Dan used to work in the campaigns and policy team. He is active in the UK food sovereignty movement and has experience of setting up community organisations and grassroots activism.
A tax on chemical fertilisers? Subsidies for farms under 5 hectares? Putting food growing on the national curriculum? Start up funds for food cooperatives? A living wage for fast food workers? Land reform?
Tanzania is a country at forefront of the global battle for control over our food. On one side corporations are lining up to seize control over the country’s land, seeds and soil. On the other side passionate small-scale farmers groups are strengthening their networks and deepening pre-existing knowledge in an attempt to keep control of their resources.
Is there a problem with the UK’s food system? When you’re buying the ingredients for dinner, supermarkets and shops do a brilliant job at making you feel like we live in a land of plenty. An infinite bounty of options is at your disposal. And so long as you have the money, you can walk home with a bag full of products shipped from all corners of the world.
When you think of food sovereignty your mind often gets drawn to the rural; small-scale farmers, community gardens, allotments and ecological growing practices. All this is true. But if we in the post industrialised UK are ever to achieve food sovereignty we also need decent livelihoods as part of decent food systems in our cities.
When we found that Food Sovereignty Ghana had elected to send Samia Nkrumah to represent them at Take Back Our World, I was aware that it was a bit of a scoop.
In my role at WDM, I have been supporting the food sovereignty movement here in the UK. As the food sovereignty movement is an international movement with hundreds of millions of people behind it is important that the UK is a strong part of it.
