INSTITUTE FOR FOOD & DEVELOPMENT POLICY398 60TH Street, Oakland, CA 94618 • PHONE: (510) 654 - 4400 • FAX: (510) 654 - 4551 • www.foodfirst.org

Ending Injustices That Cause Hunger and Environmental Destruction

IT’S TIME FOR ACTION—AND WORDS. The rise of far-right populism is a reflection of deep systemic crises in our society, unleashed by thirty-five years of neoliberal capitalism.

To build the flourishing, equitable, and sustainable world we desire, we need to change what we do—and how we think.

Embraced by politicians across the political spectrum and justified by a well-funded flow of publications from right-wing think tanks, neoliberal policies have destroyed livelihoods and the environment while concentrating the bulk of the world’s wealth in the hands of just a few individuals.

As corporate contracts replace the social contract, social polarization and the ugly forces of xenophobia, racism, and sexism have steadily gained political ground.

Luckily, communities around the world are standing up for equity and sustainability, especially in our food system. Reeling from dispossession, hunger, food insecurity and diet-related diseases, social movements today are a bold combination of innovative practices and transformative politics. While forging alternatives like agroecology, food hubs, and food commons in

frontline neighborhoods and villages, they are also fighting to protect and democratize land, water, and resource rights on the political front. They are fighting exclusionary and reactionary ideologies with dignity and compassion.

Food First’s frontline publishing approach brings researchers, writers, and social movements together in a collective effort to amplify the voices of those digging in and standing up for a new food system.

Our publications activate the voices of resistance for a deep paradigm shift by recognizing that the most powerful strategy for systems transformation is to spread the experiences, leadership, and the insights of those on the front lines of social change.

As a “people’s think tank” we do this by partnering with  frontline communities in an interactive publishing process that starts with their lived experience. Working together, we co-produce manuscripts in the words of those who are actively challenging the corporate food regime, in words and in deeds. The visions, victories, losses, and lessons are communicated in an engaging narrative form that highlights the hope of our social movements. Written for a broad audience, these publications show how the rich diversity of the food justice, food sovereignty, and climate justice movements are converging around a new, transformative paradigm not just for a new food system, but for a new society.

We face troubling and challenging times. Food First’s frontline publishing helps us build alliances with the peoples, communities and movements for whom giving up hope is not an option.

Food First’s Frontline Publishing: Activating the Voices of Resistance for a Deep Paradigm Shift

WRITE SHOP

Others tried to farm more land, but the only areas available were forest fragments and steep hillsides. Deforestation—already a problem—increased.

The Campesino a Campesino Movement

Luckily, in 1978 the farmers of Vicente Guerrero received a visit from a group of Kaq’chikel Mayan farmers from the highlands of Guatemala who taught them simple techniques of soil and water conservation, soil building and crop improvement. Farmers recovered their yields by restoring their soils, seeds and agrobiodiversity. The Campesino a Campesino (farmer to farmer) movement was born and spread quickly throughout Mesoamerica.

Over the last 35 years, the farmers of Campesino a Campesino have used small-scale experimentation and popular education methods to spread effective sustainable farming practices from farmer to farmer. The movement’s holistic philosophy and extensive knowledge networks link thousands of farmer-pro-moters (promotores) to hundreds of farmer’s organi-zations like RICDA.

Every year, RICDA holds dozens of farmer-to-farmer agroecology workshops in Puebla, Tlaxcala and Guerrero. Local farmers work together in teams to implement new practices on their lands. They are living examples of the potential of agroecological resilience.

Farmer-promoters give workshops and classes in their local grammar schools and high schools. Students classify local pollinators and their associ-ated plants, and mount them in glass-case displays. They learn conservation and restoration practices and implement them on a small scale on their fam-ilies’ farms where they hold field visits. As their par-ents and other villagers follow the progress of the experiments, everyone learns and shares knowledge about agroecosystems, climate resilience, pollinator restoration, and soil and water conservation.

Workshops in the classroom and in the field engage participants in both theory and practice, encour-aging them to test practices first, before adopting them. This not only helps to adapt the practices to local conditions, it builds the methodology of exper-imentation into the learning process so that farmers can address future agroecological challenges.

Additionally, the farmers of RICDA published their own online manual and short educational videos for pollinator restoration and broadcast their own weekly radio program to spread their message of agroecology. They’ve held numerous agroecology conferences—lively, well attended gatherings of farmers, technicians and consumers that include formal presentations, music, popular theater, work-shops, discussions, markets for organic farm prod-ucts, and field visits.

FOOD FIRST/INSTITUTE FOR FOOD & DEVELOPMENT POLICY

398 60TH STREET, OAKLAND, CA 94618 USA | tel: 510.654.4400 • info@foodfirst.org • www.foodfirst.org

Farmer-promoter Manolo leads a workshop on pollinators

RICDA promotersINSTITUTE FOR FOOD & DEVELOPMENT POLICY

398 60TH Street, Oakland, CA 94618 • PHONE: (510) 654 - 4400 • FAX: (510) 654 - 4551 • www.foodfirst.org

Ending Injustices That Cause Hunger and Environmental Destruction

for only one week of intense presentation, peer review and re-writing with the help of professional writers.

The basic steps of the WriteShop process are:

1. Consultation on the theme with key movement leaders and practitioner

2. Formation of Activist-Editor Publishing Committee, selection of professional writers, artists, and videographers

3. Invitation of key activists to write a 2-3 page article for the WriteShop

4. WriteShop retreat 5-7 daysa. One by one, participants present their article

to the group for commentsi. Professional writers incorporate comments

into the articleii. An artist draws the ideas and themes and

shares with the groupb. Writers meet with participants to write a

second draft

WriteShop is an intensive, peer-driven writing and storytelling process that brings in activists from frontline communities to write chapters in a shared, edited book.1 Because these authors are chosen for their direct engagement with social change in the field, they come to the process with a rich diversity of experiences, and a diverse range of storytelling and writing skills. What they have in common is a commitment to food justice, food sovereignty, agroecology and other struggles to transform the food system. These activists are often too busy to sit down, reflect, and document their experiences and insights. The WriteShop process overcomes this critical problem. It brings activists from the food movement together with a team of professional writers, artists, videographers and publishers to generate the written material needed for a specific book. This is accomplished in a remarkably short period of time. The process is flexible and participatory.

Food First’s WriteShops are intensive writing retreats that last for 5-7 days and involve 10-12 participants who each write a separate chapter on a specific theme that has been determined by the participants themselves, for example. , “Coops and Food System Transformation”, “Farm Justice,” “Gender Justice,” or “Agroecology and Radical Resilience.”

WriteShop concentrates a diversity of perspectives and approaches on a particular theme, much as past Food First book have done (Land Justice: Re-imagining Land, Food and the Commons in the United States, Fertile Ground: Scaling agroecology from the ground up, and Food Movements Unite!). But instead of taking up to two years to edit and produce, WriteShop brings activists in

1 Pioneered by the International for Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) in the early 1990s, writeshops were originally designed to bring the experiences of village development workers (extension officers, scientists, researchers, and community leaders) to the development industry. IIRR has produced over 100 publications using the writeshop process and has freely shared this process with dozens of organizations who are free to adapt the process for their own use.

The Frontline Publishing WriteShop process

Others tried to farm more land, but the only areas available were forest fragments and steep hillsides. Deforestation—already a problem—increased.

The Campesino a Campesino Movement

Luckily, in 1978 the farmers of Vicente Guerrero received a visit from a group of Kaq’chikel Mayan farmers from the highlands of Guatemala who taught them simple techniques of soil and water conservation, soil building and crop improvement. Farmers recovered their yields by restoring their soils, seeds and agrobiodiversity. The Campesino a Campesino (farmer to farmer) movement was born and spread quickly throughout Mesoamerica.

Over the last 35 years, the farmers of Campesino a Campesino have used small-scale experimentation and popular education methods to spread effective sustainable farming practices from farmer to farmer. The movement’s holistic philosophy and extensive knowledge networks link thousands of farmer-pro-moters (promotores) to hundreds of farmer’s organi-zations like RICDA.

Every year, RICDA holds dozens of farmer-to-farmer agroecology workshops in Puebla, Tlaxcala and Guerrero. Local farmers work together in teams to implement new practices on their lands. They are living examples of the potential of agroecological resilience.

Farmer-promoters give workshops and classes in their local grammar schools and high schools. Students classify local pollinators and their associ-ated plants, and mount them in glass-case displays. They learn conservation and restoration practices and implement them on a small scale on their fam-ilies’ farms where they hold field visits. As their par-ents and other villagers follow the progress of the experiments, everyone learns and shares knowledge about agroecosystems, climate resilience, pollinator restoration, and soil and water conservation.

Workshops in the classroom and in the field engage participants in both theory and practice, encour-aging them to test practices first, before adopting them. This not only helps to adapt the practices to local conditions, it builds the methodology of exper-imentation into the learning process so that farmers can address future agroecological challenges.

Additionally, the farmers of RICDA published their own online manual and short educational videos for pollinator restoration and broadcast their own weekly radio program to spread their message of agroecology. They’ve held numerous agroecology conferences—lively, well attended gatherings of farmers, technicians and consumers that include formal presentations, music, popular theater, work-shops, discussions, markets for organic farm prod-ucts, and field visits.

FOOD FIRST/INSTITUTE FOR FOOD & DEVELOPMENT POLICY

398 60TH STREET, OAKLAND, CA 94618 USA | tel: 510.654.4400 • info@foodfirst.org • www.foodfirst.org

Farmer-promoter Manolo leads a workshop on pollinators

RICDA promotersINSTITUTE FOR FOOD & DEVELOPMENT POLICY

398 60TH Street, Oakland, CA 94618 • PHONE: (510) 654 - 4400 • FAX: (510) 654 - 4551 • www.foodfirst.org

Ending Injustices That Cause Hunger and Environmental Destruction

The strength, relevance and quality of the Frontline publication is grounded in the diversity and social learning that takes place during the WriteShop process. Busy activists with little time to write and reflect come together to share knowledge, expertise, and wisdom as the manuscript is generated. Writing and analytical skills are enhanced. Friendship, trust, and strategic relationships are established or strengthened among key frontline activists in the food and agriculture movement.

This process is repeated 3-4 times over the course of a week. During the WriteShop retreat, artists and videographers sketch out and record the themes expressed in the WriteShop. These are used to provide creative feedback and later, as material for communication work to publicize the book.

Following the WriteShop, the editor compiles the manuscript into chapters and writes, or arranges for the Forward, Introduction, and Summary to be written. A review copy is shared with authors. The book is produced.

Once the book is published, it is publicized on social media and in the press. WriteShop participants are encouraged to give interviews and hold book events—inviting fellow authors to come and co-present their chapters. Communications work around the book and the events are enhanced by the videos, podcasts, and artwork, all helping to amplify the voices of the frontline activists. The book and the events become tools for education, organizing, and action.

WriteShop Checklist

1. Contact key participants and form Coordinating Committee

2. Establish theme and outline.

3. Identify and contact potential participants.

4. Write Letter of Intent (LOI), send to potential funders and participants

5. Informational Webinar with all participants

6. Receive funding

7. Send invitations, instructions and agreements to be signed.

8. Identify and contract 2-3 writers, 1 artist, 1 videographer, 1 logistical coordinator, and 1 facilitator

9. Find retreat venue. Set date.

10. Arrange travel.

11. Ensure 3-5 page drafts are ready.

12. Convene WriteShopa. Introductions and orientationb. Hold first sessions and ongoing editsc. Interviews and sketchingd. Share sketchese. Do second and third round of presentations,

edits, interviews and sketchesf. Plan book launch activitiesg. Finalize WriteShop, evaluation, instructions

and agreements

13. Write Introduction, Summary, and Preface

14. Copy edit, Design & Layout

15. Send out Proofs

16. 1st print run

17. Distribute to participants

18. Communications work

19. Book launch

20. Grassroots book events for organizing and action