Blog Posts: March 2012

By Royelen Lee Boykie

As “pink slime” makes its way across social media — inspiring a collective heave along its slippery path — there are even more recent disgusting revelations.

This week we released our analysis from a pilot project of poultry slaughter plants and found that during an eight-month period of 2011, company employees missed 64 percent of feathers, lungs, oil glands, trachea and bile that remained on chicken carcasses and 87 percent that remained on turkey carcasses. Not only that, but 90 percent of the violations written up by USDA inspectors in these plants were for fecal contamination that company employees missed. Read the full article…

By Darcey Rakestraw

The United Nations recently reported that a key UN goal of halving the proportion of people lacking access to clean drinking water has been achieved five years early. This news comes on the eve of the 6^th World Water Forum next week in Marseille, France with the theme, “Time for Solutions.” Despite the rosy outlook the UN report suggests, activists are sounding the alarm that we’re not on the right path—and that no one should be confused about the dangers of letting corporations guide water policy.

Certainly, activists and the corporate-backed World Water Forum don’t agree on solutions to address the nearly one billion people without access to clean water and 2.6 billion who lack proper sanitation. The forum was conceived by the World Water Council, which promotes itself as an “international, multi stakeholder forum”. Its web site touts the tagline, “A global water movement for a secure world”. 

But the World Water Council’s strong ties to large multinational water companies like Suez and Veolia, who are currently under investigation in the EU for price fixing, have led activists to view the Council and it’s tri-annual World Water Forum as a means of furthering the industry’s influence over the development agenda. This includes promoting market-based tools like water markets, pollution trading, and other schemes by which corporations can both profit off of—and keep polluting—an increasing scarcity of clean water. Read the full article…

By Walker Foley

With the clock ticking down to the sixth World Water Forum in France, Food & Water Watch encourages you to Occupy this shameless marriage of corporate water lobbyists and our global leaders.  

We are dealing with a global water crisis due to the mishandling of our resources, which has left one in eight around the globe without access to clean water.  Water is necessary for life – it is a basic human right – but organizations like Veolia and Suez don’t see it that way.  Instead, water is a commodity, ready to package and sell.  All over the globe these organizations are manipulating the debate and using their influence to rewrite government policy on access to clean water.  The World Water Forum is just another means for these corporations to sit down with our politicians behind closed doors.   Read the full article…

By Gabriella Zanzanaini

Just days before the opening of the World Water Forum in Marseille, campaigners are getting read to attend the Alternative event taking place in parallel during the corporate Forum.

The European Coordination of the Alternative World Water Forum (FAME) — including Food and Water Europe – EPSU – AQUATTAC, Belgian Social Forum and CNCD — organized a public hearing at the European Parliament in light of the Resolution that the European Parliament is debating on March 15th regarding the World Water Forum. Meanwhile, the Alternative event today has more than 1500 registered participants while the corporate event struggles to arrive go over the 2000 participants despite the huge corporate and government funding. Read the full article…

Read the full article where Susie Beiersdorfer is quoted. Then act to ban fracking.

By Wenonah Hauter

Take the most important step to protect your food and water. Renew today.

I just finished sending out renewal notices to the members that have helped make Food & Water Watch a force to be reckoned with in support of a fair, sustainable, and safe food system and clean, accessible water.

Along with our members, we’re fighting big battles against Monsanto and the oil and gas industries. Our opponents have lots of money, and to win against them, we must count on the power of people like you.

We need our members’ support to continue our biggest fights of 2012:

• Keeping Monsanto’s genetically engineered corn off our kitchen tables.
• Stopping Dow’s Agent Orange Corn.
• Protecting our drinking water from hydraulic fracking.

Food & Water Watch members are on the on the front lines of the fight to protect the food we eat and the water we drink. They are part of a historic movement to ensure our food is healthy and our water is clean.

Because of our members we can:

• Train activists to protect local communities.
• Educate people about the dangers that face our food and water, and carry on our critical research to debunk big corporations’ misleading claims about the safety of their products and their methods.
• Build and grow the movement of change.

Food & Water Watch will never compromise our principles. We don’t take ANY money from governments or corporations, because those dollars come with strings attached. That’s why contributions from members are absolutely essential.

Right now our drive to renew our members is in full stride. But members don’t need to wait for their membership renewal to come by mail. If you’re committed to protecting our food and water, renew your membership right now, using our secure online form.

We literally cannot do this work without you. If you are a member, please renew today! If your are not a member, come on aboard -– join now!

Thanks for your support.