La Via Campesina E-newsletter March 2014
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International Women's Day: We struggle against capitalism, patriarchy and for our rights!
Press release of La Via Campesina for the 8th March 2014
(Harare, March 7, 2014) On 8 March, International Women's Day, La Via Campesina reaffirmed its anti-capitalistic and anti-patriarchal stance. The movement expressed its firm decision to fight and to take the streets and protest for a new vision of the world, based on the principles of respect, equality, justice, solidarity, peace and freedom. It committed to continuing the struggle together with the working women of the rural and urban areas, and strengthen its campaign to STOP violence towards women. The struggle and action for Food Sovereignty has given the women the opportunity to make visible our historical participation in the development of the world’s food systems and the role we have played since the invention of agriculture. Women and men of La Via Campesina continue to demand the creation of spaces of debate and exchange, where valid tools for a diverse and plural society can be developed. The women commit to deepen and expand the process of collective construction of a political proposal to construct the bases for “Popular Peasant Feminism”. Read more …
Declaration of the Women peasants of the European Coordination Via Campesina on the 8 of March 2014
(Evenstad, March 6, 2014) In this year 2014 – declared the year of family farming by the UN – the women of the member organizations of the European Coordination Via Campesina are gathered in Evenstad (Norway) in the International Women's Day. We want to demonstrate our firm commitment to the right to healthy, adequate and good quality food for all citizens, within the framework of an agro-ecological and social mode of production and distribution.
We want the right of farmers to the equal participation within this mode, the legal recognition as producers of food, the access to land, seeds and other resources guaranteed. This 8th of March lets defend our rights as women and farmers in the street. Read more …
Evenstad Declaration: Seven measures for strengthening peasant family farming!
(Evenstad, 4 March 2014) The peasants gathered in Norway for the Annual General Assembly of European Coordination Via Campesina and their allies. They issued a declaration calling upon the national and regional governments as well as the European institutions to urgently implement the seven measures for strengthening peasant family farming. Currently, peasant family farming is and remains the most widespread model to produce food in Europe and the world. However, food has become just another commodity, and peasants, just producers of raw materials, and all control wrested from their grasp, due to public policies being decided on at global level, subject to the vagaries of the markets and financial speculation, which foster economic wars and competition. These policies do not recognize the fundamental role played by the social model of peasant production in terms of food, employment and respect for nature. To ensure society is founded on values of solidarity, the environment is preserved and good-quality food is available, Europe needs all its peasants! Read more …
April 17th: International Day of Farmers' Struggles in defence of Peasants' and Farmers' Seeds
International Call of La Vía Campesina
(Harare, March 4, 2014) We, the women and men farmers and peasants belonging to the Via Campesina, are calling for this April 17th to be a global day of action and mobilisation in defence of our struggles and, in particular, in defence of peasants' and farmers' seeds. The Via Campesina calls upon all of its member organizations, friends, and allies to reinforce this global struggle by carrying out actions in their respective countries and territories. Such actions could be mobilisations, land occupations, seed exchanges, food sovereignty fairs, forums on seeds and food sovereignty, cultural events, etc. We ask you to inform us of these actions and to send us information about them, so that we can create awareness of this great world-wide day of struggle. Read more …
Via Campesina at the colloquium “Food Sovereignty: a critical dialogue”
(The Hague, 24 January 2014) A fundamentally contested concept, food sovereignty has — as a political project and campaign, an alternative, a social movement, and an analytical framework — barged into global agrarian discourse over the last two decades. Since then, it has inspired and mobilized diverse publics: workers, scholars and public intellectuals, farmers and peasant movements, NGOs and human rights activists in the North and global South.
In January, various representatives of La Via Campesina took part in a colloquium organized in The Hague to discuss the concept of Food sovereignty. Read more …
IFAD’S Investments should strengthen family, peasant and indigenous farming as well as public policies for Food Sovereignty
Press Release
(Rome, 18 February 2014) A large delegation of peasants and farmers from the international farmers' movement La Via Campesina met in Rome during the fifth global meeting of the Farmers' Forum, jointly arranged by farmers’ and small-scale fishers’ organizations and IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development). We, members of the delegation, call on the governments that are financing IFAD with public money to give a better direction to IFAD's programs and projects so as to support the peasant and agro-ecological agriculture that constitutes an answer to the food and climate crises. Every day on our family farms, it is we who are the major investors in our agricultural production. We feed the vast majority of the world's population, and yet 80% of hunger still occurs in rural areas. For these reasons, we ask for a substantial increase in public investment in this area and the implementation of policies that facilitate increased investment by peasants and family farmers themselves. Read more …
VIth MST Congress: 16,000 Landless Workers protest for Agrarian Reform in Brasilia
(Brazilia, February 12, 2014) The ministry esplanade was covered in red as around 16 thousand Landless Workers participating in the 6th MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) National Congress made the 9km journey from the Nílson Nelson gymnasium to the Three Power Plaza and back. The peaceful protest was held to denounce the standstill situation of Agrarian Reform. “Agrarian Reform in Brazil is a disgrace. In 2013, only seven thousand families were settled. Meanwhile there are more than 90 thousand families living in MST encampments. In total, there are 150 thousand families living in encampments in Brazil, many of whom have been there for over ten years. Read more …
Brazil: Democratization of the state and political changes are challenges for Agrarian Reform
(Brazilia, February 11, 2014) After two years of intense debates, the rural workers arrived at the VI MST National Congress to consolidate a new agrarian program, called People's Agrarian Reform. The past agrarian reform processes were under the political direction of the industrial bourgeoisie which needed to enlarge the consumer market and to establish supplies of primary materials for industry.
The MST believes in the development of production techniques to make the transition towards an agro-ecological model, which incorporates the peasant workforce and which is able to produce without the use of pesticides. Other pillars of this new program are: the incorporation of the protection of seeds and of nature in general, with a large reforestation program in settlement areas; the creation of agro-industries under the cooperative control of the workers, ensuring an increased income through the sale of processed products. Read more …
VIth MST Congress: MST's youth define struggles for the next period
(11th February 2014) The 3rd National MST's Youth Assembly was held in February during the 6th MST Congress, began with poetry, music and theatre, all full of the characteristic energy of the fighting youth, which resonated in their demands: “Young people have shown that they are not satisfied with the model of society that capitalism imposes on us, a model of death. We need to push forward with structural reforms and advance in our life projects. We must seize the present and hold onto our past to achieve the changes we want.” In response, the Manifesto of the Landless Youth in the Struggle for the People's Agrarian Reform was presented. The Manifesto includes the commitment to fight with intransigence against class enemies, to continue in the mass struggle and in the collective organisation of MST and to build up political unity in the Left. The meeting ended with a collective oath, in which the youth affirmed: “We promise that we will not go back, even by one centimetre, on our decision to fight!” Read more …
Opening of the 6th Congress recalls 30 years of MST's history
VIth MST Congress - 10 to 14 of February, 2014
(February 10, 2014) The VI National MST Congress opened officially on Monday morning (Feb 10) with a colourful displays which included a mystica and a four-metre book among other things. Over 15 thousand people attended and commemorated a remarkable trajectory of social and political struggle in Brazil. The presence of more than 200 international invited comrades was an indication of the support, prestige and, mainly, the solidarity that MST awakens in many countries and also among other popular organizations in Brazil. The MST reaffirmed its struggle and its internationalist vocation as a fundamental page of its history. Read more …
“Together to Protect Farmers’ Rights”
UAWC press release
(Ramallah-Palestine, 18-01-2014) In the presence of 140 members of the agricultural committees from all the Palestinian Governorates, local and international organization in addition to media organizations, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) organized a conference for the agricultural committees on the 18th of January 2014 under the slogan “Together to Protect Farmers’ Rights” at the Palestine Red Crescent in Al-Bireh. The audience of the annual agricultural committees’ conference recommended framing the Palestinian farmers within a Palestinian farmers’ movement to advocate for farmers’ rights and strengthen their resilience on their land. Read more …
South Africa ; “Our resources, Our future, Putting Local People First”
(Cape Town, South Africa 4th to 6th February 2014) We, representatives of Civil Society Organisations; Faith Based Organisations, Pan-African Networks and Organisations, Labour Movements, media, international partners and Community Based Organisations;
Having gathered at the Ritz Hotel, Cape Town on the occasion of the 5th Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) from 4th to 6th February, 2014, express our deep concern in how development is shaping investment including extractives and the continued limited contribution of the extractive sector in the development agenda of African Countries especially to the lives of ordinary people. Read more
Ordinary people meet in Cape Town to propose alternatives to destructive mining
Media advisory
(Cape Town, 5 February 2014) While mining corporations and governments met at the Mining Indaba Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, to talk about more ways to expand the mining industry, the ordinary people from Africa and other parts of the world gathered on 4-7 February, to discuss and come together with proposals of sustainable and peoples’ alternatives to destructive extraction. The Peoples Dialogue a network of southern Africa and South American rural and popular activists and social movements, the Rural Women Assembly and the Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power joined the 5th Alternative Mining Indaba, together with hundreds of other people. These organizations understand that the extractive corporate model tearing through African countries in the name of economic growth and development is highly destructive. Read more …
Germany: Wir haben es satt! - We are fed up!
(Berlin, mid-January 2014) Over 30,000 people demonstrated in Berlin demanding a different agricultural policy and a turning away from industrialized food production. They stressed that “Peasant farming is not modernity remote, poor or underdeveloped. It is a sustainable agricultural model that uses natural and human resource with respect and guarantees social and food security worldwide. That's what this year's international year of peasant family farms stands for and it is what we stand for today in Berlin”. On the occasion of the Green Week also this year a broad alliance of over 100 organizations, including farmers, bee-keepers, nature, wildlife, and consumer protectors, development aid organizations and initiatives for unemployed had called for mass demonstration. Read more …
La Via Campesina says small-scale Family Farming Supports Life
To kick off the 2014 International Year of Family Farming the European Commission (EU) recently organized a conference in Brussels. La Via Campesina (LVC) sent men and women farmer leaders from India, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Argentina, the US, Mali, Morocco, Italy, France, Croatia, Romania, Spain and Norway. LVC leaders defended our vision of a peasant- based family farming model and highlighted its vital importance to the European and global economy and its crucial social and environmental benefits. Read more
Eastern Germany : 'Land grabbing' pushes uo prices
(January 26, 2014) Land prices in eastern Germany are rising at dizzying rates and local farmers feel they are being squeezed out by foreign investors in a phenomenon known as "land grabbing". The price of a hectare of land has risen by 54 percent between 2009 and 2012 in Brandenburg state and by 79 percent in neighbouring Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, even if prices remain below those in the west of the country -- at least for now. Read more
New videos on Via Campesina TV
Peasants' seeds : an interview with Jose Manuel Benitez
Plant local seeds : harvest global futur.