Rideshare to the Food Justice Revival!
August 7th, 2009 | 
Author: Got a car? Need a ride?
Check out our RIDEBUZZ Rideshare board to get your good self to the Food Justice Revival on Friday, August 28th.
See you there!
Posted in 
The Food Security Roundtable- read all about it!
Hello Farmers, Food Justice Organizers, and Friends
The Food Security Roundtable is a series of forums that are being held in a growing number of places in the Northeast. We are facilitating farmer/community networking and project development locally and regionally to increase community control and stability in the production, distribution, and consumption of food.
In this report you will find:
- An invitation to the Food Justice Revival concert in Wassaic, NY August 28th
- An invitation to the Food Security Roundtable seasonal gathering, also in Wassaic, NY August 29th
- The New York City News and update about the FSR Rural/Urban Exchange with a call out for food contributions and logistical support and links to the Rural/Urban Exchange project description
- The News about our current organizing work in the Hudson Valley and southern Vermont
Community Food Sovereignty Benefit Concert
“The Food Justice Revival!”
sponsored by the Food Security Roundtable and the Wild Hive Farm and Bakery (Clinton Corners, NY)
Where?
Wassaic, NY at the Grain Tower, last stop on the Harlem Valley Metro North Line. Driving?
Get a ride, or offer your car at our RIDEBUZZ Rideshare board
When? 6 pm – Friday, August 28th
Who’s Playing?
J.P. Harris and The Tough Choices!
Wicked Sweet Honky-Tonk Country from Southern Vt. Have a listen?
The Rude Mechanical Orchestra!
Incredible Marching Brass Band & Dance Troupe from Brooklyn Listen Up!!
The Readnex Poetry Squad!
Awesome Underground HipHop and Spoken Word Word.
Broadcast Live!
Everything You Ever Wanted! HipHop, IndieRock, & Soul to make you jump: Check it out!
ALSO Guest Appearances and Speakers, Silent Auction, Great local food, Locally crafted beer and wines, and Information about Food Security Projects in the Hudson Valley and the Northeast.
Why?
To raise money for urban and rural farmers and food justice organizers to go to the Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative gathering October 30th. www.growingfoodandjustice.org
In keeping with our desire to promote local food sovereignty throughout the Northeast and urban/rural collaboration we are subsidizing the travel costs for some farmers and activists to go to Milwaukee, WI. The funding will be earmarked for at least half people of color and an even spread between urban and rural attendees. They will have a chance to spend time together, to meet people doing food justice work around the country, and learn some skills to help us build the world we all want to live in.
Admission – $20-30
Includes camping at the Wassaic Community Farm next door. Discounts for farmers, Wassaic locals, and for those who bought a train ticket to get there. This will be a great summer event for everyone, and an opportunity to get to know each other for those planning to go to the Food Security roundtable the next day.
Food Security Roundtable – August 29th Wassaic, NY
The Food Security Roundtable is a forum for farmers, food justice activists, and other people from around the northeast region to discuss local and regional food security, or “food sovereignty”, in a social justice framework.
We have held local and regional public meetings in Southern Vermont and in the Hudson Valley to develop a cooperative network that can support and develop food sovereignty through collaboration, sharing resources, and hearing perspectives from as broad a range of people as we can reach. This August will mark our third regional forum, which convenes at the end of each season. We will discuss the projects that we are all involved in and develop ideas for working toward a just, secure, and democratic food system. In that democratic vein we are interested in input on how to frame this conversation from the people planning to attend.
Please contact us with your ideas about how to move this conversation forward and contribute to each others’ work. Parts of the forum will be focused on building local and regional collaborative projects, our relationships across race and class lines and the urban/rural divide, and broadening our ability to provide for all our local community needs, starting with creating our own systems for producing and distributing food.
NYC News – The Urban/Rural Exchange
The Urban/Rural Exchange is a first step in creating dialogue, common goals, and resource sharing between urban and rural food justice organizers and grassroots community groups about the politics and strategy for local food control based on mutual support and respect. Click HERE for more information.
Hudson Valley News
We convened our first local Food Security Roundtable in Hudson, NY on May 26th. About fifty farmers and community members from Duchess, Columbia, and Ulster Counties came and talked and ate local polenta pie. These were awesome, hardworking people from projects and farms who had taken off a May afternoon and evening (a big deal for a farmer in growing season) to come and meet each other and hear about other Hudson Valley farm and agriculture projects.
Those of us that organized the event have invited the Hudson Valley community to participate in organizing the next Hudson Valley-wide forum with us, helping frame the conversation of moving toward democratic community control and local production of the Hudson Valley food supply. This logistics organzing meeting will be held at Germantown Community Farm on Sunday July 12th at 7pm.
The Hudson Valley forum/roundtable is tentatively set for some time in late August, details TBA. contact:foodaction@gmail.com
Southern Vermont News
A draft mission-vision document has been written in the Brattleboro, VT area for the southern Vermont local part/chapter of this network. This document may serve as a basis for mission and vision development for the rest of the network, if ya’ll like it. If there is interest we might set up a mission-vision working group or try to hone it down all together at the next regional forum on August 29th. We are working out an article about the Urban/Rural Exchange in a local paper and getting pledges of food donations from farmers for the food shipment in late september. Some farmers are planting fields together as a result of meeting up at the Roundtable, as well as starting to work together to bring produce for sale to low-income neighborhoods in NYC.
That’s all the news for now. We’ll be launching our website soon and sending out the concert lineup for the Food Justice Revival with directions and volunteer opportunities. Please join us at some of the upcoming events or get in touch about any element of this work that interests you. We need help organizing all the projects listed above, so don’t hesitate to jump in.
In order to make a just food system and a world we want to live in we all need to contribute our voices presence in the process. It has been great to work with so many of you to do that together.
Thanks, Henry Harris ad-hoc organizer email cell: 917 922 5430