“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committees citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

^{-Margaret Mead}

There are many ways to get involved from the local to the global level.  I encourage readers to think locally, but act globally.  Until we address the corporate hijacking of agriculture, a thousand local points of light or your local garden is unlikely to transform the global corporate food system.  

Don’t get me wrong: I love my home garden as much as anyone else. And sure, before Long Covid disabled me, I enjoyed biking to the nearby farmers market where I had pleasant conversations with local farmers or their staff.  But I don’t fool myself that these local gestures are a substitute for political action. Nor will they help the millions of people in distant places whose livelihoods have been ruined by greedy agribusiness corporations.

Beyond “buying local” or growing your own food, I encourage readers to get engaged with a neigh/boring topic since the devil is always in the details.  Trade agreements, patent laws, customs procedures, farm bills, foreign aid, and toxicology tests are among the “boring” topics I present in the book.  What inspires you?  Through lawsuits, shareholder activism, letter writing, public records requests, and other civic tools, ordinary people can move mountains.

These are some of the organizations I recommend who are doing good work that goes beyond the cash register.  If you would like to list your group, please contact me.

Mesoamerican organizations fighting pesticides and GMOs.  Donate to three of them here.

• REDSAG (National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala
• Bufete para Pueblos Mayas (Maya Peoples’ Law Firm)
• ACDIP (Indigenous Peasant Association for the Integrated Development of Petén)
• Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life) in Mexico.

Corporate subsidies embedded in the U.S. farm bill and trade agreements

• Environmental Working Group.  Their “dirty dozen” lists are a useful guide for people starting to shop organic on a budget.  
• Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
• U.S. Right to Know is a whistleblowing organization on many topics, including pesticides

Challenges to the EPA and FDA to regulate GMOs and associated herbicides

• The Center for Food Safety monitors and files lawsuits on pesticide harms and GMOs. 

Organizations that are supporting the Mexican government in their fight for food sovereignty and the right to healthful tortillas.

• Mexico’s own CONAHCYT (council on humanities, science and technology) maintains a unique database on the unfolding science about the health harms of glyphosate/Roundup
• The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) maintains a useful website about the US trade suit against Mexico.

  They have compiled all the briefs submitted by allied nonprofits here.

Organizations that work against the “circle of poison” — the export of pesticides banned in the United States and the European Union to countries in the global South.

• Pesticide Action Network and its sister organization, Pesticide Action Network International
• The unparalleled Via Campesina fights for small farmers and farmworkers.  As a coalition of 180 local and national organizations in 81 countries, they represent almost 200 million food producers. 
• Organic Consumers Association
• Beyond Pesticides

Student organizations 

• Herbicide Free Campus.  Inspired by Dwayne Lee Johnson’s historic lawsuit against Monsanto, UC Berkeley student athletes formed an action network against herbicides on campus (including sports fields).  This evolved into a national nonprofit organization.

Journalists

• The New Lede features Carey Gillam and others who write about big agribusiness