Kudos to GRAIN for Right Livelihood Award: NFU

The National Farmers Union extends our congratulations to GRAIN, which has been honoured with the 2011Right Livelihood Award. The award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, recognizes individuals or organizations for their outstanding vision and work on behalf of our planet and its people. It is presented annually by the Swedish Parliament shortly before the Nobel awards ceremony. The Jury selected GRAIN “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”.

GRAIN is an international non-profit organization that works to support small farmers and movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. For two decades, GRAIN has been a key player in the global movement to challenge corporate power over people’s food and livelihood and to promote food sovereignty. In recent years, GRAIN has been at the forefront of documenting, and denouncing, the rapidly accelerating phenomenon of land grabbing.

The National Farmers Union has great respect and admiration for the breadth of knowledge that GRAIN’s people bring to the public arena through their outstanding research and their close working relationships with communities around the world. “We at the NFU are so appreciative of GRAIN’s leadership in the areas of our common concerns, including seed biodiversity, intellectual property rights, climate change, and most recently, land grabbing,” said Colleen Ross, NFU Vice President. “GRAIN is well- deserving of this award. We wish you all the best as you continue your excellent work!”

For more information see:

Right Livelihood Award http://www.rightlivelihood.org

GRAIN http://www.grain.org/

Farmland Grab http://www.farmlandgrab.org/