Bees + Seeds: Time of Action and Solidarity for Food Justice.

March against Monsanto

In this time of major shifts in our world around the injustices of access to healthy food and seeds there is such a need for action. We cannot allow these inequalities to continue and for major corporations to govern and determine the rights to own and distribute our seeds. This is a human right and has been part of our traditional agricultural system since we humans started our relationship to seeds and plants. This is a relationship based on reciprocity and without the balance and without the understanding that we are not the controllers we are heading to a disastrous tipping point.

Saturday May 23rd 2015 was a global day of solidarity and action sponsored by  March Against Monsanto and GMO- Free New Mexico .
Groups from all over the world held their own events, marches and educational activities to highlight the need to take back our food systems and promote positive solutions for local food growing.

 It was a call for action for:

• Solidarity against Monsanto’s predatory business and agricultural practices 
• Reject “ substantial equivalence” of GMO crops 
• Promote organic solutions 
• Expose the cronyism between big business and the government 
• Address poverty, the real cause of global hunger 
• Support food and seed sovereignty 
• Support local farms, bees and biodiversity 
• Labeling of all food that contains GMO’s 

Local sustainability activist Anna Maldonado

SeedBroadcast was invited by Chris Perkins to take part in the Albuquerque event called Bees + Seeds. This started with a march from the Downtown Growers Market to the Bees + Seeds Festival of music, speakers, bee and seed art, local action groups and food. This festival provided the space of people to speak out and to engage in animated conversations around many GMO issues.

Jade Leyva with her Seed Mural project

The SeedBroadcast Mobile Broadcasting Station was active and alive with visitors exchanging seeds and information about the ins and outs of growing and saving seeds in the dry southwest. Squash seeds arrived from local seed saver, Raven. He has been growing these seeds out for over forty years and were originally given to him by the great Hopi leader Grandfather David . Grandfather David was the teacher and mentor to John Kimmey, who he entrusted with the Hopi Prophecy. Kimmey  ventured further afield to sensitively spread this prophecy. In the seventies Kimmey joined with local activist Seth Rothman (Green Fire Times) to start the Talavaya organization. Talavaya was established after talking with elderly Indian and Hispanic farmers and discovering there were only a few left who still planted the old seed strains of their ancestors. It became one of the first seed banks in the southwest to save and distribute local traditional seeds. 

Raven with his Hopi squash seeds

 So forty years later the seeds were returning with their held stories and the resilience to retain their essence of purity.  They returned to remind us that we need to protect them as these strains of seeds are rapidly disappearing taking with them the traditions that are at the heart of many cultures.
We cannot let this happen.
 So let this day of action against Monsanto spark more actions, and more actions.....Please do not keep silent, raise your voices, seek those local varieties of seeds, put your hands in the soil, plant them and pray and sing for their survival…….

“There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” Arundhati Roy

The following are some of the voices that spoke out:

Anna Maldonado shares her story of GMO'S

Sarah Jones talks about her love of seed bombing Yvonne Cunningham talks straight up about Food Justice Timothy Gallardo talks about applying real science to food production Sally-Alice Thompson talks about food justice and sings a song about the right to know Robin Seydel talks about justice and fairness from the soil upwards
Bryna Stalarow talks about injustice of food Marian West talks about Food Justice

Ways you can take action:

• Call or meet with your local officials
• Plant Bee-friendly flowers
• Boycott food companies that use GMO's and pesticides
• Plant a vegetable garden
• Grow food
• Grow a garden with your neighbor
• Vote with your fork
• Buy organic and local sustainable foods
• Save your lace race seeds
• Speak out, sing out, dance out
• Listen to our planet