Churches Week of Action on Food

Take Action: Participate in the Churches Week of Action on Food.

Background: Connect with thousands of people and churches around the world in a movement to lift up the voices of small-scale food producers. In doing this, we support them in having choices as to what crops to grow, how they can grow these crops, and in ensuring that all people have access to affordable, healthy and culturally appropriate food. Many U.S. policies, such as agricultural subsidies, undercut farmers in low-income countries, especially small-scale food producers.

The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act (HR 3012), was introduced to Congress last year by Rep. Michael Michaud [D-ME] in an effort to reshape U.S. trade policy to support small scale producers' livelihoods and aid in sustainable food production. In supporting this, we hope that it would bring people access to affordable and healthy food and support local food producers.

Faith Reflection: Over 1 billion people in the world live in hunger while many in the U.S. have more food than we need. As Christians, we are called not only to feed the hungry, but also to work toward a just global economic system in which all have access to abundant and healthy food.

Action: Support this cause of lifting up the voices of small-scale food producers, and ensuring that all have access to affordable food.

How?

1) Share this information with as many as you can as a way to educate others about the injustice in the distribution of food and how U.S. trade policy might help turn that around.

2) Write to your congressperson to support the TRADE ACT to bolster the food security of impoverished countries.

3) Use these stories to use as bulletin inserts to bring awareness to food issues, available at: http://www.tradeweek.org/typo3/en/learn-more/stories.html.