Sustainable Alternatives – promoting a fair and viable transition to the use of alternatives to extremely hazardous pesticides used in public health and agriculture.
Our vision is the creation of local, national and global food and farming systems that protect community and individual health, advance food sovereignty, and rely on precaution and democratic control.
Our goal is to strengthen and support the creation, further development, adoption, and widespread recognition of equitable, socially just and environmentally sustainable approaches to pest management in California, the US, and internationally.
PANNA’s Current Priorities:
- We are promoting the adoption of sustainable alternatives to extremely hazardous, “Bad Actor” pesticides.
- We are working to transform international development policies and aid to support equitable and environmentally sustainable farming, in our role as authors and facilitators of the United Nations International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development.
- We are helping build marketplace incentives to reward farmers for good practice by negotiating a new U.S. domestic fair trade label that includes farm labor standards.
- We are working to promote food sovereignty in the US and around the world, in partnership with Pesticide Action Network centers in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Latin America and Europe.
Adopting Sustainable Alternatives
PANNA promotes the adoption of sustainable alternatives to Bad Actor
pesticides, especially organochlorine, organophosphate, and fumigant
pesticides. (Links to campaign pages) We profile the successes of local
organic farmers and provide technical support on alternatives to our
pesticide-focused campaigns. We are also helping build linkages between
the pesticide activist and sustainable farming communities, to
strengthen our respective campaigns (these include, for example,
banning specific pesticides and reforming the US Farm Bill to support
organic farming and community food security).
Shifting International Policies and Investments towards Sustainable Agriculture
The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD) is a major effort led by the United Nations that
brings together governments and civil society, including farmers, NGOs,
the private sector and research institutions, in a three-year
evaluation of agriculture around the world and the policies and
institutions that affect it.
The IAASTD asks the question:
“How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve livelihoods and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development through the generation, access and use of agricultural knowledge, science and technology?”
The IAASTD presents a unique opportunity for civil society to help
shift national and international policies, as well as billion dollar
flows of donor development aid towards equitable and environmentally
sustainable food and farming systems.
Pesticide Action Network is working with other civil society organizations around the world to make sure that the Assessment:
- Evaluates local and Indigenous knowledge and innovation on an equal footing with formal “scientific” knowledge;
- Provides technical and policy options to support a shift from harmful agricultural systems towards sustainable and equitable agriculture; and
- Highlights the need for a fair and just trade and economic policy environment.
Rewarding Excellence on the Farm in the Marketplace: Domestic Fair Trade
PANNA has joined farmworkers in their efforts to introduce labor
standards in a Domestic Fair Trade label for food grown and sold within
the United States. Negotiations for the development of a domestic fair
trade label address social justice for farmworkers, farmers, and
consumers in the production of food that is healthy and socially just.
PANNA actively supports the participation of farmworkers so that their
voices are heard in the development process of a Domestic Fair Trade
(DFT) label. In 2007 PANNA participated in a farmworker conference on
Dometic Fair Trade that formulated guidelines for the development and implementation of a DFT label.
Advancing a Vision of Food Sovereignty
PAN defines food sovereignty as: the freedom and power of people, their
communities and nations to assert and realize the right to food and to
produce food in a sustainable way, and to fight the power of
corporations and other forces that destroy people’s food production and
consumption systems.
We are working with PAN centers in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, Europe
and Latin America to advance food sovereignty platforms and policies in
the Global South, or developing world. We are working together to
create a training module for people in the global North, including the
U.S. and Europe, to learn more about food sovereignty, peasant farmer
movements around the world and how we can advocate for increased global
fairness and sustainability as part of U.S. and Canadian agricultural
policy.