Small farmers, Defenders of Biodiversity

Media Advisory

Small farmers from different regions of the world (Asia, Europe and North America) are participating at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP10 in Nagoya, Japan. They are members of La Via Campesina, an international peasant and family farmers movement. As small farmers, they grow food and agriculture ecologically. They are here representing millions of small farmers who defend biodiversity.

Together with biodiversity, the biodiversity of food crops is also declining sharply. More than 60% of the world’s population relies on only 4 crop species of plant as their source of food (maize, rice, wheat, and potato). 75 persent of the species in agriculture have already been lost.

Biodiversity loss is making the food crisis worse. We have not yet recovered from the 2008 World Food Crisis. Almost 1 billion people are still hungry. Land grabbing and agrofuel expansion by corporations in developing countries  is leading to more biodiversity loss.

 

In order to preserve biodiverstiy and ensure food production in the future, we must rely on small farmers.

• Do not lift the moratorium on GURTS (terminator technology)

• Implement a moratorium on Geo-engineering

• No market mechanisms for protecting biodiversity

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• Reject REDD and REDD+

• Farmer’s roles in defending biodiversity must not only be recognized but actively defended
• Sustainable peasant and family farm agriculture must be promoted as genuine solution to hunger in the context of biodiversity loss.

Place: COP 10 Press Conference Room, (Room 3f) in Building 3

Time: 10:30-11:00

Speakers:

1.Toshiyuki Saito, Nouminren small farmer in Japan)

2.Guy Kastler (farmer in France)

3.Jiyeon Shin, KWPA (women farmer from South Korea)

Interviews available ( Japanese, English and French)

Please contact:

Sinya Takeda, mobile phone in Japan: 090-7633-3897

Email:nouminranger@gmail.com