2023 Bertha
Challenge Activist Fellows

Lina Isma'il

Location: Palestine

Lina Isma'il is an environmental and community activist in the fields of food sovereignty and agroecology. She is a co-founder of the Palestinian Agroecological Forum, which is concerned with spreading the philosophy and practice of agroecology as a basis for achieving food sovereignty and preserving nature. She also co-authored the guidebook ‘Conscious Choices’, which discusses the concept of ethical consumption within national, economic, social, health and environmental dimensions in the Palestinian context, and highlights the importance of preserving Palestinian heritage and identity through supporting local producers.

The reality of food systems in Palestine is similar to the food systems worldwide, in terms of the challenges associated with globalization – particularly with international economic institutions and large corporations dominating global markets, undermining local economies, eroding cultural diversity, monopolizing natural resources and damaging ecosystems. But, adding to this complexity, is the settler colonial regime occupying Palestine, coupled with foreign aid agendas.

As a Bertha Challenge Fellow, Lina will investigate those challenges and their interlinked impacts on the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers and the environment, in addition to showcasing the growing food sovereignty movement that aims to emancipate Palestinian farmers from the chains forced upon them, by focusing on the role of the Palestinian community to support this movement. She will be creating a film to raise awareness locally and provide tools and evidence for activists to strengthen the food sovereignty movement.

Ana Larrañaga

Location: Mexico
Host Organization:  El Poder del Consumidor A.C.

Ana Larrañaga is a Mexican nutritionist and activist who has worked for food, information and health rights. She specializes in environmental education and holds an MA in Food and Development from the University of Sussex and the Institute of Development Studies.

Ana has worked with non-governmental organization (NGO) coalitions in Mexico and the Latin American region, with whom she has advocated for the implementation of evidence-based food policies to prevent diet-related non-communicable diseases and different forms of malnutrition. 

For her Bertha Challenge Fellowship, Ana will work with El Poder del Consumidor, a recognized consumer rights organization. Her project will focus on documenting, through case studies, how the commercial interests of different industries exert influence within food systems, thus accelerating adverse environmental and health impacts. The project will link with NGOs and communities in Mexico City to understand and promote resilient alternatives through traditional, healthy and local diets.

Bruno Martins Morais

Location: Brazil
Host Organization: Centro de Trabalho Indigenista

Bruno Martins Morais is a lawyer and an anthropologist with experience in socio-environmental law, and specializations in supply chain compliance, transnational environmental crimes and violations of the rights of traditional peoples. He holds a BA in Law and a Master's degree in Social Anthropology from the University of São Paulo, and is a doctoral candidate in Socio-Environmental Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná. He works as an activist and legal advisor to community-based and civil society organizations.

With the support of Bertha Foundation, and in partnership with Indigenous organizations, Bruno intends to research the pressure of grain monocultures on Indigenous territories. In the 1970s, the military dictatorship promoted the expansion of grain crops over Indigenous territories as a policy of integration of these peoples into national society. These policies undermined food sovereignty and spread hunger. The Bolsonaro administration reclaimed this same project, announcing partnerships with Indigenous people in a modernization agenda that would bring these populations out of “backwardness”. At the same time, Brazil has registered an increase of 14 million people living below the hunger line. Bruno wants to investigate the situation of food security in Indigenous territories, its relationship with international supply chains, deforestation and climate change.

Greta Rico

Location: Mexico
Host Organization: Lado B (Pimedi Periodistas S.C.)

Greta Rico is a Mexican freelance documentary photographer, journalist and feminist educator based in Mexico City focused on gender and human rights issues. Her work has been published in magazines, print and digital media such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The HuffPost, El País, Cuartoscuro, La Jornada and Lado B. She has collaborated with United Nations offices and with various civil society organizations. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in Mexico and in cities such as New York, Tehran, Isfahan, Rome, Guayaquil, Kota Kinabalu, Valparaiso and London. Greta has a Masters Degree in Women Studies, she is part of the Women Photograph Advisory Committee, Diversify Photo and the Women ́s Media Center’s SheSource panel.

During her Fellowship year, she will work with four rural communities on the outskirts of Mexico City – the most populated urban center in Latin America which is currently experiencing an urgent food crisis. Greta will be documenting shortage, malnutrition and the impact on nutrition since Mexico no longer protects local farmers from genetically modified-seeds and farming. She will investigate how native corn and production and nutrition of corn-products are threatened by the entry of genetically modified seeds without any policy protection, and how the milpa and chinampas – agricultural methods that have existed since pre-Hispanic times – represent an alternative of resistance and local food sovereignty.