Justice Begins with Seeds Statewide Conference & GMO Awareness Week Sept. 12th - 17th. Registration Open NOW! Save the Date!

[Alianza Latinoamericana por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes]

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GMO Awareness Week September 12-18

Conference Summit: September 16 & 17, 2011, San Francisco

REGISTER HERE!

Ticket price includes access to all of the weeklong series of events.

September 16 and 17th Summit at the Women's Building and other locations in the Mission District, San Francisco 

California Biosafety Alliance www.biosafetyalliance.org

About: 

We are at a time of many crises. And in the face of all the global challenges before us, the domination of the food supply, and the contribution of the current food regime to climate change, numerous environmental crises, humans rights abuses and displacement of people to name a few, makes it perhaps the most pressing issue before us. 

To control food is to control people. To destroy topsoil is to destroy the most elemental thing upon which we all depend. And to convince people that this system is the only way and that there is no other option is one of the most pressing myths before us that needs to be shattered. 

The conference: JUSTICE BEGINS WITH SEEDS will be a space for movement building to actively address the the symbol of the corporate food regime: genetically modified food, address the many layered implications of GE/GMO food, and build strategic coalitions and deeper collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders more widespread political action addressing GMOs in varying levels throughout the state of California.

The conference will focus on hands on workshops and panels on how to build alliances, how to start a rights based campaign, and how to get involved with GMO labeling initiatives throughout California. People from different organizing contexts will have the space to discuss, share strategy and build the movement to address the corporate food regime, encouraging people to actively take on the issue politically.  

Pre-conference keynote event:

Vandana Shiva: World-renowned environmental leader and thinker. Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, and founder of Navdanya, promoting diversity and use of native seeds, she is the author of many books, including Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (South End Press, 2010) Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis (South End Press, 2008), Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (South End Press, 2005),Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization (South End Press, 2001), Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End Press, 1997), Monocultures of the Mind (Zed, 1993), and The Violence of the Green Revolution (Zed, 1992).

(September 13th in the evening)

Keynote Plenary panelists:

Friday, September 16th morning: Local and global implications of genetically modified seeds.

• Ignacio Chapela: UC Berkeley microbial ecologist and mycologist
• Anuradha Mittal: Oakland Institute executive director 
• Marcia Ishii-Eiteman: Pesticide Action Network North America senior scientist

Friday, September 16th afternoon: Agricultural biodiversity and the real solutions we need

Adelita San Vicente: Semillas De Vida A.Z. 
• Dave Henson: Occidental Arts and Ecology Center executive director
• Michael Dimock, Roots of Change president

Saturday, September 17th morning: Where we are, learning from the past, and moving forward 

• Carl Anthony: Breakthrough Communities co-director
• Jeffrey Smith: Institute for Responsible Technology executive director
• Eric Holt Gimenez: Food First executive director
• Mari Margil: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund associate director

Saturday, September 17th afternoon: Linking perspectives and building the movement

• Gayle Mclaughlin: Mayor of Richmond
• Andrew Kimbrell: Center for Food Safety executive director
• Claire Hope Cummings: Journalist and Author of Uncertain Peril
• Miguel Altieri: UC Berkeley professor of agroecology

Panel and Workshop Speakers:

Track 1: GM Seeds: Global Threat, Local Struggles

Dr. Alejandro Espinoza: INIFAP Mexico, Union de Cientificos Comprometidos con la Sociedad

Dr. Antonio Turrent: Union de Cientificos Comprometidos con la Sociedad (Mexico)

Carlos Martinez: Ecoviva

Colin Rajah: National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

Dr. Elena Alvarez-Buylla: Instituto de Ecologia-UNAM, Mexico

Juan Pablo:  Indigenous voice on seed sovereignty

Katherine Zavala: International Development Exchange

Luis Magana: Comite de Defensa del Maiz Criollo

Maria Catalan: Catalan Farms

Phil Bereano: AGRAwatch

Tezo Tezozomac: South Central Farmers Cooperative

Track 2: Understanding the Landscape: Legal, Political and Business Challenges and Opportunities for Change

Doug Mosel: GMO Free Mendocino and farmer

Gayle Mclaughlin: Mayor of Richmond

Mari Margil: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Mark Squire: Non-GMO Project and Good Earth Foods

Michael Dimmok: Roots of Change

Philip Heiselman: California Attorney for sustainable food and food safety

Rana Chang: House Kombucha

Rebecca Spector: Center for Food Safety

Straus Family Creamery

Zea Sonnabend: California Certified Organic Farmers

Track 3: Building the Movement: Goals and Strategies

Ashley Schaeffer: Rainforest Action Network

Aaron Lehmer: Bay Localize

Claire Hope Cummings: Journalist and Author of Uncertain Peril and other books

Dave Murphy: Food Democracy Now

Doria Robinson: Urban Tilth

Doug Mosel: Farmer and Consultant to the former Mendocino campaign to ban GMOs

Elanor Starmer: Food and Water Watch

Heather Whitehead: Center for Food Safety

Jeffrey Smith: Institute for Responsible Technology

Jeff Conant: Global Justice Ecology Project

Oscar Grande: PODER

Pamm Larry: Label GMOs in California 2012

Rey Leon: Latino Environmental Advancement and Policy Institute

Mary Ench: Seedlings

Mateo Nube: Movement Generation

The California Biosafety Alliance is a cross sector, multilevel and inter-ethnic alliance of individuals and organizations working together to engage in broader outreach around genetically modified (GMO) food issues and to bring together strategic coalitions of diverse stakeholders to advocate for a GMO free food supply, as a means of pushing for a shift from an industrial food model, to a model of local resilience. GMOs are a symbol that represent the industrial food system and a key point that needs to be addressed in order to address and shift  away from the industrial food model.

Our vision is to get the multi-faceted number of issues with GMOs, ranging from health, to social justice, to environmental destruction, to a major contributor to climate change though topsoil degradation and numerous un-factored externalities, to corporate consolidation, to enter the framework of various groups that have not traditionally focused on the issue of GMOs as a central theme and point that needs to be addressed to push for a systemic shift in the current corporate food regime.

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Endorsers:

AGRA Watch: project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice

Bay Localize

Breakthrough Communities

Californians for Pesticide Reform

Center for Food Safety

Comite de Defensa del Maiz Criollo

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)

Food Democracy Now!

Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy

Food and Water Watch

David Campos: San Francisco Supervisor District 9

Gayle Mclaughlin: Mayor of Richmond

Global Exchange

GMO Free Los Angeles

Guerreros Verdes (Mexico)

International Development Exchange (IDEX)

Institute for Responsible Technology

Institute of Near Eastern and African Studies (INEAS)

Latin American Alliance for Immigrant Rights (ALIADI)

Latino Environmental Advancement and Policy Institute

Mandela Marketplace

Movement Generation

Navdanya

National Organization for Women (NOW)

Oakland Institute

Oakland Food Connection

Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

Organic Consumers Association

Pequenos Agricultores de California (PAC)

Pesticide Action Network

Pesticide Watch

PODER

Rainforest Action Network

San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance (SFUAA)

Semillas De Vida (Mexico)

Sin Maiz no hay Pais (Mexico)

South Central Farmers Cooperative

If you would like to volunteer or apply for a scholarship: click here for details

The California Biosafety Alliance

www.biosafetyalliance.org

--
Miguel Robles
415 3681891
www.aliadi.org/
http://balasc.org/
http://biosafetyalliance.org/
http://versoactivo.blogspot.com/

--
Miguel Robles
415 3681891
www.aliadi.org
ALIADI stands for the Alianza Latinoamericana por los Derechos de los Inmigrantes, a network of community members throughout California who share information and resources to uphold the rights and social integration of our immigrant community.
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