Toxic soy petition action TODAY

Toxic soy petition action

Waar: Ahold, Piet Heijnkade 167-173, Amsterdam, Netherlands (GPS lat: 52.377027 lon: 4.919229)
Wanneer: 09/02/2012 - 12:30

Action at event where ASEED en gifsoja.nl will be handing out the petition asking Ahold to stop misleading consumers by being a member of the Round Table on Responsible Soy with speakers, live music and some snacks. We need lots of people so come and check it out!

On the 9th of January around lunchtime (12:30-13:30) at the Corporate-Responsibility-office of Ahold at the Piet Heinkade 167-173 we want to hand over the petition 'Responsible soy: misleading consumers'. It is important that the petition is supported by actual physical presence of a large group of people who are supporting our actions against toxic soy.

Apart from your presence at the event itself we would like to ask your help with some concrete tasks that have to be taken care of before the event can actually occur, if you want to help contact soja@aseed.net. We are planning the following and could use your help with:

- We want to make a big banner and hang is somewhere on the building. We could use your help with making/painting the banner and also with attaching it to the building (or holding it if there is too much wind) during the event. So if you like painting, let us know.
- We want to have a stage with some speakers and in between a nice band will play (suggestions are welcome and if you want to play something and want to sing something about soy in South-America that would be great).
We would like to have some coffee/tea and bread with humus at the event and we are looking for someone who could take on this task.
- We want to invite someone from Ahold to come ant accept the petition.
- We would like to have many people present, so we can use your help with spreading the info about the event. We want to make some flyers, so you if would like to help spread them, let us know and tell as many people as possible to come to the event!

What was it about again?
The Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) is an initiative of WWF supported with Dutch development money. The members of this Roud Table consist mainly of big companies. The goal of the RTRS was to state criteria that would lead to 'responsible' soy production. The criteria of the RTRS are however so weak that this soy cannot be called responsible and for sure not sustainable: it still adds to deforestation, environmental pollution and health damages through large-scale use of pesticides, lessening of (agro)-biodiversity and the use of patented GM-soy. The large-scale importation of soy from South-America (and elsewhere) for our meat and dairy-industry can never be sustainable nor responsible.

Albert Heijn is, via mothercompany Ahold, the only Dutch supermarket chain that is a member of this Round Table. To inform people about the fact that AH is misleading her customers by stating that she will buy her soy sustainably by buying RTRS-soy, we have been doing some sticker and flyeractions at AH. The petition we are handing out is a call to AH and other European supermarkets to stop this misleading. The handing out of the petition can be seen as an end to these actions, so be there!