2005 EUROPEAN TOUR: CIW OPENS THE EUROPEAN FRONT IN THE CAMPAIGN FOR FAIR FOOD!

2005 EUROPEAN TOUR: CIW OPENS THE EUROPEAN FRONT IN THE CAMPAIGN FOR FAIR FOOD!

Scroll through the photos and reports below for all the day-by-day, city-by-city updates
from the CIW’s ground-breaking tour of five major European cities

First… Oslo and Lillihammer, Norway

OK, quick quiz on the defining characteristic of agriculture in the 21st century: What do this John Deere tractor, pictured here on a family farm in Lillehammer, Norway,…
… and the transnational fast-food giant, Burger King, pictured here in Oslo, Norway, behind two members of the CIW delegation, have in common?
Answer: They are both leading examples of the handful of multi-billion dollar corporations gripping agricultural producers in a cost/price squeeze — cost, in the case of John Deere, price in the case of Burger King — and causing the farm crisis that is being felt everywhere in the world today, from the factory farms of Florida to the family farms of far away Norway.
The map above indicates the location of all the farms in Norway. According to Norway’s leading family farm organization, 10-15 pins disappear from that map every day.

 

An excellent analysis of the market dynamics at work in agriculture today, entitled “The Farm Crisis and Corporate Power,” (available at the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative website) puts it this way:
” Firms wielding immense market power squeeze farmers from both sides… This extreme concentration of market power enables these firms to extract extremely high profits. This is especially true when they transact with players several orders of magnitude smaller, such as farmers… The farm crisis is caused by these firms using their market power to take an ever larger share of the (retail food) dollar and, thus, choke off the flow of money to farmers… There is no shortage of money in the agrifood system, there is merely a maldistribution of money.”
The painting on the wall at the Norwegian Farmers’ Union offices, where the CIW delegation met with representatives of the Union and of the smaller Norwegian Farmers’ Organization, says the same thing even more graphically: entitled, “Farmer’s Funeral,” the painting depicts corporate leaders outside a glass skyscraper playing golf over a family farmer’s grave.

 

The domination of the modern agrifood industry by a relatively small number of multi-national corporations has brought small farmers and farmworkers together. This growing cooperation to address the common cause of their impoverishment was seen not only in the successful Taco Bell Boycott — where family farmers marched, fasted, and protested with farmworkers across the US to redistribute a small portion of the money in the food industry to tomato pickers in Florida — but in the CIW’s current visit to Europe, where the final days of the delegation’s stay were spent in large part building the foundations of a trans-Atlantic alliance of farmers, farmworkers, and other allied organizations dedicated to greater economic justice in the food industry.
If the success of the Taco Bell Boycott was any indication, this growing alliance will bring about a changing of the guard in the food industry in the years ahead… “changing of the guard”…. that’s a picture of the traditional changing of the guard in Oslo… that’s, uh, something of a pun… OK, we liked the picture and couldn’t figure out how else to put it in the report…
In any event… The CIW spent the rest of the morning with organizations housed at the Human Rights House in the center of Oslo. where the delegation discussed the role that responsible investment can play in rectifying human rights violations in different parts of the world.
The Oslo Human Rights House was established in 1989. It currently houses eight member organizations that work with various forms of human rights monitoring, reporting and advocacy, both nationally and internationally. It is part of a network of such houses throughout the world.
The day ended with a meeting at the Norwegian Development Fund, an organization devoted to a world free from hunger and poverty based on a sustainable environment. The Development Fund was excited by the prospect of joining the Campaign for Fair Food and promised to spread word of the campaign through its budding youth group.
The delegation began the next day in Oslo with two more meetings with important new allies, here with Norwegian Church Aid and the Ethical Trading Initiative, discussing ways their organizations could help advance the goals of the Campaign for Fair Food…

 

… and here, standing at the foot of a monument to Norway’s workers, with a representative of Norway’s central labor federation, the LO. Fully 55% of Norway’s workers are unionized.
 

The LO did a little reporting on the meeting itself, as the story of the CIW’s trip will be featured in the next issue of the LO’s monthly magazine.
 

Then, finally, it was out to Norway’s countryside, heading north to a rural community just outside of Lillehammer.
There the delegation met with a local farmer whose farm produces garden vegetables, dairy, grass, and wood. It has been in the family since 1620!
His hat commemorates the march from Norway to Geneva undertaken this spring by farmers to protest the WTO.
Next up: Oslo, Dublin, and the European Tour’s a wrap!
Scroll down for the rest of the Daily Reports from the CIW’s 2005 European Tour!

 


 

AMSTERDAM & OSLO – DAY 6 – 8

And on its first day in Oslo, the delegation was invited to address the audience at the “Food, Agriculture, and Trade Conference,” a gathering of European small farmers, peasant organizations from the Global South (including our old friends from the Landless Peasant Movement of Brazil, the MST), unions, and other allied organizations.

 

There were some heavy hitters at the conference from the world of small farmers fighting for a more equitable food industry, including Jose Bove of France (famous for his dismantling of a fast-food restaurant that will remain unamed… to protest unchecked globalization and to demand support for farmers).
… why the CIW, of course, represented at the conference by Lucas Benitez…
… whose speech drew enthusiastic applause from the audience of more than 200.

Earlier in the morning, the CIW delegation met with officials from the Norwegian Petroleum Fund, the world’s largest pension fund, to discuss ethical concerns involved in food industry investments, given the reality that agricultural production in the US takes place in an environment of systematic violation of several fundamental human rights, including the right to organize and collectively bargain and the right to overtime (both rights are explicitly denied farmworkers under US law). Talks with the Fund will continue during the rest of the delegation’s stay in Oslo.

Before reaching Norway, the delegation spent some time in Amsterdam, home of picturesque canals…
… the famous floating flower market…
… and, yes, of course, fast-food restaurants, even right there hovering just over the flower market, lest anyone have a craving for a hamburger while otherwise lost in the natural beauty of one of Amsterdam’s most treasured destinations.


… thanks to the insightful questions of the participants whose on-the-ground experience in several fields — including the areas of agriculture, organizing, and immigration issues — helped shape one of the most exciting exchanges the delegation experienced during the entire two-week tour. Without a doubt, the evening gave rise to a number of connections that will continue to bear fruit well into the months and years ahead.

Next – More from Oslo, and an update from Dublin, Ireland, where members of the delegation will attend an international conference on human rights!

 


 

FRANCE – DAY 4 & 5


Ahhh, France… Romantic land of revolution… “Liberty, Equality, and… a Supersized McDonald’s Iced Tea?”

Hold on a minute, is that Ronald McDonald smiling down from a billboard in the otherwise postcard perfect countryside of Southern France? Seems that the famous French national pride has made a little room for the smiling hamburger pitchman and his big ol’ size 19 American clown shoes…


… a lot of room, in fact.

Of all the countries in Europe, France enjoys (if that’s the correct word…) the highest penetration of McDonald’s…


… and not just McDonald’s. It seems that our Gallic cousins have developed quite the taste for fast-food these days.


Indeed, France, of all countries, has itself become something of a fast-food nation.


But not everyone in France is ” lovin’ it.” In fact, the CIW drew healthy crowds at community meetings in Marseilles and outside of the rural town of Arles over the weekend, with the gracious help of our hosts, the European Civic Forum. The European Civic Forum was formed shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in1989 to explore alternative models for a more just society, with a particular focus on fundamental changes in the areas of agriculture, immigration, and the media.


At the meeting in Marseilles, the CIW delegation explained the reasons behind the Taco Bell boycott and described plans for the future of the Campaign for Fair Food to a diverse crowd that brought together small farmers, students, and farmworkers from Spain.


The PBS video on the boycott victory gave essential background on the campaign…

… while the veteran activists in attendance demonstrated the time-honored French tradition of debat, engaging in a spirited and thoughtful discussion following the CIW’s presentation.


Gabriel M’Binki Ataya of the Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (SOC) drew powerful comparisons between the workers’ struggle for fundamental human rights in Immokalee and his own immigrant workers’ fight for fair wages and dignity in the tomato greenhouses of Spain. The SOC was formed nearly thirty years ago after the fall of Franco to defend and improve the rights of Andalusian day laborers.


Following the meeting, the European Civic Forum organized a delicious dinner of organically produced breads, cheeses, grapes and wine for the CIW delegation (disclosure: while there are certainly some hardships involved in the opening of this new European front in the battle for Fair Food, the French cuisine is definitely not one of them…), while members of the delegation distributed materials — including the new CIW postcards to McDondald’s, Burger King, and Subway — to activists from across the region.

To get your own postcards so that you too can spread news of the Campaign for Fair Food in your community and let the fast-food leaders know that you support an end to sweatshops in Florida’s fields, email us at workers@ciw-online.org !


The delegation’s second day in the South of France was spent in the tiny village of Saint Genies de Malgoires at a day-long farmers’ market and community forum entitled “La Conf en Fete”. The title is derived from the name of the French small farmers’ union that organized the day’s activities, La Confederation Payasanne (a member of the global federation of peasant organizations, Via Campesina).

Fast-food was the farthest thing from the minds of the hundreds of people who gathered for this remarkable celebration of French agriculture under a strong late summer sun…

… with French produce straight from the farm…

… livestock on the hoof…

… and, of course, fresh debat. Here, Lucas Benitez of the CIW delegation is interviewed by the regional community radio station, a widely popular commercial-free station established by our friends at the European Civic Forum.

And following another fine –and deliciously slow — meal of barbecued sausage, fresh blueberry pie, salad, strong French coffee (we could go on, but you get the idea…), market-goers gathered at City Hall for an open panel discussion on the corporate domination of agriculture.

The CIW again provoked a lively debate on the possibilities of building a new and better world where the human rights of all those who toil to put food on our tables are respected. While the room held many widely-varying opinions on how best to build that new world, all in attendance agreed that not only is change possible, but it is a moral imperative given the extent of exploitation that underlies corporate agriculture and the food industry today.

The discussion was chaired by Nicolas, a member of the Confederation Paysanne demonstrating here the traditional French facilitator technique of speaking with an unlit cigarette in the non-microphone hand, indicating “this meeting will now come to an end… due to collective nicotine withdrawal.”

While outside the meeting, a few of the local residents held their own — even more traditional — debat.

The delegation’s second day in France came to an end with a tour of our host’s inspiring farm cooperative, one of a union of 10 cooperatives in several European countries dedicated to food self-sufficiency for their members and to feeding thousands of families with weekly bags of fresh, seasonal produce. Above is a selection of the cooperative’s jams and vegetable preserves.

The evening brought a spectacular sunset over the countryside that inspired dozens of Van Gogh’s best works. Van Gogh lived and painted in the area of Arles and nearby Saint Remy de Provence for years, and the bright light-washed colors, wind-bent trees, and scenes of peasant life that appeared in his art still fill the landscape there today.


As it made its way out of France to its next stop in Amsterdam, the delegation did manage to catch a drive-by view of the Notre Dame Cathedral on an all-too-brief taxi ride to the train station in Paris .

Next up: Amsterdam… oh yeah…

 


 

DAY 1 & 2 – GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

(SCROLL DOWN FOR DAY 3 & 4)


Ahhh, Europe… Romantic winding alleyways down timeless cobblestoned streets…


… breathtaking cityscapes…


… and the birthplace of the Fair Trade Movement.

Yes, from the British abolitionists of the 19th Century — men and women like Thomas Foxwell Buxton (above), a leader in the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 that ended slavery in Britain and its colonies — who equated consuming sugar to murder, as it was produced by slaves, and employed highly successful boycotts to win their campaign (hmmmm, slavery in the supply chain, successful boycotts… sounds oddly familiar…)…


… to the creation of the Max Havelaar label (above) in 1988 in the Netherlands, certifying coffee grown by cooperatives in Oaxaca, Mexico, as officially “Fair Trade Coffee” for the first time, the citizens of Europe have pioneered efforts to address market imbalances and improve conditions for farmers and farmworkers suffering the effects of globalization.


To this land of ever more conscious consumption a delegation from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers traveled for a two-week tour of five major cities, accompanied by a key ally in the Taco Bell Boycott victory, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. The tour began on Tuesday, October 4, in Geneva, Switzerland, where the delegation met with a journalist from the Swiss agricultural industry journal “Agri” to discuss the poverty and sweatshop conditions in Florida’s tomato fields, the concentration of market power in the US food industry that drives that poverty, and the objectives of the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food.


Now while the average European consumer may be far ahead of his or her counterpart in the US when it comes to sensitivity to the exploitation behind the food they eat, there is clearly still more work to do. Fast-food has its fans in Europe, as the presence of these familiar logos in the heart of a popular downtown plaza attests (note to self: Schedule outreach meeting with Swiss military on next visit to Geneva…).


And so the tour continued, heading out early Wednesday morning for a day packed tight with meetings, interviews, and informal gatherings with potential new allies in the battle for Fair Food. In the morning the CIW delegation met with religious leaders from several international church bodies, including representatives of the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and our old friends, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The meeting was extremely positive and held great promise for the further expansion of the faith-based alliance that helped win the Taco Bell Boycott in the US to the many religious communities of Europe as the Campaign for Fair Food moves to the next level. Theological support for a more humane, community-centered food industry is well established in many European faith communities, which allowed for a solid foundation of common ground in our dialogue around the CIW campaign.


The day ended with an exciting dinner and discussion at the Maison des Associaciones, a meeting house for Swiss progressive organizations,…


… where the CIW delegation had the opportunity to lead a discussion on the Campaign for Fair Food and to learn from the European participants, including some who traveled several hours to attend the evening’s activities, about ongoing efforts in Switzerland to bring about community-based change.

Coming up Thursday: The CIW meets the ILO…

 


 

DAY 3 & 4 – GENEVA, SWITZERLAND


Agriculture in Immokalee is dominated by corporations — corporations like WalMart that use their overwhelming market power to demand the lowest possible prices for the produce they buy, corporations like Monsanto that use their overwheling market power to demand the highest prices possible for the products they sell for agricultural production (fertilizers, pesticides, etc.), and corporations like the vegetable farms in Immokalee that have replaced family farmers and manage to survive this price/cost squeeze only by exploiting their workers within an inch of their lives.

There are alternatives, of course. On Day 3, the CIW delegation visited a farm cooperative just ten miles from Geneva, named “Affaire Tournereve” (roughly translated as “Sunflower Dream Affair”…), that, as the sign reads, is a collaboration of “Town and country working together to reinvent an agriculture that is inspired by our dreams.”

But more on that later. First, Day 3 began with a series of meetings at the International Labor Organization (ILO), which functions as a sort of United Nations for labor issues, and is charged with monitoring and advocating for the respect of fundamental labor rights across the globe.


The delegation met with representatives from several branches of the ILO, including the Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV), the Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour, the Programme on Promoting the International Labour Standards Department (NORMES), the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (DECLARATION), and the International Migration Programme. Once we made our way through all the formal titles and department names… the delegation got down to talking about the matter at hand — protecting the fundamental human rights of farmworkers, workers who are excluded from the right to organize even under US law.

In ILO speak, the CIW delegation and the various ILO representatives enjoyed a frank and wide-ranging discussion and the CIW delegation left the meetings feeling cautiously optimistic about the possibility of future collaborations…

… or, in other words, we met them, they met us, and it seems like we might be able to work together to defend workers’ rights in Immokalee one day.


As it made its way out of the ILO, the CIW delegation came upon these signs posted throughout the building advertising an employers’ conference on social responsibility. We asked… none of the participants was from the fast-food industry.

Following nearly half a day of navigating the byzantine halls and bureaus of the ILO, we returned to more familiar ground, visiting friends at the International Union of Foodworkers (IUF). We discussed plans for solidarity wtihin the IUF’s extenisve network of affiliated unions and allied organizations with the Campaign for Fair Food and organizing strategies within a increasingly global food industry. In short, we will be in much closer contact with the IUF in the years to come.


Then, as evening came to our last night in Geneva, it was on to “Affaire Tournereve,” and a welcome visit to the Swiss countryside…


… to visit the bi-seasonal distribution point for a new agriculture/consumer initiative in Switzerland. Here you see bags of products fresh from the local contryside produced by local peasants ready to go directly into the hands of local population.


Here the delegation, with one of our kind and generous Swiss hosts, learns how the program in just one year has grown from 1 to 10 producers and from a handful to 1,200 consumers. The market for fair food in Switzerland is clearly booming.


Not only did the delegation hear about the production and distribution system, but also got to taste the delicious fare…


… and was sent home heavily laden with the fruit of this fine cooperative’s labor. We doubt the apples and pears will make it back to Immokalee.


On its last morning in Geneva, the CIW delegation met with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), whose director is also the Secretary of the Workers’ Group of the ILO, and again with Monique Cloutier of the ILO’s Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV).

Immokalee is one of the poorest towns in the United States. Workers in Immokalee are taking on one of the richest industries in the world, the $120 billion fast-food industry. As the Campaign for Fair Food gathers steam in Europe, it will need to count on solid allies in this distant land to help spread the word and keep the momentum growing for fundamental change in the food industry. If our meeting on the last morning in Geneva with the fine people at the ICFTU is any indication,fast-food industry leaders might want to start thinking sooner, rather than later, about how they can make fast-food FAIR food, too.

Hey, that’s a cute baby…


And so, it was with heavy hearts that the delegation left Switzerland for the next leg of the tour — two days in France with workers’ movements in the area of Marseilles. The drive was long, but the trip more than made up for its length with the extraordinary beauty of the French countryside. For your viewing pleasure, we leave you with a few glimpses of that beauty… enjoy.




Arriving in Marseilles… tomorrow, more from this incredible French port city.