Occupy Our Food Supply a Resounding Success

Rainforest Action Network

Organizers called the Feb. 27 Occupy our Food Supply day of action a resounding success. The day included more than 100 events across the globe, united an unprecedented alliance of more than 60 Occupy groups and 30 environmental, food and corporate accountability organizations, and featured prominent voices including Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, music legend Willie Nelson, actor Woody Harrelson, authors Raj Patel, Anna Lappe, Gary Paul Nabhan, author Michael Ableman and Marion Nestle, among others.

“At this point, we can barely keep up with all the events and blog postings,” said Hillary Lehr, an organizer for Rainforest Action Network, which helped facilitate the day of action. “From mommy bloggers to Occupy groups, we are seeing an enormous spectrum of people respond to Occupy our Food Supply’s call to resist corporate consolidation of our food systems and create socially and environmentally just local solutions. Plain and simple, it is clear that getting big food giants like Cargill and Monsanto out of our food system is an idea whose time has come.”

Across the globe, online and offline, thousands participated in the events. Events included a 40 person seed exchange at the New York Stock Exchange hosted by Occupy Wall Street; the building of a community garden in Oakland hosted by Occupy the Food System Oakland; the ‘stickering’ of genetically modified foods at more than 20 Safeway and Whole Foods grocery stores across the country; more than 100 people in Wayzata, Minn. convening a Cargill call-in day to CEO Greg Page; and an ‘evict Monsanto’ protest is planned for Feb. 29 at the Monsanto offices in Lockhart, Texas.

“Every stage of the food system involves some sort of destructive or exploitive practice, and we really need to change that,” said Alec Higgins with Occupy Wall Street Food Justice, which organized the seed exchange at the New York Stock Exchange. “Food is at the core of OWS values. We are coming together around this one thing that is so essential to our well being. It's what we eat.”

Occupy our Food Supply also had an online face with a blogger and social media day of action, asking influential bloggers, social media users and blog sites to write on the corporate control of food. More than 75 blogs covered the day, from the prominent Huffington Post to the niche CivilEats and Curvy, Foody, Hungry. On Twitter, the event reported two to three posts per minute using the #F27 hasthtag.

Never have so few corporations been responsible for more of our food chain. Of the 40,000 food items in a typical U.S. grocery store, more than half are now brought to us by just 10 corporations. Today, three companies process more than 70 percent of all U.S. beef, Tyson, Cargill and JBS. More than 90 percent of soybean seeds and 80 percent of corn seeds used in the U.S. are sold by just one company—Monsanto. Four companies are responsible for up to 90 percent of the global trade in grain. And one in four food dollars is spent at Walmart.

The overwhelming support for Occupy our Food Supply underscores the unity between farmers, parents, health care professionals, human rights activists, food justice advocates and food lovers around the world who are increasingly viewing their concerns as different manifestations of the same underlying problem—a food system structured for short term profit instead of the long term health of people and the planet.

Supporting groups included: Bay Localize, Berkeley Association for Animal Advocacy, Biosafety Alliance, California Food and Justice Coalition, Chiapas Support Committee, Family Farm Defenders, Food Democracy Now, Food First, Foodchain Workers Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network, National Family Farms Coalition, PAN (Pesticide Action Network), Pesticide Watch, Planting Justice, Occupy Big Food, Occupy Claremont, Occupy Cargill, Occupy DC, Occupy Denver, Occupy Farms, Occupy Fort Lauderdale, Occupy Food, Occupy Gardens Toronto, Occupy Jacksonville, Occupy MN/Seeds of Change, Occupy London, Occupy Monsanto, Occupy Philly Occupy Vacant Lots),  Occupy Porto Alegre (Brazil), OWS-Food Justice, OWS Puppets, OWS Sustainability, Occupy Santa Cruz, Occupy SF Environmental Justice Working Group, and Occupy the Food System-Oakland, Organic Consumer Association and many others.

See the full list of supporting organizations and events by clicking here.

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