During our world tour by bike, we will meet actors of food sovereignty (farmers, farmers’ organizations, associations, etc.) in order to get to know issues and practices related to this concept. This section is entirely dedicated to these actors: throug photo and video reports, we will share their philisophy and expersience, with the hope of building a reflection together about the direction that the global agricultural system, our agricultural system, must take.
“That said and that done, there were still a few sleepy euros eager to wake up. That is why we are now looking for projects aiming towards a sustainable agriculture and requiring a little help to come to life or to develop.”
On November 27, when we posted our last (now second to last) newsletter, we were indeed at this stage: a few weeks after we got back home, we offset the carbon emissions related to our air trips (through a project managed by GERES in Cambodia, aiming to spread improved cooking stoves in the country). But we still had a good half of the 20% we had saved from the donations, we still had 1100 euros, and were looking for virtuous beneficiaries…
Our online inquiries didn’t lead us to the gem that we were hoping to support. Investing in the creation and management of a website is obviously not the number 1 priority of the smallest associations, so we only came across large NGOs, well-known and already endowed with a heavay wallet.
But in parallel, Damien had contacted a former colleague and friend, Olivier, who has long been committed to the development and promotion of agroecology, biodynamic farming and, more generally, an environmentally friendly agriculture. He brought us in contact with Marie, member of the association “Earth and Humanism” (Terre & Humanisme, founded in 1999 on the initiative of Pierre Rabhi), and Marie told us about Souleymane and Béo Nééré…
In Morocco, we met Mohamed, Irène and their children and discovered their organic farm Saytlia. (If you missed them, here are the article and the video report that we have made on their beautiful vision and realisation.) A few months later, in India, Damien spent a week with Devinder and Brij Bala and worked in their farm, also organic, DevBala Farm. (If you missed it, here is the article about this WWOOFing week.)
We shared with you these two beautiful initiatives and, thanks to your donations (remember, we decided to keep 20% of them for this purpose), we were also able to help them financially. But eventually they are the only ones that we have met and supported, and when we got off our bikes in September, we still had a good share of these 20%…
So we first decided to offset the carbon emissions related to our plane trips.
Saturday, May 10. I lift my left foot and my bicycle rushes into the slope. While the first curve is approaching, I take one last look back. Gravity takes me away, but the light is faster and manages to give me one last picture of Samuel. He decided to stay in McLeod Ganj where he hopes to immerse himself in Buddhist spirituality and thus get closer to his. As for me, I head towards a more down-to-earth experience…
I rode downhill until I reach the most accurate address that I had: Gharoh. A village… But a village where all the inhabitants know of Devinder Rana’s farm! A few moments later, I was laying down my bike on the grass and getting up to shake hands with Devinder. I then met his wife Brij Bala, and Sulekah (their adopted daughter in a way), then their children Priyanka and Guglu, and Buti a childhood friend of theirs. All welcomed me with open arms, so that I stayed with them until Monday, May 19. For one week, I was WWOOFer in India…
The concept of WWOOFing ? To work in the farm in exchange for accommodation and food. And I think I deserved accommodation and food!
During our 3 weeks riding in Morocco, luck led us to Saytlia, Mohamed’s and Irene’s organic farm. Of course, they cultivate their land without chemicals, but more importantly, they do it with passion and conscience. A whole ethic gravitates around the farm. This is what makes it so rare. This is what won us over and convinced us to talk about this initiative.
Our video report about Saytlia (interviews are in French)
So we have made a movie and written an article about Saytlia. Both are in French, but we suggest that you CHECK OUR ARTICLE HERE, and USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE to read it in your own language. (It has made enormous progress and will hopefully give you a correct translation!)
If you are truly interested in this topic, tell us (write a comment below or send us a mail) and we will try to make our next report more international !
You saw it it in our video, you read it on our website, our interest for food leads us to wonder where our food comes from. We wanted to give a deeper meaning to our world tour, guided by these words: “food security”. Our goal “the Roots of Food” will lead us to meet local associations, that are campaigning for food security.
These are the words we thought the most appropriate to define our project. We have been dealing with this topic deeper and deeper, and we now realize that it is important to add the concept of “food sovereignty” to that of food security. Through this article we want to clarify our point of view. What do we mean by “food security”? Which further scopes does “food sovereignty” bring?
