July has been a month of global mobilisations in defence of peasant rights, and denouncing corporate food systems and the Free Trade Agreements. Many exchanges and trainings were organised focusing on preparing for the 8th International Conference (#8ConfLVC) and promoting Peasant Agroecology.
Over the past twelve months, coconut farmers in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu have witnessed a drastic decline in the prices of raw coconuts and dried kernels (Copra). They claim that the support price for ball copra doesn’t even cover the cultivation costs. In the last six months alone, the prices of dried kernels have dropped by nearly 40%.
The UN Food System Summit was taglined as the “People’s Summit”. In fact, the opposite is true. From its onset, the UNFSS and its ongoing events have been led by those beholden to agrochemical corporations and economic forces that do not serve the interests of people and the planet.
With The Land is a celebration of the first ten years of the Landworkers’ Alliance and an invitation to join this collective endeavour towards food sovereignty, agroecology, and land justice. It links the past, present and future by bringing together voices from Land Workers’ Alliance members and beyond.
In these times of growing hunger and multiple crises, it is more urgent than ever that governments and the UN listen to us. We call on you: change direction, and support our demands and efforts for a food sovereign future based on human rights and the principles of agroecology, care, justice, diversity, solidarity and accountability.
The situation in Sfax, Tunisia, has reached a critical point since July 2023, with extreme tension surrounding migrants from various sub-Saharan African countries. Last week, thirteen migrants from the sub-Saharan region lost their lives at sea off the coast of Sfax, when their boat sank. Despite being a transit country for migrants on their way to Europe, Tunisia resolutely refuses to be seen as an alternative solution for migrants.
36 years ago, a tragedy struck Haitian peasantry when 139 peasants, members of the organization Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, lost their lives in one of the largest massacres ever seen in the country. The regime of Henry Nanphy, the Lucas family, the Poitvien family, and a faction of the Catholic Church in collusion with the American embassy in Haiti were responsible for this terrible atrocity. This massacre is one of the bloodiest episodes in the country’s history.
This year, KRRS members commemorated the 43rd Peasant Martyrs Day in Channarayapattana of Devanahalli, near Bangalore International Airport, where the farmers have been sitting on an indefinite protest strike for 473 days against the forceful acquisition of 1773 acres of fertile land. Farmers of 13 villages in Channarayapatna Hobli near Bengaluru have been protesting for over 15 months.
At a time when the Spanish government is taking over the presidency of the European Union, La Via Campesina, together with allied social movements, denounced the impunity of the Melilla massacre, in which dozens of migrants were killed while trying to cross the border fence from Morocco to Spain. La Via Campesina is commited to continue building the Global Pact of Solidarity for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees.
For nearly 40 years, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been fighting the concentration of landownership among the country’s elite through the direct occupation and settlement of fallow lands. Now a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission, which has been set up to investigate the activities of Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), actually seeks to divert focus from illegal actions committed by agribusiness.
The Basic Law on Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas in Japan, the most important legislation in the agricultural sector, is currently under review by the Japanese government. Alarmed at the threat to the country’s food sovereignty, the Japan Family Farmers Movement (Nouminren) has presented a proposal advocating for a departure from the neoliberal food and agricultural policies that have been in place.
Morgan Ody, the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina and a small-scale vegetable farmers from Brittany France, who is a member of the ECVC and the French Peasant Union Confederation Paysanne delivers a fiery speech at a Conference in the European Parliament held parallel to the EU-CELAC summit.
The International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty’s (IPC) Working Group on Agrobiodiversity is in Rome this week to enhance the functioning of the Multilateral System, and to fight the private interests that try to get rid of their obligations as set by the FAO Plant Treaty 20 years ago.
Within the CFS data definition, there is space for data to enable food sovereignty by facilitating exchange on farming techniques and agroecological climate adaptation, increasing the viability of smallholder food producers, or revealing the true cost of the industrial agricultural system.
Efforts to tackle the climate crisis through the much-herald “ecological transition” run the risk of being in vain if they are not accompanied by support for peasant agroecological practices, which are the fruit of thousands of years of experience and traditional knowledge aimed at achieving a balance between food production and natural cycles.
The National Farmers’ Union of Canada has called on the French government to cease its violations of human rights, in particular the rights of farmers and peasants recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
For the International day of Peasants’ Struggles, La Via Campesina and Defending Peasants’ Rights organized a webinar on the uses of the UN Declaration on Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in peasant’s struggles since its adoption. Here are eight instances of how the Declaration is being put to use.
Speaking at a meeting of the Youth Peasants’ Association of Nepal (a sister organisation of ANPFa and a member of La Via Campesina), Nepal’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development hinted at a national food sovereignty law that could soon become a reality.
Jessie explains how UNDROP has been used in Canada, a country which abstained from voting in 2018 when the Peasants’ Rights Declaration was adopted, highlighting the opportunities and challenges of implementation.
The European Commission is looking to abolish the traceability of GMOs resulting from “new genomic techniques”and remove labelling requirements for foods derived from these GMOs. The aim of this proposal is quite simply to sacrifice GM-free, peasant and organic farming.
