5 reasons you should support the Monsanto Tribunal
A symbolic trial being held in The Hague, Netherlands this week could shape the future of the food we eat. Agrochemical giant Monsanto faces people who have suffered from the corporation’s approach to agriculture. Communities around the world are lining up to hold Monsanto to account for their alleged atrocities against humanity and the environment.
Here are five reasons to support the international tribunal against Monsanto:
1. If you eat, this is your fight
You eat, so you’re involved. Hopefully you’re eating three square meals a day, but chances are you don’t know how, or even where, that food was grown. We have become disconnected from one of the basic necessities of our lives. That’s why, on World Food Day (16 October), we’re taking back control.
2. Farmers need your support
As food production becomes more commercialised, we lose touch with what we eat and farmers lose control over what’s grown and how. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Together we can tip the balance of power away from the likes of Monsanto and Bayer – whose merger will create a mega-corporation that will seize more control over the world’s food supply.
Let’s put power back in the hands of the people who grow our food – the farmers who toil every day so that we can all enjoy the food we love.
3. A better food system is possible
The industrial scale of agriculture today has broken our food system. Giant agri-businesses fail to take into account the health of the environment and the communities who depend on it. Monoculture and dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides are taking its toll on the planet, animals and us.
It’s time to make the switch to ecological farming – to a system based on innovation and science that not only respects biodiversity, keeps carbon in the ground and rebuilds soil fertility, but also sustains yields and provides a secure livelihood for farming communities. We need a food system that puts people, not corporations, at its heart.
4. Become part of an amazing movement
The Tribunal brings together people of different nationalities, ages and walks of life to discuss, plan and take action. Doctors from Germany, scientists from India, academics from France, farmers from Mexico and lawyers from across the world are meeting in The Hague, united in determination to reclaim food and farming from corporate control.
5. Protect your children’s food
Are you happy to let the next generation eat unhealthy, chemical loaded, processed food? Or would you rather your child enjoy earth’s natural bounties and defend the land that grows them?
The future of food depends on the stand we take today. Show your support for the Monsanto Tribunal.
Angelica Carballo Pago is a media campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia based in Manila, the Philippines.
Source: Green peace
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