PREPARATION
Objectives of Module 8:
- To understand the nature of hunger and how it impacts people.
- To understand how agriculture works.
- To understand how to create media impact.
Check Your Understanding:
At the end of this module, you should be able to explain the following concepts:
- How many people in the world are malnourished?
- Why is there hunger in the world?
- What crisis is agriculture facing?
- What are the benefits and defects of farm subsidies?
- What are the seven principles of food sovereignty?
- What is the goal of Prout’s “agrarian revolution?”
- What are sustainable farming practices?
- What are the benefits of agricultural cooperatives?
- Can organic farming feed the world?
- What are the problems with a meat-based diet?
- What are permaculture, ecovillages, and Transition Towns?
- What is the value of capturing media attention?
CIRCLE TIME:
Excitement Sharing:
“What is something good that has happened in your life since we last met? Or would anyone like to read from your journal or share what happened in your recent activities?”
The Social Reality: Hunger
Some 815 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth.
Ninety-eight percent of those who suffer from hunger live in developing countries: 553 million live in the Asian and Pacific regions; 227 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa; and 47 million live in Latin America and the Caribbean. India has the highest population of hungry people. In 2014, over 190.7 million people were undernourished there.
Approximately nine million people die of hunger each year; 3.1 million of them are children. Forty percent of preschool-age children are estimated to be anemic because of iron deficiency. It is estimated that 250 to 500 thousand children go blind from Vitamin A deficiency every year.
Malnutrition causes stunting among children, a condition characterized by low height for a child’s age. In 2017, it was estimated that 151 million children under five were stunted worldwide. Malnutrition also causes wasting, a condition characterized by low weight for a child’s age. In 2017, it was estimated that 51 million children under five were wasted.
Great strides have been made toward ending world hunger. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimates that the total number of hungry people worldwide has been reduced by 216 million people since 1992 (all these statistics from Hunger Notes 2018).
Over 75 percent of the world’s poorest people grow their own food. This causes widespread food insecurity in developing countries, as drought, climate change, and natural disasters can easily cut off a family’s food supply (Turk 2017).
During the past 20 years, global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth. The world already produces enough to feed 10 billion people, more than our present population. But the people in extreme poverty cannot afford to buy it (Holt-Giménez et al. 2012). The simple reason that there is hunger is that feeding everyone and saving lives is not a universal priority.
The Social Reality Discussion Question: Hunger
Our question now is: What is your opinion about hunger? How does it impact you? How does it make you feel?
We will go around the room, and ask everyone to say briefly what your opinion is about hunger, and how it makes you feel. Please speak for just one minute each.
[After everyone has spoken, 10-15 minutes] Now let’s shift our focus because, as usual in this course, we want to focus on the solutions.
Cooperative Game – When Will Hunger, Poverty and War End?
Before the participants arrive, lay a strip of adhesive tape across the floor of the room. If the room is carpeted, you can use a string instead. If necessary, it also works to just use an imaginary line. If you use masking tape, write “Now” at one end, “100+” at the other end, and “50” in the middle. Then write “10,” “20,” etc. so the tape becomes a timeline between now and 100+ years in the future.
“I would like to ask each of you, ‘When do you think hunger, poverty and war will end?’ I believe none of us really knows the answer to that question. Yet, I believe that reflecting on this question and our beliefs about changing the world for the better has value. So I would like each of you to stand near the point of the timeline that represents your guess as to when you think it might happen. When you are all standing where you want to be, on behalf of ‘Prout TV,’ I will begin asking people where you are standing, meaning when you think it will happen, and why you believe that. Of course every answer is correct, because you are stating your honest opinion.”
Holding either a real microphone or a pretend one, start at the far end, 100+ years, and ask the first person in a loud voice so everyone can hear, “Where are you standing, madam, and why?” Slowly move your way down the line toward the present.
After you are finished, say, “Next I would like to ask each of you to stand by the point on the timeline when you want hunger, poverty and war to end.” [laughter, as everyone moves down to ‘Now.’]
“All right, it’s good to know we all agree that we want hunger, poverty and war to end now. My next question is, ‘What could we do to make that great day come sooner?’”
To conclude, remind the group that thinking about the future has value, because it helps us know what we want for the world, what might be possible and what we can do now to help create our ideal future.
“Within each person is room for hope. Did this game increase your hope for the future? How?”
“Do we need to feel hope in order to act? Why?” [15 minutes.]
Prout’s Vision: A Crisis in Agriculture
For about 10,000 years, human societies have practiced many types of farming, shaping ecosystems to gain their basic needs: food, fiber for clothing, medicine, and raw materials for industry. Agriculture is a primary activity because it draws energy and resources from the environment. The greater the value of the agriculture, natural resources, and energy produced in any region, the greater is the potential of the rest of that economy.
During the last century, non-sustainable farming techniques have been launched on a large scale. Modern corporate farming is based on high inputs of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Though high yields can be produced in the short-term, this gradually deteriorates the humus and structure of the soil. The burning of fossil fuels in agriculture and the large amounts of methane gas produced by breeding animals for slaughter in concentrated feedlots add to the global warming of the planet and to the poisoning of ground water. In the world’s temperate climates, human agriculture has replaced 70 percent of grasslands, 50 percent of savannas, and 45 percent of temperate forests (Biello 2012).
Growing single crops is an over-simplification of nature. Large plantations of monocrops are, by their very nature, more at risk of harm due to pests and diseases than those planted with mixed crops. Farmers in the world apply 171 million metric tons of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer each year that poisons groundwater and pollutes nearby ecosystems. The runoff flows into rivers and promotes algal blooms that then die and, in their decay, suck all the oxygen out of surrounding waters, creating dead zones at the mouths of 405 of the world’s rivers (Biello 2012).
In inorganic engineering, certain scientific principles are very effective. The laws of measurement, stress, balance, force, and counterforce allow us to produce valuable and reliable standard products according to a design—from structural steel and pre-stressed concrete to bricks and plywood.
In farming, though, this type of reductionist approach, which makes parts exactly the same, creates serious problems over time. Much of the fertility, range, and resilience of farmland depend precisely upon its biological complexity and lack of uniformity. Trying to standardize farming in monocultures endangers fertility.
Corporate agriculture also threatens biological diversity. In 1970 the United States passed the Plant Variety Protection Act to issue utility patents for living organisms and plants, and the U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed that. But local farmers the world over who have saved some seeds while rejecting others, thus changing plant species for thousands of years, are not protected or compensated.
The Union of Concerned Scientists and other major science organizations have found that some genetically engineered (GE) crops could be harmful to eat or harmful to the environment (Gurian-Sherman 2012). Currently, 64 countries around the world require labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food, including the 28 nations in the European Union, Russia, China, Brazil, India, Australia, Turkey, Japan, and South Africa. The United States does not (Just Label It Campaign 2018).
During the 1990s, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund convinced India to remove trade barriers and to privatize export. The Indian government got rid of farm subsidies and opened their markets to multinational corporations. They urged farmers to switch from subsistence farming to export crops, especially cotton. Farmers bought genetically-modified seeds and pesticides from Monsanto, but then found themselves locked in by debt and at the mercy of global price swings. According to the Indian government, more than 300,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide from 1995 to 2018—one farmer every 35 minutes. Debt and economic hardship are blamed for these suicides (Sainath 2018).
Corporate farming is bankrupting small farmers and driving people off the land. In 1935 there were six million family farms in the United States where nearly 25 percent of the population lived. Today the number of family farms has decreased by more than two-thirds, from six million farms to only two million, and less than one percent of the US population works on the land (U.S. EPA 2015). This pattern occurs throughout the world, and as farmers lose their land and move to the city, many rural places where they lived become ghost towns.
Agricultural subsidies are direct payments to farmers by rich governments to supplement their income and to protect the country’s food supply. Whereas this is a noble goal, in fact, agricultural subsidies go mostly to the biggest corporate farms, which overproduce and export the excess.
In 2010, the European Union spent €57 billion ($74 billion) on agricultural growth, of which €39 billion was spent on direct subsidies. Along with fisheries subsidies, this represents over 40 percent of the EU budget (Farmsubsidy.org). Yet the bulk of this money goes to very rich people. One in five of the biggest recipients of European farming subsidies in Britain are billionaires or millionaires. Greenpeace UK’s policy director Dr. Doug Parr said, “It’s simply indefensible that taxpayers’ money is being used to bankroll huge subsidies going to billionaires, largely on the basis of how much land they own” (Beament 2017).
At this time the United States government pays farmers about $20 billion per year in direct subsidies that go to the largest producers of commodities like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice. The largest 15 percent of farm businesses receive 85 percent of the subsidies, while producers of fruits and vegetables receive nothing. Once again, most of the money goes to big, rich landowners. According to the Government Accountability Office, between 2007 and 2011 the government paid some $3 million in subsidies to 2,300 farms where no crop of any sort was grown (Coburn 2015).
Farm subsidies lead to “international dumping,” in which farmers “dump” food on foreign markets at prices lower than what it costs to produce it. Dumping causes developing countries to buy food cheaply from rich countries instead of from local farmers, which weakens their own agriculture and even bankrupts small growers, who lose their land.
Food Sovereignty
Via Campesina is a global peasant movement that unites the landless, rural women, peasants, farmers, small producers, and indigenous people in 81 countries. They work to defend local production of food and indigenous land rights. In 1996 this alliance coined the term “food sovereignty” to refer to the right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock, and fisheries systems, in direct conflict with agribusiness control and corporate manipulation for profit.
Via Campesina’s seven principles of food sovereignty form a good base from which to achieve economic democracy and Prout’s goal that every region should produce the food its people need:
Food is a Basic Human Right: Everyone must have access to enough safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. Each nation should declare that access to food is a constitutional right and ensure the growth of the primary sector to ensure the concrete realization of this basic right.
Agrarian Reform: A genuine agrarian reform is needed which gives landless and farming people—especially women—ownership and control of the land they work and returns territories to indigenous peoples. The right to land must be free of discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, race, social class, or belief systems. The land belongs to those who work it.
Protecting Natural Resources: Food Sovereignty entails the sustainable care and use of natural resources, chiefly land, water, seeds, and livestock breeds. The people who work the land must have the right to manage natural resources sustainably and to conserve biodiversity, free of restrictive intellectual property rights. This can only be done from a sound economic basis with security of tenure, healthy soils, and reduced use of agro-chemicals.
Reorganizing Food Trade: Food is first and foremost a source of nutrition and is of less value as an item of trade. National agricultural policies must make production for local use and food self-sufficiency the primary concern. Food imports must not displace local production nor depress prices.
Ending the Globalization of Hunger: Food Sovereignty is undermined by multilateral institutions and by speculative capital. The growing control of multinational corporations over agricultural policies has been aided by the economic policies of multilateral organizations such as the WTO, World Bank, and the IMF.
Social Peace: Everyone has the right to be free from violence. Food must not be used as a weapon. Growing levels of poverty and marginalization in the countryside, along with the growing oppression of indigenous peoples, most especially women and children, as well as all disenfranchised peoples, worsen cases of injustice and hopelessness. The ongoing displacement, forced urbanization, oppression, and increasing incidence of racism against smallholder farmers cannot be allowed.
Democratic Control: Small farmers must have direct input into creating agricultural policies at all levels. We all have the right to honest, accurate information and open and democratic decision-making. These rights form the basis of good governance, accountability, and equal participation in economic, political, and social life, free from all forms of discrimination. Rural women, chiefly, must be granted direct and active decision-making on food and rural issues.
Prout’s Agrarian Revolution
One of Prout’s goals is to restore Pramá—dynamic balance—in the environment. This concept is similar to what David Suzuki calls “the sacred balance” (Suzuki 1997). Prout advocates that we use Nature’s gifts in a balanced and renewable way, while we preserve the planet’s forests and other wild places and restore degraded areas. The difference between “utilizing” and “exploiting” the environment can be compared to “using” or “abusing” something.
Sarkar called for an “agrarian revolution,” viewing agriculture as the most crucial sector of the economy. He stressed that every region should strive to produce the food its population needs. This simple idea of regional food supply is radically different from the corporate agriculture of today. Food in the United States travels on average between 1,500 and 2,500 miles (2500-4000 kilometers) from farm to table! The big winners of this are factory farms, agribusiness monopolies, giant supermarket chains, and long-distance shipping. The losers are farm communities and the Earth’s climate (Worldwatch Institute).
Prout asserts that farming practices should be sustainable to preserve the planet’s future. These techniques include organic farming, biological farming, permaculture, agro-forestry, holistic management, natural pest control, composting, mixed cropping, supplementary cropping, crop rotation, inter-cropping, and other similar practices.
Agricultural Cooperatives
Prout supports agricultural co-ops as the ideal form of farm management for many reasons. Cooperatives enable farmers to pool their resources, purchase inputs, and store and transport their market produce more easily. Most importantly, they eliminate the need for intermediaries—traders who buy produce very cheaply from the farmers and then sell it for a high price to city retailers. Instead, in a Prout economy, farmers’ co-ops would sell directly to consumers’ co-ops or to distribution co-ops, benefiting everyone. Finally, agricultural co-ops promote economic democracy, empowering farm families to decide their own future.
The co-ops of Prout are greatly different from the state-run “communes” of the former Soviet Union, China, and other communist countries which have, for the most part, been a failure. In these communes, very low rates of production often created drastic food shortages. By denying private ownership and incentives, they failed to create a sense of worker involvement. Central authorities issued plans and quotas, and the local people had no say over their work. Coercion, and sometimes violence, were used to run the commune system.
Prout does not support the seizing of farmland or forcing farmers to join co-ops. Traditional farmers have a strong bond with the land that has been held by their ancestors—some would rather die than lose it.
A major benefit of farm co-ops is the potential for the collective buying of farm equipment that is too expensive for most farmers. In addition, in countries where farmland is limited and population density is high, a good amount of land is wasted on borders and boundary fences that the co-op could use at once. By selling collectively, farmers will get higher prices for their produce.
Ideal Farming
Organic farming lessens environmental and human health impacts by avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and hormones or antibiotic treatments for livestock. To compare organic farming with conventional agriculture using chemicals, environmental scientists at the University of California, Berkeley performed an analysis of 115 studies comparing conventional and organic methods. They found that organic agriculture delivers just five percent lower yield in rain-watered legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as fruit trees. For major cereal crops and some vegetables, conventional methods delivered 19 percent more yield, mostly due to large doses of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. However, when organic farmers apply best management practices, they perform better. Organic agriculture can feed the world (Ponisio 2015).
Prout promotes the practice of collecting seeds of different varieties and distributing them widely to preserve our planet’s biodiversity.
Renewable energy sources can also be developed on agricultural co-ops through the use of bio-gas (produced in a tank of composting organic matter), solar power, and wind power.
Water conservation is a key issue in sustainability. Underground water reserves are crucial to a region’s ecological balance; hence preference should be given to using surface water over well water for irrigation and other purposes. It is vital to reforest land to increase rainfall, and to construct many lakes and small ponds to capture rainwater. Planting certain trees that retain water in their roots along rivers and around lakes and ponds will help to prevent evaporation and maintain water levels.
A shift is needed in animal husbandry. Whereas domestic animals have played a huge role in agriculture for thousands of years—fertilizing the soil and turning grass into milk, for example—the present cattle, sheep and poultry industries are causing great ecological damage. Worldwide, about 70 billion farm animals are now raised for food each year. Two out of every three of these are being factory farmed, kept permanently in confined cages or pens. Farm animals consume half the world’s grain (A Well-Fed World 2018).
It is not only cruel to raise animals for slaughter, it is inefficient, too. For each seven kilograms of plant protein, such as cereals, that is fed to livestock in factory farms, only one kilogram of protein on average is given back in the form of meat or other livestock products. The vast lands and huge amounts of water used to grow animal feed and to raise livestock could feed many more people if planted with grains, beans and other crops for human consumption (J.L.P. 2013).
Awareness is growing of the ill effects on health of eating a diet high in meat. Prout supports eating less meat for both health and ecological reasons.
Permaculture, Ecovillages, and Transition Towns
Three growing, progressive movements today for sustainable agriculture and sustainable communities are permaculture, ecovillages, and Transition Towns.
In Australia, David Holmgren and Bill Mollison coined the term ‘permaculture’ in 1978 to describe a system of agricultural and social design principles centered around simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. Permaculture includes ecological design, ecological engineering, environmental design and construction, and integrated water resources management (Mollison 1991).
Mollison has said: “Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system” (Mollison 1991).
The 12 principles of permaculture are: observe and interact, catch and store energy, obtain a yield, apply self regulation and accept feedback, use and value renewable resources and services, produce no waste, design from patterns to details, integrate rather than segregate, use small and slow solutions, use and value diversity, use edges and value the marginal, and creatively use and respond to change (Holmgren 2002).
Communes were intentional communities based on shared living that sprung up in many places in Europe and North and South America in the 1960s and 1970s. Most collapsed; some that survived into the 1980s focused on co-housing and ecology. In 1987 in Denmark, Ross and Hildur Jackson founded Gaia Trust as a charity to support sustainability projects around the world through grants and proactive initiatives. They in turn inspired Robert and Diane Gilman to co-author Ecovillages and Sustainable Communities (Blouin 2007).
Kosha Joubert, Executive Director of the Global Ecovillage Network, defined an ‘ecovillage’ as an “intentional, traditional, rural, or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology, and economy) to regenerate their social and natural environments” (Joubert 2015).
Most ecovillages range from a population of 50 to 150 individuals, although some are smaller or larger than that. The more than 500 members of the Findhorn community in Scotland hosted the first ecovillage conference in 1995. Today, there are over 10,000 self-identified ecovillages in over 70 countries on six continents (GEN 2018).
The Transition Network began in Totnes in southwest England in 2005 by permaculture designer Rob Hopkins, Peter Lipman, and Ben Brangwyn. The purpose is for communities to increase their self-sufficiency and reduce the potential impacts of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability. They are reclaiming the economy, sparking entrepreneurship, reimagining work, reskilling themselves, and weaving webs of connection and support. Transition Towns have now spread to over 50 countries, in thousands of towns, villages, cities, universities, and schools. Communities address global challenges by starting local and crowd-sourcing solutions (Transition Network 2016).
Prout’s Vision Discussion Questions
How much of the food that you eat is grown locally, and how much is imported from far away?
Do you think an agrarian revolution is necessary? Why or why not?
Have you ever visited a cooperative farm, a Community Supported Agriculture farm, a permaculture project, an ecovillage, or a Transition Town? If so, what was it like?
“Since 1950, the number of farm animals on the planet has risen 500 percent; now they outnumber humans by ten to one, consume half the world’s grain, and cause more global warming than all cars and other transportation put together.” What is your opinion about this?
Have you ever eaten food that you planted yourself? How did it make you feel?
Activist Tools: Capturing Media Attention
One of the most powerful means to raise consciousness of people locally and around the world is through the media: TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and social media. Of course, all large, popular media outlets are owned and controlled by huge corporations, and so many of them may try to devalue and marginalize us. But through our solidarity, our actions and our words, we can use these moments in history to convey a radical and inspiring message to the people of the world.
There isn’t any one sure-fire way to get your message out to the public. Instead try a multi-touch approach. Consider social media, websites, event calendars, email, direct mail, radio, TV, print media, and flyers. Here are four suggestions to help you get your message out to a wide target audience by utilizing social and mass media platforms effectively.
- Choose a clear, fresh message. Decide what you are calling for and keep repeating it clearly and concisely. If you speak calmly and appeal to common understandings, radical ideas can appear not only sensible but even obvious. Start with an inspiring theme to engage your audience and keep it consistent throughout the event.
- Plan it and share it. Start with a plan. Decide on your goals, your target audience and how to best reach them. Create key messaging to use in all communications.
- Use Social Media. Ever since the 2010-11 Arab Spring Protests, organizing protests and events using social media has been the way to go. Around the world, more and more people are tuning into social media. In fact, in the United States, many newspapers have gone out of business, or now have only online versions (Shearer and Gottfried 2017).
Make it easy for folks to share on your website and link all your social media.
- Twitter: Create a hashtag for the event and ask folks to use it to tweet about the event.
- Facebook: Make a Facebook Event Page. Invite your friends to ‘like’ the page and share it.
- YouTube: Create a short video to promote your event and upload it to YouTube or Flickr.
- LinkedIn: Promote on your own LinkedIn network by sharing an update with a link to your event page.
- Use Mass Media:
Interviews: Use your slogan or message as much as possible. The average “sound bite” that TV or radio uses is only seven seconds long, and the print media usually publishes no more than two or three lines when quoting someone. Memorize three sound bites (with backup information) and write them down. If possible, introduce yourself and smile. Ask the journalist’s name and media outlet if they didn’t identify themselves. Never lie. Avoid profanities, because they will only give people an excuse not to listen to your message.
Be careful about questions that belittle you and your cause. For example, “Are you disappointed with the low turnout today?” In that case, follow this “ABC”:
Acknowledge the question,
Bridge away from it, and
Communicate your message.
So to the above question you might reply, “I’m inspired, because each person here stands for hundreds of people in the so-called Third World who are being impoverished and exploited by undemocratic, unaccountable institutions such as the IMF, WTO, and World Bank for the benefit of transnational corporations and the super rich.”
Practice! Even people who speak all the time practice. Know the opposing points and decide the best reply to each one.
If you slip up, ask the reporter to start again (unless it’s live). If you need more time to think, ask the reporter to repeat the question, or ask a clarifying question, or simply pause and think before answering. If you don’t know an answer to a question, don’t force it. Try to return to your message. If it’s an interview for print media, tell the reporter you’ll track down the answer later and call them back.
An interview is never over even if the tape stops rolling. Everything you say to a journalist is on the record.
Print Media: Newspaper reporters, who often cover beats (issue areas), are usually more likely to engage in a detailed discussion of your issue and want more precise answers to their questions than do broadcast journalists. Explain your position fully, and stress the key points you want to appear in the paper.
Radio: Ask how long the interview will last. Rehearse your message and any events or web pages you want to announce before the interview and practice. Have a friend ask you questions and tape your responses. Use humor, personal stories, and concrete messages. You can use notes, but don’t read. Warm up your voice by talking for a few minutes before. Speak clearly, but not too slowly.
Most radio interviews are conducted by phone, so find a quiet place for the call.
Don’t answer questions with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Explain your position and have an exchange with the host. Repeat your message more than once, because listeners may tune in late.
Vary your voice, and avoid “ah” and “um.” Try to sound as if you are speaking to a friend.
Ask supporters to call in while you’re on the show. Ask someone to tape the show so you can listen to it later. If the station will post the interview on their website, post the link on your social media.
Television: Dress well to make an impression. Ask if the show will be taped and edited, or broadcast live. Every blink, ‘uh,’ and twitch is magnified on camera. Look at the reporter or the camera operator. Don’t look into the camera unless you are talking from the field to an anchor back at the studio.
Give personal and moving examples. Refer to concrete images. Keep your answers brief and stick to your key points. The more tape they have, the less control you have over what they put on the air.
Finally, thank the journalist, ask for his or her card, and ask when the story will be run.
Media Event: This is an activity intended to generate news coverage. They often involve colorful visuals, playful stunts, props, etc. The more of the following traits it has, the more likely your media event will get covered: novelty, conflict, new data that shows a trend, simplicity, humor, a prominent figure, action, bright props and images, local impact, holidays, or anniversaries.
Build your media event site, speakers, and visuals around your message and slogan. Make it fun. Don’t be afraid to employ stunts. The media prefer exciting current events to long range things.
Consider timing. Is your event competing with other things? It is best to stage an event Monday through Thursday, 10 A.M. through 2 P.M.
Choose an effective location that is unique and convenient, because reporters are busy and won’t travel far for an event. Protesting outside a company office is usually less effective than at the company’s annual meeting, where business journalists may be present.
Check with the local police department if you need a permit. If your event is outdoors, have a backup location in case of bad weather.
Display a large banner or sign with your organization’s logo. Arrange to have good photographers take pictures of your event. The event should last 15 to 45 minutes.
Pass out handouts about your issue and organization at the event. Have spokespersons ready to be interviewed.
Send your report of the event to all reporters who did not attend.
Press Release: This informs journalists about your event, report, or issue. It should include all the information a reporter needs to write their piece. Write the press release as the news story you would want to see written. Type your release on your organization’s letterhead; send it out at least three weeks before the event. Newspapers have deadlines; you need to research and be sure to get the release in well before the deadline.
In the top left corner, type “For Immediate Release,’ and just below that, type the date. In the top right corner, type names and phone numbers of two contacts that can answer questions and are easily reached by phone.
Your headline will make or break a news release. Include the most important content in the headline, and make it punchy. Keep the headline short and use a large font.
Important content should jump off the page, because most reporters will spend at most 30 seconds looking at a release. Spend 75 percent of your time writing the headline and the first paragraph. Use the inverted pyramid style of news writing, that is, include the most newsworthy content—who, what, when, where, and why— in the first paragraph, other key details in the second paragraph, then work your way down with more general and background information.
Keep sentences and paragraphs short, with only one, two, or at most three sentences per paragraph. Include a colorful quote from a spokesperson in the second or third paragraph. Include a short summary of your organization in the last paragraph.
Mention “Photo Opportunity” if there is one, and send a copy of the release to the photo desk.
Type MORE at the end of page 1 if your release is two pages, and repeat the contact phone numbers and short headline in the upper-right hand corner of subsequent pages.
If your release announces an event, send it to the daybooks. Daybooks are event calendars posted by wire services and larger news outlets in large cities that list each day’s area news events. Basic details are given for each event, including: location, time, speaker, and contact person. Editors use daybooks to assign reporters and photographers each morning to events they’ve chosen to cover. (Find out whether your city has one by calling the newsroom of your largest local newspaper).
Always make follow up calls after you send the release. Journalists insist that it is OK to call repeatedly, as long as you are polite each time. If your release announces an event, make the calls the morning before your event is scheduled. Have a copy of the release ready to be faxed or emailed when you make the calls, because they may have lost or misplaced the earlier one.
Media Advisory: This is sent to news outlets three to five working days before an upcoming event to alert journalists. It gives a short description of the event and the issue and answers who, what, where, when and why. The headline and format are the same as a press release, except that in the top left corner, type “Media Advisory.”
Describe how your event will look visually, for example, “Citizens will carry large placards and life-size puppets to the Governor’s Mansion to protest the latest cut in education funding.” List the speakers at your event.
Opinion Piece: An op-ed is a personal opinion essay which is typically published opposite the editorial page. They help legitimize your cause and you as an informed spokesperson for it.
Write a catchy first paragraph using a personal story or concrete example. Clearly state your specific point of view. Aim for 700 to 750 words and double space. Write in the active voice with two-to three-sentence paragraphs. Avoid jargon and academic language. Write in a personal, storytelling way. Use humor, if possible.
Give the op-ed a short title. Find a local angle for local papers; write more broadly for a national paper.
Put your name, phone, and address in the top left-hand corner. Type the number of words in the top right-hand corner.
Before you send it, call and pitch the piece to the editor of the op-ed page to see if there is any interest. Call early in the week and early in the day.
Pitching Your Story: In the past, telephone calls were the most effective way to communicate with reporters. Today many reporters prefer email and texts. Reporters are overloaded with paper, so chances are they never saw your release or advisory.
Target your reporters. Contact reporters who cover your issue, and reporters you have a relationship with. If you have to make a cold call, ask the general assignment editor or producer who you should speak to.
Find a hook for your story. Show the reporter how your story is hot, significant, timely, controversial, or how it impacts a lot of readers.
Keep the pitch short and punchy. Reporters don’t have time for long pitch calls, so tell the essential information (who, what, where, when, and why) in the first 90 seconds. Then ask if they received your release or advisory.
Be enthusiastic and helpful. If you’re not excited about your story, why should the reporter be?
Never lie to a reporter. They may not like what you have to say, but if you’re honest, they must respect you.
Be considerate of deadlines. Pitch calls are best made in the mid morning (9:30 to noon). If you sense a reporter is rushed or impatient, ask them if they are on deadline and offer to call back.
Only pitch one reporter per outlet. If you do talk to more than one person, make sure the other reporter knows that you’ve talked with someone else.
Close the deal. Ask the reporter if they are interested or if they are coming to the event. Most will not commit over the phone but they will think about it.
Offer to send them a report right after the event if they cannot attend.
Pitch calls can be frustrating when reporters don’t bite. But remember that every phone call keeps your issue and organization on their radar screen, and is an important step in building an on-going professional relationship with reporters.
Press Conference: This is a scheduled meeting to release new information about an issue, announce a further event, or respond to breaking news.
Press conferences seldom get much coverage from media, so it is usually better to stage a media event, or call reporters and email them information.
Hold the conference outside, if possible, but with an indoor backup in case of bad weather.
Choose a space that fits your audience. Don’t use a room for 50 if you only expect eight, because it will appear as though the public is not interested in your issue. Ask your supporters to fill empty seats so the event looks well attended for the reporters and TV cameras.
Practice the press conference in advance, including questions.
Place your group’s logo in front of the podium. Provide refreshments.
Assign someone to greet reporters, hand each one a press kit, and ask them to sign in.
Use at most four speakers, the most important ones first, with each one talking a maximum of five minutes, and give ten minutes at the end for questions. Speakers should dress in formal clothes unless they are in uniforms or costumes. Create props for your speakers to hold, or large charts and diagrams that they can point to.
Start and end on time. Reporters can interview speakers after the event if they want.
Unexpected Media Calls: This means the journalists know who you are and are coming to you as an expert. Ask what the reporter needs. Do they want a quote or background information? If you are not sure how to respond, simply jot down the question, verify the reporter’s deadline, and assure them that you will return the call before that time.
Don’t ignore the media. Neglected reporters have a long memory. Try to answer the reporter’s questions as quickly and completely as possible.
Nothing is ever off the record. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to see in print.
Activist Tools Exercise: Plan a Media Event
First, choose a cause that is dear to you, whether local or global. Then brainstorm together for ten minutes how you could get local media coverage for this cause.
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique to generate new ideas and solutions by removing inhibitions. People are able to think more freely and they suggest as many spontaneous new ideas as possible. Every idea is noted down as fast as possible. No criticism of any idea is allowed, no matter how wild it may be. In fact, wild ideas are encouraged as they stimulate other creative solutions.
After the 10-minute time limit is over, stop the brainstorm, and begin evaluating as a group each of the proposals. Feel free to combine and modify proposals in this phase. Try to reach consensus on which idea could generate the most positive local media coverage for your cause.
Finally, most challenging of all, do it!
Closure:
The facilitator should remind everyone about further viewings, readings, and activities – Do as many as you can. Ask everyone to read the next module in the manual before the next meeting. Confirm the date, time, and place of the next meeting. Show the following roles for the next module and ask people to volunteer to lead a part.
MODULE 9: IDEAL LEADERSHIP
Facilitator: _______
Timekeeper: _______
Excitement Sharing: _______ (10 min.) 0:00
The Social Reality: Dangerous Leaders – review and lead discussion question: _______ (20 min.) 0:10
Prout’s Vision: Classes Based on Social Psychology, History and the Social Cycle, Shudra Revolution and a New Cycle Begins – review and lead discussion question: _______ (25 min.) 0:30
Prout’s Vision: Spiritual Revolutionaries: Sadvipras – review and lead discussion question: _______ (25 min.) 0:55
Activist Tools: Becoming an Ideal Leader, Emotionally Intelligent Leaders – review: _______ (25 min.) 1:20
Closure, Feedback, Role Assignments for Next Week: _______ (15 min.) 1:45
Ask participants to write anonymous feedback about the session before they leave. They can use the Feedback Form at the end of Module 1, or write whatever they like.
Activities—Do as many as you can:
Interview local farmers. Ask them about their successes and challenges. Ask them what their biggest problems are.
Find out what percentage of your country’s population works in agriculture, industry, and services? What would be the effect if your economy became more balanced?
Visit a cooperative farm or a Community Supported Agriculture (C.S.A.) farm.
Survey your family and friends. How many of them grow food in a garden? Ask those who do grow their own food, how it makes them feel.
Organize a media event.
FOLLOW-UP
Further readings:
Biello, David. 2012. “Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?” Scientific American, April 25, 2012.
Duhamel, Philippe. 2005. “Lessons from a Successful Media Campaign.”
Feenstra, Gail, Chuck Ingels, and David Campbell. “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” University of California at Davis, Agricultural Sustainability Institute.
Ghobadi, Shahla. 2018. “Going Viral: What Social Media Activists Need to Know.” The Conversation, July 17, 2018.
Hunger Notes. 2018. “2018 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics.”
Further viewings:
Black, Simon. 2018. “DIY Activism: Getting Media Coverage.” Greenpeace Australia Pacific. February 18, 2018. 3 minutes.
Foley, Jonathan. 2010. “The Other Inconvenient Truth.” TEDxTC. October 2010. 18 minutes.
Holmgren, David. 2015. “Permaculture and Reading Landscape.” Living in the Future. September 10, 2015. 16 minutes.
“Organic Sustainable Farming is the Future of Agriculture—The Future of Food.” Happen Films. May 21, 2017. 6 minutes.
“The Paradox of Hunger in the World.” June 5, 2013. 8 minutes.
References:
Beament, Emily. 2017. “EU Farming Subsidies: One in Five Biggest Recipients are Billionaires and Millionaires on the UK Rich List. Independent, June 30, 2017.
Biello, David. 2012. “Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?” Scientific American, April 25, 2012.
Blouin, Michael. 2007. “The Urban Ecovillage Experiment: The Stories of Six Communities that Hoped to Change the World.”
Coburn, Tom. 2015. “Milking Taxpayers.” The Economist, February 12, 2015.
Global Ecovillage Network. 2018. “About GEN.”
Gurian-Sherman, Doug. 2012. “Is the Long-Term Safety of Genetically Engineered Food Settled? Not by a Long Shot.” Union of Concerned Scientists. November 15, 2012.
Halley, Lori. 2013. “5 Tips for Getting Your Event Message Out.” NTen. February 15, 2013.
Holmgren, David. 2002. Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Holmgren Design Services.
Holt-Giménez, Eric, Annie Shattuck, Miguel Altieri, Hans Herren and Steve Gliessman. 2012. “We Already Grow Enough Food for 10 Billion People … and Still Can’t End Hunger.” Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 36:6, pp. 595-598.
Hunger Notes. 2018. “2018 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics.”
J.L.P. 2013. “Meat and Greens.” The Economist, December 31, 2013.
Joubert, Kosha. 2015. “From Apartheid to Ecovillage.” TEDXFindhorn June 1, 2015.
Just Label It Campaign. 2018. “Labeling Around the World.”
Mollison, Bill. 1991. Introduction to Permaculture. Tasmania, Australia: Tagari.
Ponisio, Lauren, L.K. M’Gonigle, Kevi Mace, Jenny Palomino, Perry de Valpine, and Claire Kremen. 2015. “Diversification Practices Reduce Organic to Conventional Yield Gap.” Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society. 282. 20141396. 10.1098/rspb.2014.1396.
Sainath, P. 2018. “A Long March of the Dispossessed to Delhi.” The Wire, June 23, 2018.
Shearer, Elisa and Jeffrey Gottfied. 2017. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017.” Pew Research Center. September 7, 2017.
Suzuki, David. 1997. The Sacred Balance. Australia: Allen and Unwin.
Transition Network. 2016. “What is Transition?”
Turk, Chasen. 2017. “15 World Hunger Statistics.” The Borgen Project. March.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2015. “Ag 101 Demographics.”
A Well-Fed World. 2018. “Factory Farms.”
World Bank. “3.2 Agricultural Inputs.”
Worldwatch Institute. “Globetrotting Food Will Travel Farther Than Ever This Thanksgiving.”