GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems
The bulletin board is a place where GRAIN staff and others post their comments, suggestions, hints and assessments of documents, places or events. Or just share information that we think is interesting.
The panel of the complaints mechanism for the German, Dutch and French development banks has ruled that a complaint submitted on 5 November 2018 by nine communities in the DR Congo is admissible. This means that the complaints mechanism will now begin a preliminary review process before initiating the mediation process requested by the communities to resolve their long-standing land conflict with Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC), a subsidiary of Canadian company, Feronia Inc.
It is with a tinge of sadness but a huge amount of love and appreciation that we announce that Camila Montecinos will retire from GRAIN as of 31 December 2018.
Villagers in Port Loko District, Sierra Leone are celebrating. After nearly a decade of struggling against a company that grabbed their lands and erected oil palm plantations, a court has ruled that the lands must be given back to the communities. Now they are trying to figure out what they should do with the large areas of lands that have been occupied by rows and rows of oil palms.
For two years, over 500 farmers from the different cotton-growing regions in Burkina Faso documented their experience with Monsanto’s Bt cotton. This three-year farmer-led research initiative, called “Bt Cotton and Us: The Truth from our Fields,” provides an important counterbalance, as Burkina Faso was the first country in West Africa to adopt genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and industry often lauds its success when promoting GMOs in other countries.
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial is feasible. And it is our best hope of achieving environmental and social justice, of containing the impacts of a global crisis that was born out of historical injustice and highly unequal responsibility. An excellent piece by Silvia Ribeiro of the ETC Group, showing why we need 'radical realism' to fight the climata crisis, not artificial and dangerous technofixes.
A great documentary film about resettlement of communities in Mozambique who had to make way for the Limpopo National Park.
People facing resettlement are filled with hope for a better life. Although some families find prosperity after resettlement, as orphans of the land, villages lose autonomy to make decisions about the natural resources on which their livelihoods and social cohesion depend. Based on four years research, this film puts names and faces to the people who are being displaced from their land to make room for a national park.
We, Brazilian peasants, family farmers, indigenous peoples, traditional peoples and communities, community scientists, social and trade union movements and urban groups, aware of the themes to be discussed at COP14, hereby manifest our position.
On 24 July 2018, Focus on the Global South, ETC Group, and the Chulalongkorn University Research Institute (CUSRI) organized a forum in Bangkok on corporate concentration in agriculture and food, and its implications on food sovereignty in South East Asia. The forum brought speakers from a number of national, regional and international organisations, and the audience of around 60 individuals comprised representatives from social movements, civil society organisations, academia, and the general public.
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The bulletin board is a place where GRAIN staff and others post their comments, suggestions, hints and assessments of documents, places or events. Or just share information that we think is interesting. 
