The Myth of Biofuels: How They Hurt Poor Farmers and the Environment
The race to convert acres from food to fuel crops in Mexico, Brazil and the United States has many, including us here at Grassroots, concerned.

We fear that pursuing the industrial scale agrofuel model will worsen hunger, speed up destruction of the natural environment and the fertility of farmland and destroy local communities and ways of life that, once gone, can never be brought back. We've been exploring this issue with our partners and allies at a series of events (including the upcoming Lessons from NAFTA: Building a New Fair Trade Agenda, co-sponsored by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)) and in an ongoing series of reports on our website.

Read our ongoing coverage of the biofuel/agrofuel controversy.

Human Rights and More: On-the-ground Reports from Mesoamerica
Saulo Araujo, Grassroots' Global Programs Assistant, is currently in Mesoamerica, visiting some of our newest partners. He will be reporting on the energy crisis in Managua and an exciting new regional peasant's leadership training program.

His first report--on women's resistance to repression and violence --is already up.

Stay tuned to the blog for Saulo's latest reports and for other news and analysis from Grassroots.

Protecting Threatened Livestock and Seed Strains in the Face of Global Extinctions
A new report from the UN says that over-reliance on high yield, factory-farming style breeds is causing the extinction of an average of one local breed of animals per month. Meanwhile, in the last 100 years we've lost 75 percent of crop diversity.

We need a green food system that respects farmers and consumers and protects the environment.

Grassroots is working with partners in places like Brazil and Haiti to protect threatened seeds and livestock strains from extinction.

Tell the Senate to Support Food Aid that Helps, Not Hurts
The way the system works now, the U.S. government purchases grain from large crop distributors and puts the grains on gas guzzling tankers to places like Darfur.

Wouldn't it make more sense to help local economies by buying the food close to where it's most needed?

Call your Senators now and ask them to support food aid that works. Ask them to support cash for local and regional purchases of foodaid.

Bittersweet Victory for Anti-Wall Protestors in West Bank
The BBC reports that, "Israel's supreme court has ordered the government to redraw the route of the West Bank barrier near BilinVillage, a key focus of anti-barrier protest."

This victory is bittersweet, in part because thousands of mature, productive olive trees have already been bulldozed to prepare for construction, and more so because Bil'in is just one of many places where the planned route of the Wall will devastate a community.

Read more about the case.

Federal, State and Corporate Employees Can Give to Grassroots at Work
Please make a workplace donation to Grassroots this year and encourage your co-workers, friends and family members to do the same by forwarding this edition of Grassroots Online.

Federal Government employees should look for Grassroots International(CFC #10032) under Do Unto Others(DUO) – America’s Emergency Relief, Development and Humanitarian Outreach Charities.

State and corporate employees should look for Grassroots International under Independent Charities of America.

Thank you for continuing to support Grassroot’s ground-breaking
social justice work throughout the world.