Louise McKeever
About me: I am a young climate activist. I organise with Young Friends of the Earth Scotland and Fossil Free Glasgow, a local campaign group working to get our council to divest their pension fund from fossil fuel companies. I cannot speak on behalf of "young people" and all the intersections that come with this, but put forward some ideas and challenges that we can bring to the climate debate.
Intergenerational injustice
Our food and farming system is being taken further down the road of industrialisation - with the use of more chemicals, more factory farms and controlled by even bigger corporations. Small scale, sustainable producers are being pushed out and healthy food is increasingly becoming a luxury for the wealthy.
Industrialised global food systems cause land grabbing, deforestation and climate change, disproportionately impacting communities in the Global South in order to produce Europe's food.
Animal welfare and human health suffer as a result of unsustainable farming practices.
Hello! We’d like to introduce ourselves. We are Silvie and Melis and we are the 3rd and 4th Agri-Activists for this year at Caerhys farm and will be working with Gerald and Ingrid for the rest of the summer campaigning for a better food future.
We’d like to tell you about Caerhy’s annual Harvest Party that happened last weekend at the farm.
Time has passed all too quickly and while I am already preparing to leave Caerhys Farm, there are new people arriving every other day. Today I want to take a moment to reflect on my time at Caerhys before I pass on the honour to Silvie and Melis, who will be the agri-activists for round 2!
Hi again! Last week, Lena told you all about being a newcomer at the farm.
This week, it is my turn again to write about issues we tackle during our agri-activism placement.
Chatting with Lena about what we want to stand for, we said we want to focus on positive initiatives rather than being against various issues. We want to promote a solution for getting rid of the problems.
That is why focusing on food sovereignty instead of world hunger feels like a good idea for us.
On May 25th, history was made.
The people of Ireland voted almost 2 to 1 to repeal the 8th amendment to the Irish constitution, an amendment installed in 1983 that gave equal right to life to the foetus and the mother. That year, the vote was won by 67% to 33%. This year, that figure was flipped, with 69% voting to remove the 8th amendment. The descriptors being used is 'landslide'.
The trojan horse of free trade agreements has finally visited Cyprus!
For the past few months YFoE Cyprus have been using the huge prop to raise awareness about the hidden dangers of Free Trade Agreements such as CETA and JEFTA. From the mountains of Troodos to the city centre of the capital of Nicosia, the Trojan horse attracted the public, who were then informed about CETA by YFoE Cyprus activists.
After Ingrid's introduction to the ideas of Agri-Activism, it is my turn (Lena) to offer you a glimpse into our lives as agri-activists! At the time of writing we have been on Caerhys Organic farm for a whole month, which is a good time to reflect upon the things learned so far. For this reason I will share with you what it has been like to be an absolute newcomer to work and life on a farm.
First Impressions
Welcome to the first post of the year from the YFoEE agri-activism placement 2018!
This blog already hosted several agri-activists' voices before ours so we won't spend too much time describing the project. However, an introduction is recquired before we can get into the details of our stay in future posts. So here it is, please bare with us.
This article was previously published on Bilton.org and LeftEast.
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