Last week, my colleague and I went for a little drive to Melville, Long Island to join the Boys & Girls Club to meet with Congressman Steve Israel and ask him to support the Global Food Security Act.

Image: Judith Rowland

You may already be bored of my rants about this amazing bill but, in short, the Global Food Security Act is a bipartisan bill that will strengthen and codify Feed the Future. In 2014 alone, Feed the Future fed over 12.5 million people and supported 7 million farmers around the world to feed their own families and communities.

Who wouldn’t want to support a bill like that?

The students at Boys & Girls Club wrote letters to Congressman Steve Israel about why they supported the bill and they even got their friends involved to write letters, too! Together, we sat down with the Congressman to talk food security and baseball. Apparently Congressman Israel is a big Mets fan!

One of the students explained that, because she was a girl, she believed that female smallholder farmers should be supported. Legislation like the Global Food Security Act will help ensure that female farmers are treated equally within their communities.

Next, we handed over Global Poverty Project’s petition calling on congress to support the Global Food Security Act. The petition has been signed by nearly 69,000 supporters. Congressman Israel thumbed through the massive stack of paper to look for the names of his constituents and seemed really excited to see zip codes that he recognized!

As we left the meeting, Congressman Steve Israel promised his support for the Global Food Security Act and asked his staff to ensure that he is added as a cosponsor. House leadership has indicated that, to see the bill come to a vote, we’ll need to secure at least 100 total cosponsors. There are 70 cosponsors on the bill already but there is a lot more work to do to ensure that the bill comes to a vote. Every new cosponsor counts!

For me, this anecdote really demonstrates the power global citizens have to shape public policy. Your leaders are listening and they want to hear from you!

TAKE ACTION NOW by calling your member of congress and asking them to support the Global Food Security Act!


Editorial

Vaincre la pauvreté

The newest cosponsor on the Global Food Security Act

Par Judith Rowland