In Maputo, Mozambique, on the occasion of the international seminar on building alliances for food sovereignty and against violence towards women held in Maputo from July 26 to 29, La Via Campesina worked together with World March of Women (WMW), Friends of the Earth Intenational (FoEI) and women of the countryside from Asia and Africa and shared our ideas to plan our work on women.

We are currently witnessing the upholding of ancient forms of violence against women and the reinforcement of new ones. For instance, when Ttransnational companies take over land for the expansion of monocultures, peasant families are driven away. Women become more vulnerable as they can no longer guarantee food for themselves and their families. They often migrate and find precarious jobs with no rights and exploitative conditions.

Last week saw massive protests and direct actions by members of the farmers organisation BKU in various parts of Uttar Pradesh. On the 22^nd and 21^st of July BKU carried out dharna’s, road blocks, gherao's and panchayats at collectorate offices and other spaces in Fatehpur, Lukhnow, Bijnaur, Mirzapur, Ghaziabad, Muzzafarnagar and Amroha and Saharanpur all at the same time.

(July 2010) Four years after the moratorium on Terminator technology was reaffirmed by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposals to develop and commercialize ‘genetic-use restriction technologies’ (GURTs) are back on the agenda for policymakers and the biotechnology industry. Terminator is a threat to food sovereignty and agrobiodiversity: ending the moratorium on Terminator will increase control of seed by transnational corporations (TNCs) and restrictions on farmers’ rights to save and plant harvested seed. Additionally, pollen from genetically-modified (GM) crops with Terminator will contaminate non-GM and organic crops, and native plant species.

Press release -  European Milk Board  and European Coordination Via Campesina

The report of the High Level Group on Milk (HLGM) that will be discussed today by the European Council of Agriculture Ministers cannot solve the milk crisis. European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) and European Milk Board (EMB) make one thing clear at their demonstration: fair prices for producers and supply management are needed. Representatives of development and environmental NGOs such as Oxfam Solidarity Belgique, Friends of the Earth Europe, Wervel, SOS Faim support their demands for fair prices for milk producers from North and South and a sustainable production.

US Social Forum, Detroit, 2010
Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking
liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food
movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our
governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.

The Food Sovereignty Struggle within the Global Justice Movement

By: John E. Peck
executive director, Family Farm Defenders

Chapter 15 in the just released Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States - edited by the Team Colors Collective and published by AK Press. http://warmachines.info/index.php?page_id=26

I have a button on my backpack that says: “If You Are What You Eat, Then I’m Fast, Cheap, and Easy.” Thankfully, this quip is sarcastic in my case, but for many people, including many of those working for global justice, it is all too true. Whether due to marketing hype or sheer convenience, usually smart folks can fall down when it comes to what they put in their mouths. The personal is political, and this is reflected each time someone votes for “business as usual” by giving their money to a fast-food chain or big box retailer. The result is a broken food/farm system that is systematically abusing animals, exploiting workers, perverting biodiversity, undermining democracy, jeopardizing health, and destroying the planet. If we believe that another world is possible, then we need to radically transform how we eat, and this means incorporating food sovereignty into our thinking and organizing.

Colombo, Sri Lanka, 18-22 May 2010

The Via Campesina (LVC) organised an Asian Agroecology Encounter from 18 to 22 May, 2010, hosted by the Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) at the Community Education Centre (CEC), in Colombo, Sri Lanka. This was attended by practitioners, promoters and trainers of sustainable agriculture from LVC organizations in eight countries in East Asia, South East Asia and South Asia.

The encounter was aimed at strengthening the solidarity and farmer-to-farmer exchange among the agroecology movements in LVC in Asia, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of different sustainable farming methods and building a campaign for a debt free and poison free agroecology movement in the region with the support and guidance of the La Via Campesina. The encounter was aimed toward putting the principles of food sovereignty in practice, which is fundamental for us in La Via Campesina, through sustainable agriculture practices. At the Encounter the participants developed regional work plans to support the promotion of agroecology, sustainable agriculture and natural farming among the member families of La Via Campesina organizations in Asia.