Boston GROW Training and World Food Day Celebration for Local Boston Volunteers

Boston Oxfam Action Corps World Food Day Training- October 16, 2011

This blog entry comes to us courtesy of a Boston Oxfam Action Corps volunteer, Drew Love, who attended the GROW training session held on World Food Day!

The food movement, and other progressive movements, speak eloquently about the importance of “community.” But no matter how much ink is spilled over the issue, community is something that can only happen by people showing up.

So on Sunday, October 16^th, I decided to show up to the Boston Oxfam Action Corps training along with dozens of other people from the Massachusetts area.

What brought me there was a journey I started about two years ago while reading, volunteering, and interning for food justice projects.

There seemed to be plenty of bad things happening in the food system, and I wanted to do something about it. To name just a few:

·      Agriculture is a major contributor to climate change

·      About 33% of US Adults are obese, a problem strongly correlated to the food we eat

·      From seed sales to organic food production, power and ownership in the food system has become increasingly monopolized

And of course I could go on about all the bad stuff, but I showed up that Sunday to learn more about the good stuff.

Fortunately, I was far from the only one.

The round table introductions revealed a group of people who were born in all parts of the country and in some cases from other parts of the world. There were people in their early 20’s, and people in their 50’s and 60’s. There were different genders, races, ages, accents and viewpoints.

Yet we had all come there with a shared value. We knew it was important to create a just and sustainable food system.

We wanted to learn how that could be done.

Just one of the impressive projects we learned about was theSystem of Rice Intensification (SRI), an innovative approach to rice production that could increase yields by 50% while reducing water usage by half.

So you’d have to wonder what kind of fertilizer, pesticide, and/or multi million dollar machine could lead to these miraculous results.

And you’d have to keep on wondering because SRI is simply a method. The method is taught from one farmer to another, forming a global patchwork of farmer communities. These communities are bound by their shared livelihood, the shared educational experience of learning about SRI, and the shared benefits of living better, with a smaller footprint, on their own farms.

A similar sense of community came out of the Boston Oxfam Action Corp meeting that Sunday. Even though we began with introductions that revealed just how different we might be, we ended that workshop as a community of people brought together by shared values, and bonded through a shared experience.

That Sunday gave us the opportunity to create community, and as that community starts to flourish there is no doubt that it will make significant contributions to the food justice movement that Oxfam and so many others are dedicated to.

-Drew Love

Oxfam Action Corps Volunteer

NYC World Food Day Event: "Hunger in a World of Plenty" U.S. Premiere Screening and Panel Discussion

Community Engagement Intern Brittany Collins

In just one of many successful and thought-provoking events held throughout the country by the Oxfam Action Corps this past Sunday, the New York City Oxfam Action Corps hosted the U.S. premiere of the documentary Hunger in a World of Plenty.  The screening was followed by a great panel discussion about the issues brought up by the film and the issues very closely tied to Oxfam's GROW campaign!  

Make sure that you've signed Oxfam America's petition to urge Congress to preserve foreign aid (less than 1% of the entire budget) in this time of spending cuts.  

by Avi Smolen

There are many big questions to ask about the causes of hunger today:

• Does it occur because there is not enough food for everyone?
• Does it occur because of climate change?
• Does it occur because of insufficient infrastructure?

The simple answer is that none of these are the simple causes of hunger today. There is enough food today to feed everyone on the planet, though the wealth inequality means that some people go hungry while others struggle to lose weight (U.S. obesity epidemic). Climate change can lead to both insufficient rain and floods that kill crops and therefore affect the quantity of food available. Yet there are also advanced growing techniques that will allow us to maintain an adequate supply of food, at least for the near future. (Both climate change and wealth inequality are major issues about which we should be concerned.) Infrastructure isn’t the problem either. While in some places poor roads or lack of railroads can hamper the distribution of food, there is no reason that local communities cannot grow food nearby.

Panel from "Hunger in a World of Plenty" - (left to right) Vice President for Africa Programs Dr. Idrissa Dicko (The Hunger Project), Director of Education and Community Engagement Stephanie Ives (American Jewish World Service), Senior Campaigns Advisor Rohit Malpani (Oxfam America), and Senator Kirstin Gillibrand's constituent liaison/immigration caseworker Julina Guo (moderator) are introduced by Oxfam Action Corps NYC Co-Organizer - Arielle Cahill-Hassid.

Photo by Adam Fischmann

At the event “Hunger in a World of Plenty,” sponsored by Oxfam NYC Action Corps, American Jewish World Service, Union Theological Seminary and The Hunger Project, these were the topics of conversation. After a screening of the film by the same name, a number of panelists discussed food justice issues affecting world hunger today. The issues are quite complex, but I was left with a few major takeaways.

1. The fluctuation in food prices is caused by excessive capital in commodities markets leading to speculation (in addition to real factors such as weather and production). Regulations can help prevent such severe price increases, and rules have just been passed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (given authority in the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul) to do just this.
2. A rise in food prices that may be a minor inconvenience to middle class residents of developed countries means hunger for many in developing nations. They cannot afford price increases, as many of them already spend a majority of their income on food.
3. The best way to ensure that hunger is reduced and eventually solved is to provide communities with the resources and tools that they need to grow at least some of their own food. In this system they will be able to provide for themselves, they will be less dependent on imported food, and will be less affected by price fluctuations in the market.
4. Developed countries like the U.S. play a major part in preventing this from happening. Subsidies, which significantly lower the cost of production for farmers in developed countries, allow nations like the U.S. to dump excess rice, corn, or other crops in developing nations, often under the guise of food aid. While in the short term such food aid is necessary to combat immediate lack of food, such practices can destroy local economies. A prime example is the dumping of free rice in Haiti in the months after the earthquake, making it impossible for Haitian rice farmers to sell their products and harming their livelihood.

There are so many more complexities to current food justice and food aid issues, but what gives me some solace is that organizations like the co-sponsors of this event are working to change the system. AJWS has a fantastic petition to Reverse Hunger by maintaining funding for food aid (a fraction of 1% of the national budget) and using those allocations smartly. I am hopeful that we can make an impact and I hope to attend an event in ten years about the progress we have made and how close we are to ending world hunger.

Avi Smolen is currently the Communications Manager for Progressive Jewish Alliance & Jewish Funds for Justice, a domestic social justice organization, in New York. He graduated from Rutgers University in 2009 with a BA in Political Science and minor concentrations in Jewish Studies and Psychology. Previously, Avi worked as a Faiths Act Fellow in Washington DC at the Malaria Policy Center, where he focused on engaging college students in multi-faith global health activism, and as Development and Communications Associate in the New York office of Keren Or, a Center in Jerusalem for blind and multi-disabled children and young adults. Avi is also an active volunteer with Oxfam Action Corps NYC.

World Food Prize update as we approach World Food Day!

Desiree Thayer, San Francisco Bay Area Oxfam Action Corps organizer, wrote two great posts (reprinted below) about her experience at the World Food Prize this week in Des Moines, Iowa!  She is there with organizers Amy and Stephen and other volunteers from the Iowa Action Corps, organizer Arielle of the NYC OAC, organizer Elissa of the Columbus OAC, organizer Nancy of the Chicago OAC, and Oxfam America staff, including Campaigns Director Judy Beals, Agricultural Advocacy Lead Jim French, Organizing and Alliances Coordinator Rebecca Perlmutter, Community Engagement Specialist Clara Herrero, and Senior Volunteer and Community Organizer Brian Rawson.

Volunteer Eileen, Organizing and Alliances Coordinator Rebecca Perlmutter, NYC Organizer Arielle, and SF Bay Area Organizer Desiree at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, IA.

Happy World Food Day, everybody!

Posted 10/12/2011

It's been a busy day at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa. Oxfam Action Corps volunteers from Des Moines, Chicago, Columbus, New York City, and San Francisco are here along with Oxfam America staff and special guest farmers from Colombia and Ethiopia.

The day was filled with talks and panel discussions from many sectors of agriculture and food, including governmental, nonprofit, private business, and academic. Nearly every talk I attended expressed a need to increase food production to feed a growing population of 9 billion people by 2050, though, not surprisingly, the approaches described varied from high tech products and methods to development assistance programs for farmers in developing countries.

Two descriptions of the food system that resonated with me were from Howard G. Buffett from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Judy Beals from Oxfam America. Mr. Buffett said, "Different farmers need different solutions," which he has witnessed on his own research farms here in the Midwest and in South Africa. He shared four stories of projects, all that were unsuccessful but proved to be great lessons in the importance of local and geographic-specific considerations for determining technology feasibility environmentally, economically, and socially. Echoing a similar view, Judy Beals explained how we are faced with the need to reform the food system, which is a complex problem and "there is no silver bullet and no magic seeds".

We were also very fortunate to have two female farmers from developing countries come to share their experiences at an Oxfam-sponsored panel. Nelly Velandia, a farmer from Colombia, and Silas Samson Biru, an Ethiopian farmer, spoke about their work with farmer-led initiatives in their countries. Nelly is a leader for the Farmers' Markets Program in Bogota, which aims to promote the small farm economy and bring fresh food produced by small farmers directly to the consumer at fair prices. Silas participates in a risk-management program: Horn of Africa Risk Transfer for Adaptation (HARITA). Both women have worked hard as leaders in their communities, facing difficulties as they break cultural norms for women and convince local government to include them in decision-making. Their stories in inspiring, not only for their successes, but also for their perseverance to continually improve their programs.

Tomorrow will be another day full of information at the World Food Prize. Stay tuned for more updates.

Posted 10/13/2011

Today was another full day of learning and sharing at the World Food Prize in Des Moines. Conversations about food and agriculture continued, as many players involved in food production and food-related policies were included on today's schedule.

One of the day's earliest sessions was a report of the 2011 Global Hunger Index by the International Food Policy Research Institute. This report is based on the most recent data about hunger and malnutrition and makes recommendations for ways to address food security. The full report is available online, with much information relevant to Oxfam's GROW campaign.

There were also several panel discussions focused on the inclusion of women and girls in agriculture development. Mary Rono, a dairy farmer from the Kendu region of Kenya, spoke about her experiences as co-founder and chairperson of the Koitogos Dairy Cooperative Society. She described social and cultural barriers she faced in her community and home while establishing her group, which gained status as a coop earlier this year. The coop is now very successful with 350 members, including 33% women and 15% youth. By pooling their milk for sale at a nearby processor, the farmers have secured a good price and steady income. They also have training sessions to learn about better practices to raise and tend their animals. Mary's story is very inspirational, with her determined personality apparent to ensure the livelihood of her family and community.

The Secretary's Roundtable and African Presidential Leadership Roundtable were also held today. It was very interesting to learn about the agricultural development goals and practices of several African countries. On the positive side it seems some of the African countries represented in the sessions are working to improve and maintain small-scale farming. For example Tanzania is using rice seeds from their own research efforts, with rice yields more than twice as much for small-scale farmers compared to large farms. Also, Mozambique has 1000 demonstration plots that are used to educate farmers on improve methods. However, it was surprising, to me, to learn about the use of subsidies for seed and fertilizer in Ghana and Tanzania. Due to the limited budgets of the governments in these countries, the Ministers of Agriculture from both recognize the likely non-sustainability of subsidy programs. One can only hope their farmers will have long-term security if government subsidies are reduced or eliminated in the future.

Once again a common message was to realize and embrace that different solutions are required to ensure food security in different areas. Though it seems that many see the importance of taking geographical and some social differences into consideration for food and agriculture development, it's not clear whether developed countries have fully realized that there should be more than a one-way exchange of ideas and programs. A two-way exchange between developed countries and developing countries is needed to realize long-term and sustainable success for implementation of agriculture development strategies. We in the developed world are faced with many problems in our own food system (e.g. obesity and nutrition, environmental impact, loss of family farms), and a more holistic approach is needed in developing countries to avoid facing the same problems we face today.

World Food Day Events: Boston, New York City, and Chicago, and more!

World Food Day is just over a week away!  What will you be doing to celebrate?  Why not attend one of these unique and exciting events before or after hosting your own Sunday Dinner?!  A GROW training session in Boston, a film screening and discussion in New York City, and a Crop Mob in Chicago!  Not near any of these cities?  Check the ACT FAST event calendar, Change the World: Start Here, to see what is happening in your area!  


Boston: 

The Boston Oxfam Action Corps is a group of people from diverse backgrounds who come together as volunteers to help Oxfam campaign and win policies that will help tackle hunger and poverty on a global scale.

Join us for a special gathering this World Food Day, October 16. Together with Oxfam's senior organizing staff, we will provide an afternoon training on Oxfam's new campaign on global hunger – GROW – dedicated to taking action for food, fairness and the future of our planet. This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn more, meet other Oxfam supporters and get involved.

The training includes an optional dinner to celebrate World Food Day. We hope you can join us.

What: Free training for Oxfam supporters in the Boston area. 

Topics: We will learn about the GROW campaign, share ideas and make plans to address global hunger through action with Oxfam Action Corps in Boston. 

Who: You! Open to Oxfam supporters, members and leaders of allied organizations. Also feel free to bring friends who are equally committed to fighting hunger and poverty. 

When: Sunday, October 16. The training is from 1:30-5:30pm. This will be followed by an optional dinner with tasty food and a chance to chat informally. 

Where: Oxfam America's office – 226 Causeway St., 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02114. 

Cost: Free. The training and dinner are free of charge. Bring yourself and come ready to participate! 

RSVP: Please click here to RSVP online (or email me the organizers boston@oxfamactioncorps.org). Specify whether you will attend the optional dinner and if you have any dietary restrictions. Please be sure any interested friends do the same. 

For more information: If you have questions about the training, please contact Oxfam's Brittany Collins at bcollins@oxfamamerica.org and 617-517-9439.

This is a great opportunity to join a community of action with Oxfam in Boston. We hope to see you there!

Emily Hubbard and Christine Ellersick, Oxfam Lead Volunteer Organizers

New York City: 

Oxfam Action Corps NYC, together with American Jewish World Service, The Hunger Project's Young Professionals Committee, and Union Theological Seminary, is hosting a US film premiere and discussion about how to change our global food system.  Check it out and learn more about why this issue is so important and what you can do to help.

What: World Food Day celebration and film premiere, discussion and recipe tasting.  The film, “Hunger in a World of Plenty,” addresses why, in a world that has enough resources to feed 12 billion people, nearly one billion people are chronically hungry.

When: Sunday, October 16 at 4:00pm – doors open at 3:30.

Where: James Memorial Chapel at Union Theological Seminary, 3041 Broadway at 121^st Street, New York City

Speakers: We’ll hear from Dr. Idrissa Dicko, Vice President for Africa Programs with The Hunger Project, Stephanie Ives, Director of Education and Community Engagement with American Jewish World Service and Rohit Malpani, Senior Campaigns Advisor with Oxfam America, who will discuss topics addressed in the film and ways in which attendees can take action on a local level.

Cosponsors: This event is cosponsored by the Brooklyn Food Coalition, Buddhist Global Relief, DIG (Development in Gardening), FeelGood Columbia University, the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Special Interest Group of the Greater New York Dietetic Association, the International Youth Council, the Small Planet Institute and WhyHunger.

RSVP: This event is free and open to the public – please RSVP today.

Want to help prepare some of the tasting dishes for the event?  Please contact Arielle Cahill Hassid at newyorkcity@oxfamactioncorps.org.

Chicago: 

Join us for the second annual Crop Mob to Spence Farm!  Sponsored by Chicago Oxfam Action Corps, White Oak Gourmet, and the Spence Farm Foundation, we'll be celebrating World Food Day helping out on the farm.

Click Here to Register on Eventbrite

You'll be joining other Chicago area residents who are committed to a sustainable food supply. We'll be taking a bus from Chicago to Spence Farm 100 miles south of Chicago. Spence Farm in Livingston County was first settled in 1830. You'll be joining the Travis Family; Marty, Kris, and Will, descendants of the original settlers. We'll assist them with harvesting organic farm produce and with fall clean-up chores around the farm. Spence Farm supplies leading restaurants in Chicago like Frontera Grill and Blackbird with specialty produce and its famous Iroquois corn.

Because the farms are typically family owned and operated, most of the labor is done by hand. The term "Crop Mob" was coined by city dwellers who have an interest in sustainable agriculture and would like to help more than just by going to the farmer's market or joining a CSA. The "Crop Mob" gives the farmer(s) a valuable source of volunteer labor.

You'll need to bring the following for the trip:

• Packed Lunch
• Hand held gardening or pruning shears to help with the harvestng
• Sturdy shoes or boots and a change of socks.
• Gardening or work gloves.
• A re-fillable water bottle.
• A hat & sunscreen.
• A sweater or light jacket.
• Snacks for the trip down and return home.
• Money in case you'd like purchase some products from the farm. 

Spence Farm will provide beverages and snacks.

Children are welcome, however, but because the bus trip is 2 hours, and the inherent risks of working on a farm, this trip is more appropriate for children over 12 years of age.

The bus will depart from City Provisions Deli & Catering, located at 1818 W. Wilson, Chicago (Ravenswood) at 9:00 a.m., so please arrive No Later than 8:30 a.m


For those traveling to City Provisions via the CTA, they are just steps away from the Damen Brown Line stop, and the Damen bus. For those in vehicles, There's parking for your car anywhere in the gravel parking lot behind the shop (please don't park under the EL! City Provisions cannot be responsible for damage caused by tar falling from the tracks). For those on bikes, there are ample bike racks to lock your bike securely for the duration of the day.


Questions, need to carpool in from the 'burbs?  Don't hesitate to phone Organizer Tom Leavitt at 847-754-0708.

Click Here to Register on Eventbrite