Eating food is not often seen as a political act, but local activists are highlighting the impact that the FTAA could have on your next meal. Activists are targeting the trade talks in Quebec because of fears that this new round of negotiations could force open North American markets to potentially harmful food products such as genetically modified organisms.

"We are seeing the increasing commodification of our food system," says Kevin Walsh, a member of the Belly of Resistance, a local group organizing for the FTAA summit protests. He says this type of commodification of the food supply is not a new phenomenon and adds, "this increasing commodification of the food system is inevitable in capitalism."

There are also concerns that multinational seed companies such as Monsanto, will use the FTAA as a means of forcing local farmers into purchasing their engineered seeds such as Round-Up Ready, which require the use of Monsanto's Round-Up pesticide in order for crops to grow properly.
Christi Milsom, a Concordia food politics activist and worker at Le Frigo Vert, Concordia's vegetarian food store, points to contracts that farmers have to sign when buying seeds from some multinationals.
"They make you sign contracts saying you won't save seeds! [Saving seeds] is what nature has been doing for years," she says.

Milsom, who will be dressed in costume in Quebec as a "Mad Monsanto Scientist" complete with a symbolic syringe full of genetic material, also points to an example of the company's impact on Canadian farmers.

"It's the whole idea of what happened with that farmer in the prairies charged with stealing seeds from Monsanto. It's the idea of the small farmer against the huge corporation" she says, referring to Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser who was sued by the GM seed company for patent infringement rights because crops in his field were found to contain Monsanto's patented GM Round-Up Ready seeds, which he claims blew over from a neighboring field.

Walsh's group, The Belly of Resistance, also advocates movements such as Via Campesina, an international movement of agriculturists, rural women, indigenous communities and small and middle-scale producers. Via Campesina stresses ideas of agrarian reform, food sovereignty, gender, trade and investment, speaking for 70 member groups from around the world. They are asking for an international call for action on April 17, two days before the Quebec trade negotiations, in protest of neo-liberal agricultural policies, GMO foods and "patents on life."

Property and patent rights

Increasing discontent over patent rights has some people worried that the FTAA might be monopolized by American interests on property rights. The United States has come out in favor of a number of moves to increase the use of property rights, especially in light of the World Trade

Organization's TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement. TRIPS would allow corporations to claim property rights on a particular trade good which critics say opens the door to corporations owning entire species of food.

In spirit of the Via Campesina's Call for Action, a group of local food activists will be boarding a bus on April 19 to attend a picnic on the front lawn of the Ministry of Agriculture in Quebec City from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. The picnic is intended to bring people together from around the world in protest of the destruction of the world's food system and to act as a prelude to the demonstrations the following day in Quebec.

Anyone interested in attending the picnic or getting on the bus should call Le Frigo Vert at 848-7586.