Noticias
y campañas
de la OCA
en españolBreaking the Chains: Buy Local, Organic, Fair Made
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- Groups Promoting Ethical Consumer and Business Practices
- Big Box Mart: Watch this humorous online video parody of how big box stores destroy local economies.
BTC MATERIALS:
- BTC Leaflet (print & cut)
- BTC Pamphlet (print & fold)
- 14 Reasons to Buy Local
- Why Not Shop at Wal Mart?
- BTC Poster | BTC Sign Up Form
- Why We Need to Break the Chains (handout)
- The High Cost of Cheap Food (handout)
- Download
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Local Food: Where to Find It, How to Buy It
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A Declaration of Interdependence
Breaking The Chains (BTC): Global Call To Action
Dear Friends,
We the undersigned, call on ethically responsible people across the world to “Break the Chains” of self-destructive consumerism by boycotting Wal-Mart and other national and international chain stores, fast food restaurants, corporate coffeehouses, and products bearing the logos of the multinational Brand Name Bullies.
Wal-Mart and the multinational chains are colonizing our communities and our minds, North & South, East & West, rural and urban, killing off small businesses, exploiting workers and farmers, devastating the environment, and sowing a toxic culture of cheap goods and social unaccountability. Unless we stop this Wal-Martization of our communities, we can say goodbye to Fair Trade, family farms, independent businesses, workers rights, and environmental sustainability.
From Manhattan to Mexico, from China to Chile, farmers, consumers and independent businesses are resisting the invasion of Wal-Mart and the Corporate Chain stores and building grassroots power through local, green, and just commerce. The answer to Wal-Martization and so-called “Free Trade” is ethical consumer purchasing and political action--building and supporting local and community-based producers and businesses through solidarity, collective purchasing power, and mutual aid. Fair Trade, not Free Trade, must become the global norm, with organic and sustainable production leading the way. Local and community control over essential goods and services provides the only solid foundation for economic democracy, a sustainable environment, and public health.
Help us mark the beginning of the end for Wal-Mart and the Corporate Chains. Please join us as we step up the pace to re-localize and green a just global economy.
Consumers of the world unite!
We have nothing to lose but our chains!
In Solidarity,
Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
Vandana Shiva, Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology
(India)
Kevin Danaher, Global Exchange
Judy Wicks, White Dog Café
Anna and Frances Moore Lappé, Small Planet Institute
Randy Hayes, International Forum on Globalization
Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians (Canada)
Frente Civico (Mexico)
John Stauber, Center for Media and Democracy
Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers
Lorette Picciano, Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural
Robin Seydel, La Montanita Coop
Deb Edrozo, Bike Aid
Jennifer Rockne, American Independent Business Alliance
Food for Thought:
Before You Pull out Your Wallet
- Who profits from this sale?
- Are you buying this product from a national chain, or buying locally from an independent business, coop, or family farm?
- Where was this item grown or made?
- How far did it travel?
- Were farmers’ or workers’ rights protected?
- Did the producer receive a living wage?
- Is it certified organic or Fair Trade?
- Is the company making or selling
this item socially responsible? - Is this product genuinely ecological & healthy?
- What would be an organic, local,
and Fair Trade or Fair Made alternative?
Sign the Breaking the Chains Pledge to Buy Local, Organic, and Fair Made
Our goal is for one million people to join us in striving to Break the Chains by December, 2006. Urge your local businesses, community organizations, coffee houses, environmental groups, and churches to do the same!
I pledge to Break the Chains whenever possible by:
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Buying Organic, Fair Trade, and Fair Made products.
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Boycotting Wal-Mart and the Big Box chains, as well as the big chain bookstores, restaurants, grocery stores, and coffeehouses.
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Buying locally or regionally produced organic and green products.
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Buying Organic, Made in USA, Union Made, or Fair Made clothing, or else shopping for vintage and recycled garments.
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Boycotting sweatshop products from nations such as China, where labor rights are routinely violated.
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Giving preference to independent, locally owned, or cooperative businesses.
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Turning off corporate controlled television, radio, magazines and newspapers, and tuning in to the alternative media.
Working Together to Break the Chains
The OCA believes that the next step in this greening and re-localization of the global economy is to take a more visible public stand. By working together, across communities and national borders, we can leverage the enormous collective economic clout of the world’s organic and ethically conscious consumers.
Help OCA mobilize millions of organic and socially responsible consumers into a powerful force for change, both in the marketplace and in the political arena.
About the BTC Campaign
OCA's Breaking the Chains Campaign is
focusing consumers' attention on how each purchasing decision
can lead to a safer, greener, and more equitable society.Millions
of green minded consumers around the world have broken the chains of
corporate control in their own lives, by supporting organic, Fair Made,
and locally produced products and businesses. It is time for these
individuals to come together as a single voice to break the influence
of big chains, corporate agribusiness, and sweatshop driven economies
the world over.You can join the Breaking the Chains network, and become
a part of this powerful force for change, by signing the pledge above,
by hosting a BTC Home Forum using materials downloaded from this
page, and by spreading the word to family, friends, neighbors,
and colleagues.
BTC Related News:
- 05/08/08 - Controversy Growing Over Supermarkets Importing Organic Food from China
- 05/08/08 - Wyndham Hotels to Serve Organic and Fair-Trade Certified Starbucks Coffee
- 05/05/08 - The Lost Supermarket
- 05/05/08 - Chickens Adopting Urban Lifestyle
- 04/29/08 - Wal-Mart Costs Society More
- 04/25/08 - Wal-Mart's Supply Chain Oversight Questioned Over Shrimp Farm Labor Abuses
- 04/24/08 - Big Box Campaigners Update (April 23, 2008)
- 04/22/08 - University of Maryland Baltimore County Students Pushing "Sweatfree"
- 04/21/08 - 100 Mile Style
- 04/21/08 - To Make Local Food More Accessible, Time to Revive Mid-Sized Farms
- 04/20/08 - Do Food Miles Matter? Reducing Meat & Dairy Consumption May Be Even More Important
- 04/17/08 - The Whole Story About Whole Foods Market
- 04/17/08 - Not the Same Old Drive-Thru
- 04/17/08 - ILRF Reponds to Cargill
- 04/16/08 - New Canadian Film: "Wal-Mart World's Most Hated Company."
- 04/08/08 - Despite Environmental Initiatives, Wal-Mart's Fuel Usage Still High
- 04/08/08 - Wal-Mart Looking to Buy More Organic Cotton
- 04/03/08 - Wal-Mart's Rollout of Fair Trade Coffee Raising Larger Issues of Worker Treatment
- 04/01/08 - Wal-Mart Rolls Out Line of Private Label Coffee
- 03/28/08 - Wal-Mart: The Root of All Evil?
- 03/28/08 - We Laughed, We Cried, We Shopped Locally
- 03/21/08 - Wal-Mart Begins Sales of Hormone-Free Milk
- 03/20/08 - Boston Area Local Business Booklet Helps Shopkeepers Tell Their Stories, and Helps Shoppers Buy Local
- 03/20/08 - Could Wal-Mart (And its Bad Labor Practices) Revive the Labor Movement?
- 03/20/08 - Union Negotiations with Major Grocers Giant and Safeway Take Time
- 03/11/08 - Jim Hightower: How to Swim Against the Current
- 03/10/08 - Grist Magazine on Joining a CSA
- 03/06/08 - Preserving a Forest and a Philosophy
- 03/06/08 - Wal-Mart Fills Prescription for Chambers Memo: Health Care on the Cheap
- 03/03/08 - The Next Revolution in Sustainable Agriculture: Urban Farming
- 03/01/08 - A Stake in Your Own Salad
- 03/01/08 - Corporate Watch: The Selling of Organic
- 02/26/08 - Food Safety: We Chow Down on a Diet Salted With Mystery
- 02/21/08 - Why Local Foods?
- 02/21/08 - Grow Your Own Local Foods - Straight from Your Garden
- 02/21/08 - A Loaf of Bread, a Gallon of Milk, and Hope for a Better Tomorrow
- 02/14/08 - Wal-Mart PR Firm Says it's OK to Lie
- 02/11/08 - Wal-Mart Finally Attempts to Address Food Safety Concerns
- 02/11/08 - Home Grown
- 02/08/08 - Wal-Mart Continues to Sell Chemical-Tainted Baby Bottles
- 02/05/08 - Wal-Mart Finally Attempts To Address Food Safety Concerns
- 02/04/08 - Obesity Becoming World Crisis
- 01/24/08 - Despite What the Fed Bank Said, Wal-Mart Never Has Been Good For You
- 01/14/08 - Are You A Locavore?
- 01/12/08 - Promising Opportunities in Agriculture and Rural Communities
- 01/11/08 - Local Food Systems Important for Rural Community Development
- 01/11/08 - New Film Slams Wal-Mart: "Going Big Box vs. Going Local"
- 01/07/08 - Wal-Mart Loses $33.5 Million Tax Shelter Dispute in North Carolina
- 01/03/08 - Eat, Drink & Buy Local
- 12/27/07 - Trial Wraps Up in Minnesota Wage & Hour Case
- 12/26/07 - Another Reason to Boycott Burger King & Buy Only Organic Tomatoes in 2008: Florida's Harvest of Shame
- 12/22/07 - Wal-Mart's Crimes Against Forests
- 12/14/07 - Buy Local Advocates Challenge Big Food Companies at National Nutrition Expo
- 12/13/07 - Group: Wal-Mart Blind to Illegal Logging
- 12/13/07 - Born to Shop: How Marketers Brainwash Babies
More Breaking the Chains News Articles
Return to top of page
Why Break the Chains?
The quality and range of America’s daily essentials is being dictated and degraded by a powerful network of Brand Name Bullies and Big Box chains. By “outsourcing” from sweatshops in the factories and fields, by cutting corners on public health and the environment, and by sucking up billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, business behemoths such as Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Starbucks and others have constructed a vast global shopping mall of cheap goods and conveniences, reinforced by a non-stop, 24/7 glut of multi-media distractions.
Why Organic?
Excluding the last few decades, organic agriculture has been the only form of agriculture practiced on the planet. Under its simplest definition, organic agriculture is farming without synthetic chemicals.
After the Second World War, however, there was a movement towards mechanization and homogenization of farming. Larger chemical and energy-intensive farms spread across the landscape, utilizing billions of pounds of toxic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and animal drugs.
Amidst this agricultural industrial revolution, several astute pioneers of the organic movement emerged, heralding the dangers of ecological insensitivity and calling for a return to the responsible farming methods of our past. A leader of this group, Lady Eve Balfour, provides a simple description of the counter-movement that emerged:
The criteria for a sustainable agriculture can be summed up in one word- permanence, which means adopting techniques that maintain soil fertility indefinitely, that utilize, as far as possible, only renewable resources; that do not grossly pollute the environment; and that foster biological activity within the soil and throughout the cycles of all the involved food chains.
Why Buy Local or Regional?
Today, much of our food, conventional and organic alike, is traveling literally thousands of miles from farm to fork. Along the way, food loses its nutritional value, burns fossil fuels, and contributes to global warming. Local foods provide exceptional taste and freshness, strengthen our local economy, and support endangered family farms. More on locally grown food…
Why Fair Made--Fairly Traded, Grown, Sewn, or Manufactured?
While local and organic local food, fiber and bodycare have made great strides in recent years, family farmers and farmworkers continue to struggle to make a living, sweatshops continue to proliferate in the fields and factories, and multinational corporations are gradually conquering organic businesses. Certified Fair Trade products for example, like coffee and chocolate, are growing steadily, with $500 million in annual sales.
Though there is not yet a universally accepted label or certifying body for sweatshop-free clothing, fairly traded and produced organic food, or other manufactured items, there are certain guidelines you can follow in making your purchasing decisions:
- Prioritize purchases from cooperatives, unions or collectives
- Buy directly from farmers:
Local Harvest www.localharvest.org/
Rural Coalition Cooperative Farmers www.supermarketcoop.com
- Research organic food companies and favor independent and ethical businesses
- Search for clean, organic and sweatfree clothing at the Clean Clothes Connection
- Find Certified Fair Trade products through TransFair USA
- Learn more: Toward
Social Justice and Economic Equity in the Food System:
A Call for Social Stewardship Standards in Sustainable and Organic Agriculture