“For the Second Time in 2014 UAWC Wins an International Award On “Food Sovereignty
After winning the Equator prize 2014, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), as a recognition of its developmental role in the Palestinian Agricultural Sector, was named by the US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) along with the Community to Community Development of Bellingham, Washington, as co-recipients of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize.
The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) represents a network of food producers and labor, environmental, faith-based, social justice and anti-hunger advocacy organizations. The Prize was first awarded in 2009 as an alternative to the World Food Prize founded by “the father of the Green Revolution,” the late Norman Borlaug. While the World Food Prize emphasizes the increased production through technology, the Food Sovereignty Prize champions solutions coming from those most impacted by the injustices of the global food system.
UAWC won the prize after being nominated by Grassroots International which is a strategic partner organization that supports farmers’ rights and women empowerment programs. Past winners of the Food Sovereignty Prize include La Via Campesina, MST (Brazil), Family Farm Defenders (US), Korean Women’s Peasant Association, and the Group of 4 Peasant Organizations (Haiti).
UAWC’s struggle for food sovereignty along with its developmental approach to support small scale farmers and fishermen, its advocacy programs to defend the rights of the Palestinian farmers and fishermen against the brutal Israeli violations, its role in protecting the Palestinian local seeds, its role in empowering women farmers, in addition to its response campaigns to emergency situations have all qualified it to win this prize.
This important prize inspires UAWC to carry on its work in defending Palestinian farmers’ rights through supporting small-scale farmers and fishermen toward their food sovereignty and rights to land and water, and its coordination with local and international movements for social justice and human rights.
The Food Sovereignty Prize will be awarded on the evening of October 15th in Des Moines, IA, at the Historical Building. The Food Sovereignty Prize challenges the view that simply producing more through industrial agriculture and aquaculture will end hunger or reduce suffering. The world currently produces more than enough food, but unbalanced access to wealth means the inadequate access to food. Real solutions protect the rights to land, seeds and water of farmers’ families and indigenous communities worldwide and promote sustainable agriculture through agro-ecology. The communities around the world that struggle to grow their food and take care of their land have long known that destructive political, economic, and social policies, as well as militarization, deprive communities from their rights. These are the root causes of hunger and poverty.
In this occasion, UAWC extends its appreciation to all of the initiatives around the world that are struggling for food Sovereignty, extended thanks to the farmers of the world and special thanks to the Palestinian farmers and fishermen from whom we learn that joint work will certainly bring positive change towards social justice.
For more information: http://foodsovereigntyprize.org/