CFA is hosting a Northeast Encuentro!

Very exciting news!

The Community Farmworker Alliance-NYC is hosting a Northeast Encuentro to take place February 4th-6th, 2011 in New York City. The Encuentro is a regional gathering of supporters and allies of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). The CIW is a worker-led organization of mainly Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian farmworkers working in the fields of Florida. They are fighting for higher wages and better working conditions.

Community, youth, student and faith allies work hand-in-hand with the CIW to drive their work at a national level. The Encuentro will be a space for these allies to:

• Learn about the CIW's Campaign for Fair Food from CIW members and allies
  
Share ideas and meet cool people through fun workshops

Take action together at a demonstration at Trader Joe's

Connect through diverse musical traditions and art making

• Prepare for a National CIW mobilization to take place in late February in Boston, Massachusetts.

For more information, please contact farmworkersolidarirty@gmail.com.

Supermarket Week of Action!

Fair Food activists get seriously creative in supermarket actions across the country!

Tomatoes testify outside Trader Joe's in NYC, Lady Gaga sings in Berkeley, pennies for Publix delivered by wheelbarrow in Naples... Week of Action sends powerful message: No more excuses. Now is the time for Fair Food!

Check out all the news at ciw-online.org!

Tomatoes Come Alive at Trader Joe's This Weekend

Our action at the Union Square Trader Joe's was AMAZING today! Just wait for our video of 8 cute tomatoes running full speed into Trader Joe's to the bemusement of customers and anger of TJ's managers.

Here is a little taste- The Bronx County Independent Examiner wrote a very positive article yesterday about this morning's action!

The Fruits of our Labor: Achieving the Impossible

"And yet, every once in a very long while, we are privileged to actually witness the balance shifting."

Read this article by CFA member Audrey Sasson about the recent CIW victory- signing an agreement with large grower Pacific!

Five Things You Don't Know About SUPERMARKETS!

From Beijing to Brighton, billions of people now can't imagine life without supermarkets. But what forces push us, as we push our carts?

1. Supermarkets rule the food chain.

A century ago, the companies that dominated the global food trade -- Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, Continental Grain, and Bunge -- were wholesalers. Today, these giants are dwarfed by the supermarkets that govern the global food system from farm to fork. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has sales greater than 2 percent of U.S. GDP and, with 2.1 million greeters, stock clerks, and logistics officers working at its 8,416 stores from Shenzhen to Shreveport, ranks among the largest employers worldwide -- only China's army has more people on its payroll. Supermarkets first jumped to the developing world in the 1990s; now they account for more than half of food retail sales in Latin America and China.

2. But this doesn't mean we're all eating the same stuff.

The success in Asia of Carrefour, the French giant superstore chain, didn't come because the famously lactose-intolerant East suddenly developed a hankering for brie. Unlike, say, McDonald's, supermarkets don't simply impose the cultural prejudices of their home countries on others -- Walmarts in Beijing stock live tortoises for turtle soup and proudly tout moisturizer made with sheep placenta (a fabled wrinkle reducer). But supermarkets are big factors in what epidemiologists call the nutrition transition: Local, fresh food is losing out to processed goods that tend to be higher in salt, fats, and sugar -- and far more profitable for retailers. The result? Dramatically rising rates of obesity everywhere.

3. When it comes to surveillance, the CIA has nothing on supermarkets.

The first supermarket, King Piggly Wiggly in Memphis, Tennessee, guided the shoppers of 1916 through a maze of chicken-wire aisles until they had passed every available item and reached the checkout. Today's supermarket Big Brothers are much more sophisticated: Modern technologies such as radio-frequency identification tagging and data-mining -- Walmart's database is second only in capacity to the Pentagon's -- are used to monitor consumer habits and maximize impulse purchases. So, it's a good bet that the Walton family knows more about the average Chinese person than CIA director Leon Panetta does. It works the other way, too: Wall Street uses spy satellites to check whether Walmart parking lots are full, a measure of the strength of U.S. retail.

4. Supermarkets don't like poor people.

When the first Carrefours and Tescos landed in Southeast Asia and Latin America, they picked locations in the toniest parts of Bangkok and Buenos Aires. Supermarkets have high costs -- an average store stocks tens of thousands of items -- and low margins: Profit is driven by high-volume purchasing. So, these "big box" stores look for consumers with cars, a significant indicator of wealth in developing countries. The irony is that supermarkets are generally cheaper than other local retailers -- a box of Cheerios can be 40 percent more expensive at the bodega or the dokkan than at the megastore.

5. Variety is an illusion.

The real, evil genius of supermarkets isn't frozen lasagna -- it's the logistical empire required to move bananas from a plantation in Honduras to your local Whole Foods. Seasonal variety has been sacrificed for ease of transport, and the farms best able to provide a monotony of fruits and vegetables with bruise-resistant flesh and waxy skins have won out. Thankfully, there's a backlash: Urban farmers' markets from New York's Union Square to Tokyo's Shibuya district have mushroomed, and farmers and consumer groups are experimenting with new technologies to distribute local agriculture. These new "super-farmers'-markets" might just be the future of food.

Join a CFA Working Group!

Friends!

Hello to all of our wonderful allies in the NYC area. We thank you for coming to our actions and teach-ins and supporting the Campaign for Fair Food. We know many of you have been wondering how you can get more involved with this work and now is your chance. The NYC Community Farmworker Alliance has just restructured and we now have clearly established working groups. With these new working groups there is a formalized way for you to use your talents, develop new skills, avoid going to too many long drawn out meetings, all while supporting the amazing work of the Coalition of Immokalee workers. We would love to have YOU join one of our working groups and be a part of the NYC Community Farmworker Alliance.

All you have to do is write to the contact of the group or groups you're interested in and they'll tell you all you need to know! Also, there is no set time commitment required for these working groups as some activities can take one hour, and others many months.

Please feel free to write us at farmworkersolidarity@gmail.com if you have any questions!

Media/Communications: Learn how to write press releases, use social media for the power of the people, correspond with press people and also do audio, video or photo documentation our awesome events. If you have multimedia communications experience we would love to have you join this group. If you are interested in acquiring these skills there will be training opportunities within this working group and you can learn to be a dope community journalist while supporting the campaign for fair food.
CONTACT: Andalusia at andalalucha@gmail.com

Campaigns: Learn about and help us expand the NYC Campaign for Fair Food targeting the Supermarket Industry. Plan and promote actions and stay connected with national movement for fair food! Strategize and gain skills for event and action planning and building momentum!
CONTACT: Charlene at humanrightssbu@aol.com

Outreach and Education: Work together to plan and present popular education workshops, produce bilingual Spanish and English flyers, documents and other educational materials. Make connections and develop relationships with other NYC social justice organizations to strengthen our movement at large. Great place to learn about the the CIWs work, develop presentation skills, do research and make contacts with NYC organizations !
CONTACT: Lupe at rod.guad@gmail.com

Fundraising: Help make us some cash money to support the work of our group by holding fundraisers, writing grants and making cool merch! No experience necessary! We'll teach you the skills you need!
CONTACT: Audrey at audrey.sasson@gmail.com

Organizational Development: Help plan a regional gathering of CIW allies, help orient new CFA members and plan trainings for the group to increase our skills!
CONTACT: Mae at wmsingerman@gmail.com

CFA Benefit Show and Potluck This Saturday!

Ryan Harvey's CD RELEASE SHOW and BENEFIT for Community/Farmworker Alliance and the Civilian Soldier Alliance
Saturday, October 23, 2010 - 6:00pm - 11:30pm
at Rebel Diaz Arts Collective
[478 Austin Place, Bronx: #6 Train to E. 149 St.: walk two blocks toward the Bruckner Expressway, make a right on Austin Pl.]
Adam Obernauer (631) 252-4222

This event is a whole lotta things! First you should join us at 6 PM for a pot luck to learn more about the Community/Farmworker Alliance and how you can get involved! Then you should stick around for an awesome show that is a joint benefit for the Community/Farmworker Alliance and the Civilian Soldier Alliance. To top it all off, it's Ryan Harvey from Riot Folk's CD release show for the long anticipated "BLOWBACK" (over 2 years in the making!)

with

Ryan Harvey
http://www.riotfolk.org/ [1]

Born in a Cent
http://borninacent.blogspot.com/ [2]

Bell's Roar
http://www.myspace.com/bellsroar [3]