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Petition Target: Barack Obama, President of the United States http://www.whitehouse.

gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture AgSec@usda.gov Susan E. Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. http://usun.state.gov/about/contact/index.htm John M. Matuszak, Division Chief for Sustainable Development and Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Head of Delegation for Rio+20 MatuszakJM@state.gov Debbie Stabenow, Senator of Michigan, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry http://stabenow.senate.gov/?p=contact debbie_stabenow@stabenow.senate.gov Pat Roberts, Senator of Kansas, Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry pat_roberts@roberts.senate.gov Frank Lucas, R-Okla, Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee AgRepublicanPress@mail.house.gov Collin Peterson, D-Minn, Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee agriculturedemocrats@mail.house.gov Why This Is Important: Food security is the single most important issue facing mankind today. Our food is making us sick. The way its produced is wasting energy, destroying our environment, and depleting vital natural resources including soil, water and biodiversity. More and more people have no access to healthy food. Meanwhile, our government has been supporting a destructive global food system that has little respect for life. That systems sole focus is the bottom-line of the multinational corporations that control it. They steal land (land grabs), they rape the earth (chemical inputs), they enslave growers (patent-protected geneticallymodified seeds), they destroy communities (subsidized cheap imports), they exploit farmers and laborers, and they cheat consumers.

Business as usual is not an option, claimed the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). This 4-year assessment endeavor was commissioned by the World Bank and six United Nations agencies, and it involved some 400 scientists around the world. IAASTD warned that industrial agriculture was threatening our survival, and recommended that nations embrace agroecology. In 2008, the IAASTD Reports, Agriculture At A Crossroads, were endorsed by 59 countries who have yet to act on their promise to support sustainable farming practices. Time is of the essence. Next June, when nations of the world gather in Rio for the U.N. Summit for Sustainable Development (Rio+20), they will have the opportunity to address the failings of the global food system. Lets do everything in our power to make sure that they commit to implementing the public policies that we need, as suggested by IAASTD, in order to ensure that our planet will nourish us abundantly for generations to come. The work starts at home. It is the responsibility of the United States of America, as the selfproclaimed greatest nation on earth, to lead by example. Yet, our government wont budge unless we, American citizens, speak up. Please demand that the United States, the worlds most powerful supporter of industrial agriculture, show up at Rio+20 next June with a strong commitment to the five requests for policy and regulatory changes that are spelled out in the petition letter. Petition Letter: Subject: FOOD SECURITY: the US must commit to policy and regulatory change ahead of Rio+20 Greetings, As a citizen of the world with deep concern about hunger and food security, and about the impacts of the industrial food system on health, natural resources, poverty and geopolitical stability, I request that the American government take the lead among the United Nations Member States, and commit to act on the following requests: * eliminating 100 percent of perverse agricultural subsidies to industrial agriculture by 2022. * enabling the conversion of 50 percent of total U.S. farmland to agroecology by 2022, and 100 percent by 2050, so that agriculture can feed the world while preserving nature. * phasing out the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics and growth hormones in animal farms by 2017. * prohibiting animal by-products in feed for food-production animals by June 2015. * supporting and protecting small and family farmers, and respecting

the freedom of local communities to produce, process, distribute, sell and consume the foods of their choice as they see fit, while protecting them from corporations and other organizations, or initiatives and projects, that exploit their resources (land, water, biodiversity and other natural resources, labor), and threaten their livelihoods.

I further request that the United States make a strong official commitment to support agreocology as a viable pathway to a just food system at the Earth Summit 2012, and spearhead the endorsement of these policy goals by the United Nations Member States. Sincerely, [Your name]

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