Community Alliance With Family Farmers (CAFF) has always advocated for a more localized food system. But we also recognize that every decision we make—at the grocery store, in the voting booth, on our farms—has the potential to impact communities far away, too. And right now, it’s clear to us that our country has become complicit not only in egregious acts of violence against innocent civilians but also in the destruction of an entire culture’s food sovereignty, its ability to feed itself.
Over the past several months, farming has become nearly impossible in Gaza, cut off from water, fuel, equipment and processing, as well as from their farmland. Crops have been abandoned and livestock face starvation or are being slaughtered to feed the hungry. The Palestinian government estimates nearly $2 million per day in losses of agricultural productivity, more than $180 million total, due to razing of land and trees by military bombardment, including more than ⅓ of agricultural land in the North. Israeli farmers too have been facing conflict, labor shortages, and many are struggling to produce food.
“My grandparents are holocaust survivors. What Israel has been doing in Gaza amounts to a genocide and will not bring back those killed or those who are still held captive. Growing plants is one thing that connects us all as human beings. Each one of us carries with us the capacity to create change, to plant seeds, to tend an olive tree, to grow food and sit at a table and eat with one another, as though all of us are precious. I hope we can remember that before we launch into hateful words or justification for violence.”
— Joanna Letz, Bluma Farm
Upwards of 1,200 Israelis were killed in the brutal attack by Gaza-based Hamas last October. To respond, with the full support of the US government, by waging a months-long assault on civilians trapped in an occupied territory, feels to us disproportionate, unjust, and inhumane. 30,000 civilians, including 12,660 children, have been killed, while some 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced indefinitely. They now face a military blockade of food, water, fuel, and basic humanitarian aid. According to a United Nations-backed report, the situation will only get worse, with the highest levels of severe and acute food insecurity they’ve ever recorded; children in Gaza have already starved to death.
“As we fight for food justice in our own community, it would be wrong to ignore injustices elsewhere. We stand in solidarity with farmers and civilians whose most basic rights have been stripped away.”
— Ellee Igoe, Solidarity Farm
CAFF stands against violence in all its manifestations and we stand against this indiscriminate attack on an entire people and the denial of their most basic right: to feed themselves. Which is why we, as citizens of a country that is enabling only one side to this violence, are calling on United States leaders to support an immediate ceasefire in the region.
“Every day we work hard to grow healthy fruits and veggies for food-insecure families here in California. So it’s hard to stomach the fact that our tax dollars are contributing to families on the other side of the world going hungry.”
— Mireya Gómez-Contreras, Esperanza Community Farm
By staying true to CAFF’s core values of justice and equity, CAFF staff stand in solidarity with farmers losing their way of life, their future, and their children.
We hope you will join us.
Take Action:
- DONATE to the UN World Food Programme
- CONTACT federal legislators to stop weapons transfer and advance ceasefire
- READ this additional resource by Ta-Nehisi Coates on parallels between the history of systemic violence against Black folks in the United States and Palestine today.
- REVIEW social media posts from farmers and allies Cultural Roots Nursery, Soul Fire Farm, Foodshed, Agroecology Commons, and Second Generation Seeds.