Democracy Now for today, May 20th reports on the hundreds of farmworkers and their supporters who are in New York City ahead of Wendy's shareholder meeting to ask for improved working conditions for those who pick its tomatoes in the Fair Food campaign organized by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. CIW farmworker and organizer, Gerardo Reyes-Chavez talks about the campaign.  So far McDonald's, Subway, Burger King and Taco Bell have all joined the White House-recognized Social Responsibility Program, agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes to raise wages and only buy from fields where workers' rights are respected.

Business and Human Rights, Corporate Social Responsibility

The fifteen-day, 200-mile March for Rights, Respect, and Fair Food came to a loud, colorful, and jubilant end on Sunday, March 17th outside Publix corporate headquarters in Lakeland, Florida.

Fair food, respecting agricultural workers here in the United State, is the focus of Lucas Benitez, Co-Director, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that has been very successful at getting Corporations and growers to sign a code of conduct with new  zero tolerance for slavery, sexual harrassment, and right to form their own health and safety conditions. Follow their actions on their YouTube channel here.

Mr. Benitez spoke at the Mary Robinson Speaker Series in November 2002.

The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday (May 2013) in favor of biotech giant Monsanto, closing the door on a patent case that has pitted a smalltime farmer from Indiana against a titan of the agriculture industry.

The high court said early Monday that 75-year-old farmer Vernon Bowman of Indiana violated Monsanto’s patent rights when he purchased a mix of seeds from a grain elevator that he later planted on his Midwest farm. This is his story in his own words from February, 2013 interview covered in the Huffington Post.

Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, TED Fellow Marcin Jakubowski is open-sourcing the blueprints for 50 farm machines, allowing anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. And that's only the first step in a project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village (starting cost: $10,000). April 2011.

Open Source Ecology Website is here.

Growing up in Detroit, Brittany Stallworth, Brower Youth Award Winner 2012, and members of her family suffered from limited access to healthy food and exposure to toxic emissions from nearby car factories. Driven by her own experience with environmental injustice, Stallworth founded "Green is the New Black" — a food and environmental justice campaign at Howard University. As part of the campaign, Stallworth organized on-campus workshops for students led by experts in food, health, and environmental issues. She also helped organize a symposium attended by more than 35 green organizations that offered internship and job opportunities to the college students. The passion Stallworth brings to this cause has inspired others to take action in improving food accessibility and environmental justice in underprivileged communities

Maya Salsedo - Brower Youth Award Winner 2012 - For Salsedo, the personal is political. Salsedo is the descendent of emmigrants from Puerto Rico who found their way to Hawaii in order to work in sugar cane fields. Her family has always had trouble accessing healthy food. That experience with food insecurity spurred Salsedo to dedicate herself to advancing food justice. In 2011 — while working as a youth organizer with the Earth Island Institute-sponsored project Rooted in Community — she proposed creating a Youth Food Bill of Rights. The declaration grew out of Salsedo's vision for a food system that is good for consumers, producers, and the planet and which gives local communities more control over the food they eat. Salsedo has since motivated her peers to spread the word about the Youth Food Bill across the nation. Her work has provided the foundation for dialogues about what food justice means to today's youth.

Interview with Michael Elliott CEO of ONE at the 2012 World Bank & International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings. ONE is a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization with 3M members that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa, by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that are saving lives, helping to put kids in school and improving futures. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers.

Nikki Henderson sends the important message in this video of "gathering people together with food."  Food is a tool for social change.  All of our movements are the same, we are fighting for the same thing happy, healthy, thriving people and planet. The best way to weave us together?: Feed the People. Nikki is the Executive Director of People's Grocery in West Oakland, CA. Under her leadership, the organization has launched a new strategic campaign focused on revitalizing the economy of West Oakland through all aspects of the food system. In 2010, Nikki was featured in ELLE Magazine as one of the five Gold Awardees. She is speaking at the Connecting for Change Conference sponsored by the Marion Institute.