Dear Friends,
We are delighted to bring you the second issue of Our Work, Our Lives. The theme of this month is Food Stories: leaves and flowers we eat.
Food stories are political. Policies decide who gets to eat what, how much and who makes profit on the backs of food producers. Struggles for food security and sovereignty are also integrally linked with people’s struggles to realise their rights to land, water, forest, safe environment, livelihoods, and health.
Hunger is on the rise, with as many as 811 million people worldwide going to bed hungry every night. Even though small farmers, fishers, and indigenous people produce about 70 percent of the global food supply, they are the ones who experience food insecurity. Six out of ten people who are food insecure are women. In the words of Michael Fakhri, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, “Hunger, malnutrition and famine are not caused by inadequate amounts of food. They are caused by the political failures that restrict people’s access to adequate food.”
Many members and partners of GAATW work on sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty. Keeping in mind the diverse communities our colleagues work with, we wanted to start a discussion on food – the simplest kinds of food. Edible greens and flowers are not just nutritious; they are also affordable and available to many people. We wanted to highlight the role that women play in growing and collecting leafy greens and flowers for eating as well as for medicinal purposes. We wanted to encourage our colleagues to play a role in documenting that knowledge for younger people in communities. As the essays in this issue show, women in rural communities know what grows where, when, and how to collect it without harming the eco-system. We noticed that even when they have just a tiny patch of land, they grow some greens or herbs for their families.
This issue features 25 stories from 11 countries – Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Myanmar, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Thailand, and Uganda. As in the previous issue, our authors are domestic and garment workers, both local and migrant, weavers, farmers, daily-wage workers, community workers and worker organisers. Some live close to the forest and several have a little space around their house to grow some greens, vegetables, or herbs. Our youngest author is 19 years old and the oldest is in her 80s! Some friends and colleagues of GAATW-IS have also written for this issue. What connects all authors is their deep love for plants and trees and their passion for cooking healthy and tasty meals. As Fah, one of the authors, says, “my garden fills my heart, soul and stomach.”
Many of our authors have fond memories associated with greens and flowers of their childhood. Jannatul, a garment worker in Jordan, remembers collecting white lilies in her village in Bangladesh and making crowns with it. Laxmi Priya recalls how as an adolescent she got stuck in the mud while trying to pull out clumps of water clover. Ayah, a migrant domestic worker in Kuwait, misses her Barrio in the Philippines and the fresh vegetables of their garden there.
The stories tell us about many common edible greens and flowers across South and Southeast Asia and Africa. Moringa, water clover, Colocasia, jute leaves, pumpkin leaves, and many others seem to be popular across borders. Several of our authors have shared recipes using their favourite greens and flowers.
There is another reason why we wanted to focus on the theme of food. You may have heard about the recently concluded UN Summit on Food Systems (UNFSS). Two years ago, on 16 October, World Food Day, the UN Secretary General announced that the summit scheduled to be held in 2021 would take transformative steps to address the growing problems of hunger and malnutrition. With the outbreak of COVID-19 and the intersecting crises of climate, livelihood, and health, the need to work towards just and equitable food systems became even more urgent.
However, the UNFSS has disappointed many people working on food security and confused many governments. The summit’s unwillingness to draw any lesson from the ongoing pandemic, its lack of accountability to people impacted by food insecurity and the corporate capture of the process have resulted in massive resistance and counter-mobilisation around the world. For the last several months, many colleagues are convening online and offline to come up with people-centred alternatives.
Although GAATW-IS has not participated in these mobilisations, we are following the discussions and are in solidarity with our colleagues. We urge our members and partners, even those who are not working on food security, to follow the discussions of the Autonomous People’s Response to UNFSS and Global People’s Summit on Food Systems. The UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food does not mince his words when he says that the UNFSS has failed to listen to people who have been impacted by the unjust food systems.
This pandemic has highlighted the interconnected nature of our struggles. Most of us focus on specific issues and cannot engage with every advocacy forum. However, we can stay updated on global discussions that will affect us all. Undemocratic processes such as the UNFSS2021 have further underscored the need for inter-movement dialogues and coordinated action. Earlier this month, our colleagues from the International Migrants Alliance organised an online forum on Migrants on Food Security and Sovereignty. At this moment, our colleagues from the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW-AP) are busy with the deliberations at UNCTAD 15. Do listen in to some of the sessions.
We will continue with the theme of food security in the next issue of Our Work, Our Lives and highlight the struggles and resistance of some of our members and partners working at the community level.
We hope you enjoy reading the stories in this magazine. A word of caution: although we have tried to get the scientific names of all the leaves and flowers referred to in the stories, we may not have got all of them right. Unless you are familiar with the edible leaves and flowers or have local people or credible information to guide you, do not rush to collect and cook them on your own.
But do eat with local people, they know what is edible, how to cook it and what should be avoided.
Happy reading and happy eating! Do send your comments and suggestions, if any, to
