LIHUE — Four international speakers in global food justice, environment, human rights, GMOs and pesticide issues will participate at Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action and Pesticide Action Network North America’s event, “Challenging Global Impacts of the Agrochemical Industry: 2016 Food
LIHUE — Four international speakers in global food justice, environment, human rights, GMOs and pesticide issues will participate at Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action and Pesticide Action Network North America’s event, “Challenging Global Impacts of the Agrochemical Industry: 2016 Food Justice Summit.”
The summit will take place Jan. 15-20 throughout the Hawaiian Islands, including Kauai.
The speakers include:
– Mariann Bassey Orovwuje is program manager of Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, the Nigerian advocacy non-governmental organization. ERA is the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International, a network of 76 national grassroots groups, campaigning to protect the environment and to create sustainable societies. She is coordinator of Friends of the Earth Africa’s Food Sovereignty Campaign. Her talk is entitled “Lessons in Food Sovereignty from Africa: Access to Land; Rights Over Seeds.”
– Sarojeni V. Rengam is executive director of Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific in Malaysia. She is a steering committee member of the Asian Rural Women’s Coalition, a coalition of grassroots organizations of rural women, women peasants and agricultural workers, including Indigenous women, pastoralists and fisherfolk, and regional networks working on women’s issues. She will be speaking on “Land Grabs and The Struggle for Farmer’s and Farm Workers’ Rights in Asia.”
– Adelita San Vicente Tello is director of “Seeds of Life Foundation” in Mexico. She is one of the leaders of the “Without Corn there is no Country” coalition that kept Monsanto transgenic corn out of Mexico. Her talk is entitled “Stories from the Birthplace of Corn: How Mexico has successfully kept Monsanto out (and protected local farmers and biodiversity)!”
– Eva Schürmann is an activist with MultiWatch, a Swiss-based group that monitors multinational corporations headquartered in Switzerland and their violations of human rights around the globe. She has a masters in law degree from the University of Basel and is a practicing attorney. Schürmann and Multiwatch helped organize the Kauai delegation last April which attended an international conference in Basel, addressed the Syngenta shareholder meeting, and met with the parliament of Basel. Her talk is entitled, “Activism in the Belly of the Best: Switzerland and the Precautionary Principle in Europe.”
The summit will be held at Kauai Community College on Jan. 17.
It will also include a “Convergence on the Capitol”on the Legislature’s opening day.
The genesis for the summit came from the experience of the Kauai delegation that traveled in April to Switzerland, home of Syngenta, according to a press release.
