Occupy vs. the global race to the bottom
By John Cavanagh, Robin Broad, YES! magazine
In addition to Wall Street speculators, the other dominant forces of the U.S. economy over the past three decades have been global firms like General Electric, Exxon Mobil, and Apple. These firms spread their global assembly lines and resource extraction to countries like Mexico, China, and the Philippines where, in a quest for cheaper costs, they can more easily evade worker rights and environmental regulations. This global corporate economy pits U.S. workers and communities against poorly enforced Third World worker rights and environmental rules in a “race to the bottom” in terms of rights and standards. These global firms simply say to governments and workers: lower your wages and standards or we will move our operations elsewhere. They either get what they want or they move.
For farmers everywhere, small is (still) beautiful
By Robin Broad, John Cavanagh, YES! magazine
There is battle raging across the world over who can better feed its people: small-scale farmers practicing sustainable agriculture, or giant agribusinesses using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Cornerstones of a Rooted Economy
By Robin Broad, John Cavanagh, YES! magazine
We want to know: Is an alternative future possible—one rooted in small fishers, small farmers, and the teeming biodiversity of the islands? For starters we want to know: Can small fishers become a pillar of a new economy as this country begins to run out of oil and gas?
How a once nutritious grain was transformed into something unhealthy to eat: the story of refined white rice
By John Cavanagh, New Economy Working Group
As we dig into history, we discover there is a much deeper answer to "why white rice?" Traders who exported rice demanded that it be shipped as polished white rice--which weighed less and stored longer and hence increased their profits--and further proliferated its consumption. Then, over the decades, the dominant elite culture defined brown rice as "dirty" and fit only for the poor; while white rice was seen as sophisticated and modern.
The coming global food fight
By John Cavanagh, Robin Broad, YES! magazine
The local organic farmers with whom we have been spending time in the Philippines and elsewhere are less affected by these price swings precisely because they consume much of what they harvest, and they sell the rest to local markets. These farmers have achieved at the household level what Frances Moore Lappé terms “food democracy,” and what the small farmer coalition, Via Campesina, calls “food sovereignty” at a national level.
Farmer by farmer, an organic transition
By John Cavanagh, Robin Broad, YES! magazine
According to Gil: “Only about 2 percent of what we eat comes from outside the farm: salt, some cooking oil, spices. That’s it.”
Yes, there is an alternative
By Robin Broad, John Cavanagh, YES! magazine
Currently, as financial markets stagnate and food prices swing wildly and the environment is under siege, more and more people, communities, and nations are taking steps to reduce their vulnerability to a volatile global economy.