Cooperative Development Institute: Northeast Center for Cooperative Business

The DFTA Workshop, "Domestic Fair Trade Association: A Movement Based Approach to Fair Trade," is scheduled for Friday morning, June 25th, at 10 a.m. in Cobo Hall Room 02-33. The panelists will include Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development; Joaquin, a young farmworker traveling with Community to Community; Elizabeth Henderson, farmer and NOFA representative; Richard Mandelbaum of CATA-the Farmworker Support Committee; and myself. We will cover the basics of DFTA, farmer and farmworker perspectives, the related work of the Agricultural Justice Project, and let people know how to become involved in the movement, either of individuals or as member organizations.

Later on Friday, at 1 p.m. at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel Room WB1, DFTA member Food Chain Workers Alliance will facilitate a workshop titled Workers' Struggles for Labor Justice and Sustainability in the Food System.

At 3 p.m. on Friday in the Food Justice Canopy, WhyHunger is sponsoring a workshop on creating a US Food Sovereignty Network and they have specifically requested a DFTA perspective.

Finally, on Friday evening at 5:00 DFTA will have a very informal gathering in the Food Justice Canopy. At the annual meeting, many of you expressed interest in having the chance to meet during the year and this is our first attempt to do this in an organized way. The gathering will be open to anyone currently involved in DFTA and anyone interested in learning more or continuing discussions started at our morning workshop earlier that day.

The DFTA Board will meet in Detroit on Sunday and Monday following the USSF. As always, board meetings are open to any member to observe. If anyone would like to see a copy of the meeting agenda, let me know.