SAFEAGE ‘FoodWise’ CAMPAIGN

“The opposite of capitalism is a health community”
Helena Norberg-Hodge

MISSION:
Consumers from all economic sectors are empowered through knowledge and awareness, to make informed decisions about the origins and production methods of the food they buy, so that ultimately, they can make choices that support sustainability and food independence.

VISION:
Consumers from all walks of life are growing, selling and sharing their own food. There is a renewed sense of the interdependence of all life, a renewed sense of community and a notable return to locally-grown, natural food production method. Unemployment is way down because unlike other profit-centered industries, the South African food production industry has become labour-intensive. The knock-on effect of this is a reduction of crime, loss of livelihoods due to high technology and chemically assisted farming method. Further effects of communities growing their own natural foods is a reduction of dependence on governments and global corporations for obtaining food. The large-scale commercial methods that have come to dominate our food production and threaten our food sovereignity has been successfully challenged and the ethos of profit-before-people has been reversed to people-before-profits.

BACKGROUND
Over the past 7 years SAFeAGE has built up credibility around the issue of food safety. The two consumer campaigns it ran in 2006-2008 saw SAFeAGE mandated to represent some 3.6 million South Africans who are concerned about genetically modified organisms enough to want them to be labelled. Using this leverage, SAFeAGE will continue its work under one banner of the FoodWise campaign. This campaign will see the following:

General awareness raising of the problems and dangers of GMOs and the promotion of sustainable alternatives;

An expansion of areas of outreach to include women’s groups, schools, labour movements and rural farmers who are being marginalized by refusing to go the ‘modern’ chemical route.

Capacity building of consumers of all sectors to facilitate meaningful engagement with the legislative processes, particularly around the Regulations process of the Consumer Protection Act of 2009.

ACTIVITIES
1. Genetically modified foods
SAFeAGE will continue its successful education campaign regarding the threats and dangers of GM foods. We do this by showing DVDs about GMOs accompanied by talks, providing fact sheets of current research and communicating with our supporters about relevant issues for example a recent application for GM Potatoes, to which they can object. At the same time SAFeAGE promotes what we do want, and that is locally-grown, natural food production technology.

2. Promotion of sustainable food production technologies
Our education campaign aims to stimulate change in mindset from depression and hopelessness due to reliance on large corporations for our food, to motivation and return to community-based food growing. The DVD, The Power of Community, for example shows how a country changed as a result of its independence from Russia. SAFeAGE has had enormous success through the use of DVDs and we find this DVD in particular, is a powerful and effective method of brining about positive change.

3. Creation of a ‘Green Links’ section on our new website offering referrals to resources promoting sustainable consumerism.
Through this section on our website SAFeAGE aims to link consumers with:

• Organic producers; community supported agriculturists, permaculture experts, etc;
• A wider array of environmentally sustainable consumer options, including suppliers of clean energy products, earth-friendly cleaning chemicals and a whole array of other products;

4. Advocacy and Lobby
SAFeAGE will continue to

• be the voice for consumer-protective legislation rather than industry-enabling laws
• actively participate in policy development,
• monitor applications for new GM releases and lodge objections thereto;
• research best practices for labelling GM products and make it available to the food chain;
• lobby members of the food chain to label their GM products;

5. Consumer Education about understanding food labelling
Legislation for consumer labelling is of little use if consumers do not understand basic food labels. Consumer education on labels in general is therefore important. To this end we will develop and hold consumer awareness workshops on how to read labels, how to engage meaningfully with the political process and the basic problems with GMOs.