November 20 Glasgow Hosted by Scottish Socialist Party 2pm, Creation Studios16 Trongate Glasgow G1 5EU
November 21 Newcastle hosted by Newcastle University International Development Society, 6pm at Room 2.22 at the Old Library Building (Research Beehive), Newcastle University ( entrance from Queen Victoria Rd near and opposite RVI – also possible from Claremont Rd or Claremont Walk.
November 22 Wigan hosted by Wigan Green Socialists, Socialist Resistance and Green Left : Tuesday, 7:30pm – 10:00pm Friends’ Meeting House, 76 Swinley Lane (see Map @ http://www.quaker.org.uk/wigan)
November 24 Oxford 7.30pm , Oxford Town Hall St Aldate’s, 40 Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BX
Tour of Philipina Ecosocialist
We live in a world where soil erosion, desertification and famine is an ever-increasing reality for millions of poor people. At the same time the profits of large landowners and supermarkets continue to soar.
The issues of food production and food sovereignty – who controls the production, sale and distribution of food – have never been more crucial.
In November 2011 Socialist Resistance and Green Left will be hosting a national tour to let audiences in British cities hear an activist for whom this is a matter of life and death.
Our keynote speaker will be Maria Neri B. Pampilo from Mindanao in the Philippines. Maria is a longstanding activist and ecosocialist. She will share her powerful experiences in the struggle for land reform and ecologically sustainable food production.
Our keynote speaker will be Maria Neri B. Pampilo from Mindanao in the Philippines. Maria is a longstanding activist and ecosocialist. She will share her powerful experiences in the struggle for land reform and ecologically sustainable food production.
Monoculture – the industrial growing of a single cash crop – is a major contributor to soil erosion and desertification along with forest clearance for farming multi-nationals.
Agribusiness calls for ever-increasing yields that may give short-term benefits but at a devastating long-term cost including pesticides polluting rivers and oceans.
The cost to human communities is also immeasurable – peasants are thrown off their farms as land reform is reversed in the insatiable search for profit. Millions are forced to migrate to unsustainable cities – living in shantytowns with no infrastructure.
The cost to human communities is also immeasurable – peasants are thrown off their farms as land reform is reversed in the insatiable search for profit. Millions are forced to migrate to unsustainable cities – living in shantytowns with no infrastructure.
Samir Amin, the economist and writer on development issues, has argued that agriculture is one of the new frontiers for capital. Over the last few years appreciable amounts of speculative capital has moved into food production forcing food prices up. At the same time there has been a massive expansion of an unprecedented phenomena – the land grabbing, particularly in Africa, by both private and state capital, for the production of both food and agrifuels.
There is resistance – from the growth of militant peasant and indigenous organisations in many parts of the globe, the pioneering of organic agriculture in countries as diverse as Cuba, Venezuela and the Philippines and of guerilla gardening in the deserts of post-industrial cities in the United States such as Chicago.
The opportunity for ecosocialists in Britain to explore these topics in depth doesn’t come often and we hope you won’t miss this opportunity
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