GRAIN, a partner in EJOLT, has been awarded the Right Livelihood Award, better known as the alternative Nobel Prize! GRAIN is an international non-profit organisation, a research and activist group that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. GRAIN is the second EJOLT partner to receive this prestigious award.
According to the jury, they received the price “…for their worldwide work to protect the livelihoods and rights of farming communities and to expose the massive purchases of farmland in developing countries by foreign financial interests.” Exposing global landgrabbing and its devastating effects is crucial in times where both food speculation and hunger are on the rise. The Right Livelihood Award “honours and supports those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”. Clearly, EJOLT is working effectively on these most urgent challenges. Last year, another participant of EJOLT, Nnimmo Bassey, received the price “…for revealing the full ecological and human horrors of oil production and for his inspired work to strengthen the environmental movement in Nigeria and globally.” To learn more about the award, click here. There’s more on the work of GRAIN in general on their website and they also maintain a separate website highlighting news reports on the current food crisis and the global land grab. Finally, a great media report on their work is here and more on their work in EJOLT here.
