these things.

1st April 2012

Post

Help fund food sovereignty

Hello Friends, Relatives and Comrades,

Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF) and Kishani Sabha (BKS) desperately need some funds!

“But who are they?” you may be asking, “and what do they have to do with me?”

Well a little background first: This is a peasant (krishok) and a peasant women (kishani) organisation working for the rights of landless people, for agrarian reform and for food sovereignty in Bangladesh.

Why this is important

The global food system is a monstrous entity which causes problems that we see in Australia, such as farmers being undercut by supermarket monopolies, factory farming, and environmental degradation. These same forces are working to maximise profit at the expense of food producers worldwide. In places such as Bangladesh, farmers are being pressured to give up their traditional farming methods, and instead to take up larger scale monoculture farming using hybrid seeds and costly inputs causing dependency on large multinationals. This type of farming leaves peasants poor, with few choices, and is more vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

As Ashlesha Khadse from La Via Campesina (an enormous global peasant network) said, “food is life, we can’t survive without food. And so if the multinationals can take control of land and food production, and make everyone dependent on them for food, then they can make huge profits because everyone needs food to survive”. 

In Bangladesh around 70 percent of people are considered landless. This affects peasants because they have nowhere to grow food and are forced to sell their labour to feed their families. They don’t have autonomy or choices over what they do and are living ‘hand to mouth’, even though they are working tirelessly.

What BKS & BKF do

The Bangladesh Krishok Federation and Kishani Sabha are part of La Via Campesina and are working to secure the rights of peasants through direct action such as land occupations (we saw first hand some really huge and inspiring ones, giving homes and place to grow food to thousands of landless people), demonstrations, rallies, as well as legal aid.

Recently BKF and BKS also hosted a huge event: the South Asian Climate Change, Gender and Food Sovereignty Caravan, which connected peasants and activists from South Asia and travelled throughout Bangladesh, many connections that were made for continued solidarity, so that BKF and BKS can continue to support peasants and landless people throughout Bangladesh and South Asia on local issues.

This was the first event of its kind in Bangladesh and as can be imagined took some major dedication, hard work, organisation and funds. The people working so hard on these issues in Bangladesh don’t have cushy jobs, government grants, or centrelink supporting them, they have to work hard to feed themselves and their families, and on top of this they devote so much of their time to volunteer organising.

In addition to these land struggles climate change is an actual real threat already to the people of Bangladesh, as a very low lying country that is covered much by water, the people are already experiencing harsher conditions due to the actions of people and governments in countries such as Australia, this makes the struggles of the landless, especially women, even more difficult.

One major outcome of the caravan was a declaration from the peasants and landless people of Bangladesh, which was delivered and read out at United Nations Durban COP17 meeting, bringing the voices of the people to a conference that mostly ignores the needs of those outside of major political powers. 

This was an amazing achievement and the organisations are trying to plan the follow up visits to communities to keep these networks going and to organise more global events to connect those geographically separated communities of peasants so they can have the mass people power needed to overcome the global forces, as they are the 99 percent!

But the NGOs who said they’d fund them have not followed through so…

What you can do without getting off your chair

We’re just asking you to take 2 minutes to log into your online banking and throw a few dollars into the fund we created to support the amazing work being done. This will directly help to secure land for peasants affected by climate change and by the inequalities of the global food system that us Australians are implicated in.

Pick a number and donate it through your online banking. Double digits preferred! You’re already on the internet and all you have to do is open a new webpage and login to your bank. Here’s the details:

Account Name: Friends of BKF and BKS

BSB: 633 000

Account Number: 145 327 037

We know that everyone feels broke, but it’s all relative and you’ll be most likely getting paid within the fortnight, so be generous and dig deep. We’ve got some prizes available for donations above $50. If you want to receive one, email us with your transaction details and address and we’ll send it out to you!

The climate debt is real, and this is one way that you as a (relatively) rich, (probably) guilty westerner can do something concrete and immediate to start paying off the debt.

This is a real and direct way to enact international solidarity to an organisation lead by peasants for peasants working towards structural change, agrarian reform and towards a future of food sovereignty! Seriously, if we send this out to 100 people who all give 20 bucks that’s 2000 dollars which is a lot of money over there and can really go towards funding travel and expenses so peasants across the country can meet up and strategise. That’s pretty cool…

P.S. Don’t rely on someone else to donate because what if they don’t…?  But really, the reason you can make a such a huge difference by giving a little is because there are already people working on these issues and they know what the political situation is like, they’ve got solutions, they know how to create change. They have made changes and will continue to, they’re just a bit underfunded. So pop some dollars in the account and we’ll send it across to them.

For more info or questions: www.krishok.org or email friendsofbkf@gmail.com

Account Name: Friends of BKF and BKS

BSB: 633 000

Account Number: 145 327 037

Please forward this on through your networks!