Global Conversations Webinar – Agriculture as a Weapon of Domination
Date: Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Time:
New global webinar discussing the role of agriculture in colonialism.
Speakers
Wes Jackson, The Land Institute
Asa Anpu, AAPDEP South Africa Director
Nely Rodriguez, Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Jaideep Hardikar, People’s Archive of Rural India
Moderator Delilah Barrios hosts “As All Get Out” on The Populist Voice channel.
Part of the Black & Green Wednesday Series from Gateway Green Alliance and Universal African People’s Organization.
The webinar is NO COST, but you need to REGISTER to attend. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on joining the meeting.
More on the Webinar
The webinar will begin with Wes Jackson explaining the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture: the cultivation of annual grain crops which compromise soil ecosystems and organic matter. Perennial grain crops and cropping systems can make food-producing ecosystems as resilient as natural ecosystems. Asa Anpu will cover what colonialism means to the colonized, especially with regards to food deserts imposed by settler “farmers” on Black people within South Africa and how the Uhuru Movement is challenging this. Nely Rodriguez will share how a small group of farmworkers joined with the Fair Food Program to completely change the conditions of their labor, from eliminating wage theft to modern-day slavery. US allies can support farmworker rights through the Boycott of Wendy’s. Jaideep Hardikar will address problems facing small and marginal farmers who comprise 83% of India’s farm households, commercialization of the countryside due to steady withdrawal of state support, and the growing network of people’s collectives and agro-ecological approaches.
About the Speakers
Wes Jackson, the co-founder of The Land Institute, has a doctorate in genetics from North Carolina State University and has written Altars of Unhewn Stone, Becoming Native to this Place, Nature as Measure, and Hogs Are Up, Stories from the Land with Digressions.
Asa Anpu is an African from Occupied Azania (South Africa), who was born in 1992, became a revolutionary in 2013, and joined with the Uhuru Movement to spread the message that colonized people must overturn colonialism in every possible way.
Dr. Aisha Fields will answer questions on behalf of Asa Anpu. She is International Director of the All African People’s Development & Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) which builds dual power programs in African communities worldwide under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party.
Nely Rodriguez is a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). She conducts workers’ rights education in the fields of farms participating in the Fair Food Program, hosts daily radio shows on the CIW’s community radio station, receives abuse complaints, manages wage theft claims, and investigates cases of modern-day slavery.
Jordan Lake will interpret for Nely Rodriguez. She is a co-coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, bringing young people from across the country into CIW’s struggle, and mobilizes farmworker allies within the Campaign for Fair Food, currently targeting Wendy’s.
Jaideep Hardikar is a journalist, writer, and researcher in Nagpur, India. He is a Roving Reporter with the People’s Archive of Rural India, a fellow of the New India Foundation, and the author of Ramrao and A Village Awaits Doomsday.
Delilah Barrios will moderate the program. She hosts “As All Get Out” on The Populist Voice channel and is the Green Party candidate for Texas Governor as well as being active in its Latinx caucus and Indigenous caucus.