We make visible the injustices and inequalities of workers, migrants and small farmers in food production and harvesting, as well as the ecological impacts – from plantations to suppliers and ultimately to the big brands and supermarkets.
We demand laws and rules from policymakers that hold companies accountable for their actions along their value chains! Compliance with human rights and environmental protection must be ensured through strong laws.
Our goal: A socially just and sustainable food system – human rights-based and agroecological. A system in which food sovereignty is real and all workers, especially migrants and women, are treated fairly and equally.
Global challenges such as climate change and migration are closely linked to our food system. The system has an enormous impact on causes such as environmental degradation, poverty or displacement. Therefore, fundamental change is needed. As part of the pan-European campaign “Our Food. Our Future”, the Christian Initiative Romero (CIR) wants to encourage young Europeans to sustainable consumption patterns and political engagement for a sustainable and future-oriented food system.
Our food selection in supermarkets is limitless. Alongside seasonal and regional products, imported goods dominate the range. We are used to the fact that we can get any food, no matter what time. But at what price?
The food system is a prime example of how global challenges and everyday choices are interconnected. We buy orange juice for which oranges are picked in Brazil under slave-like conditions, or palm oil products like chocolate bars for which primeval forests are cleared in Guatemala. Human rights violations, environmental degradation and displacement are part of everyday life for small farmers and workers in food harvesting and production. Many harvesters in the global food supply chains are migrants and especially women who earn their living under precarious, exploitative and dangerous conditions. The global food system is ultimately not only a contributor to climate change, but through the destruction of native habitats also to migration worldwide.
Fact is: In our supermarkets there is hardly any product that could be called “unproblematic”, because the path of our food is paved with injustice and destruction. Global food corporations and large supermarket chains profit from the system, making huge profits. So far, there are no laws in most European countries or at European level that hold companies accountable for this form of predatory economy. That is why unethically produced food keeps finding its way onto our plates.
The “Our Food. Our Future” campaign aims to put an end to the broken food system and break the misguided supply chains to replace them with fair supply chains. Our vision is a socially just and sustainable system that is human rights-based and agroecological, and in which food sovereignty becomes a reality. We demand decent working conditions and living wages for all agricultural workers as well as legal bans that end the climate and environmentally destructive practices of food corporations and supermarkets.
To make this vision of the future a reality, we need to set the course for a just and sustainable food system today. Together with young Europeans we want to give the impetus for a fair food system of the future. “Our Food. Our Future” is a grassroots movement that will be carried by youth engagement and activism. With current studies on the influence of global supply chains on global problems and background information on politically relevant processes and potential for change in the food system, the campaign provides young Europeans with the tools they need to actively vocalize their demands to political decision-makers and the economy and to stand up for their own future. In addition, current problems in the food context are discussed in regular national and international “Youth Labs” where possible solutions are developed together.
Are you a registered Civil Society Organisation based in Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and interested in joining the fight for food justice?
We are looking for organisations to join Our Food. Our Future to broaden the impact of our campaign in Europe by expanding the reach of the project’s messages and activities in more European countries.
Our Food. Our Future is co-funded by the EU under the Development Education and Awareness Raising Programme (DEAR) and brings together 16 civil society organisations in 13 countries.
If you have any questions, ask me:
Stefanie Neumann
responsible for international coordination
neumann@ci-romero.de
Phone: (+49) 251 - 674413-42
If you have any questions, ask me:
Dominik Groß
responsible for for Human rights and climate protection in agrarian supply chains
gross@ci-romero.de
Phone: (+49) 251 - 674413-43
Christliche Initiative Romero e.V. (CIR)
Schillerstrasse 44a
48155 Muenster, GER
E-Mail: cir@ci-romero.de
Phone +49 251 / 67 44 13 - 0
Fax +49 251 / 67 44 13 - 11
Darlehnskasse Muenster
IBAN DE67 4006 0265 0003 1122 00
BIC GENODEM1DKM
The DZI certifies that CIR uses donations responsibly.
This website is made possible with the support of the European Union, the Environment and Development Foundation and ENGAGEMENT GLOBAL on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The CIR is solely responsible for the content; the content can in no way be regarded as the position of the funding bodies.
