Our food system needs radical transformation. It also needs healing from a long history of oppression and exploitation. This healing can only happen if we create spaces for honest conversation, trust, and relationship-building across the food chain. That’s what makes HEAL Food Alliance—a multi-sector, multi-racial coalition building collective power—so special.

Christina and Tanya—a.k.a. Real Food Media’s official (unofficial) Midwest Contingent—had the honor of participating in HEAL’s 2nd Annual Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, last month. As the hotel lobby began buzzing with energy and heartfelt hugs, it felt like a family reunion descended on Cleveland. We were just plain giddy to connect with so many of our partners including Good Food Purchasing Program coalitions from around the country, the Center for Good Food Purchasing, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, and fabulous Real Food Media advisors Neshani Jani, Dara Cooper, and Anim Steel. (Little did we know, Dara, co-founder of the Black Food & Justice Alliance, would soon be awarded the James Beard Leadership Award—congrats Dara!)

This year’s theme was Good Food Rising! and it was in full effect. This was authentic movement-building: issues framed by community leaders; stories of both trauma and triumph; and delicious, real food. (A big shout out to Rid-All Green Partnership, a 26-acre farm and education center in Cleveland’s Lee-Miles neighborhood, for providing us with such lovingly prepared food and an inspiring—if a bit chilly!—farm tour.) 

Perhaps most powerful? Naming names. As many participants noted, there are few “food” spaces where words like capitalism and white supremacy are used without apology. Where land reform is a banner struggle. And where the prison-industrial complex is called out for its role in perpetuating a violent food system and foreclosing community-based alternatives. And as both a grounding and a reminder of our collective history, there was the 80-foot-long food justice timeline created by Minneapolis organizers and shipped to the Summit for participants to interact with.

Needless to say, we came away with a lot to think about—and work on—to better support this growing movement of movements. 

Follow HEAL Food Alliance on Facebook and Twitter check out more photos from the Summit. HEAL is now on Instagram too!

The post HEALing Together: Report Back from HEAL Food Alliance’s 2nd Annual Summit appeared first on Real Food Media.