April of Peasant Struggles: Seeds of Resistance for Land, Water, and Territories (Newswrap Special Edition)
(Bagnolet, May 2, 2025) The month of April was once again marked by memory and resistance across our territories. On the occasion of April 17th — International Day of Peasant Struggles — La Via Campesina called for a global mobilization under the banner “Land, Water, and Territories for Life, Not for Profit!”
In a context of global capital expansion, far-right offensives, land grabbing, violence, genocide, and a worsening climate crisis, our organizations rose up to defend life, demand rights, denounce false solutions, and continue building food sovereignty from the ground up. In our international statement, we honored the memory of the 21 peasants murdered in the Eldorado do Carajás massacre, Brazil, on April 17, 1996. This date not only represents the memory of the massacre, but also denounces the impunity still enjoyed by the perpetrators. It is a day where we collectively resolve to advance toward a Comprehensive and Integral Agrarian Reform that guarantees the right to land, food sovereignty, and the end of structural violence against those who work it. After 29 years of impunity, we remember that defending land, water, forests, and community commons is essentially defending the right to feed our people with dignity and social justice. And we did so with actions, marches, gatherings, fairs, statements, art, and concrete proposals across all continents.
At the global level, April was also marked by key processes for the advancement of our political agenda. We continued pushing for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP), strengthened the debate on peasant agroecology as a real response to the climate crisis, and advanced in regional and global articulations towards the 3rd Global Nyéléni Forum for Systemic Transformation, scheduled to take place in Sri Lanka in September 2025. Preparations for a People’s Summit ahead of COP30 in Brazil are also gathering pace, as we strive to ensure that peasants will have a strong, unified voice against false solutions and for climate and environmental justice. These struggles, articulations, and proposals pave the way towards a new process: ICARRD+20 in 2026, a second International Conference on Agrarian Reform that represents a historic opportunity to place, from our territories, the agenda of Comprehensive and Integral Agrarian Reform at the center of the global structural transformation of rural areas.
HIGHLIGHTS OF GLOBAL ACTIONS
In Africa, peasant voices rose from different coordinates. In West and Central Africa, the CNCR of Senegal trained over 500 young people in production and transformation techniques, aiming to strengthen their skills in key areas like sheep farming, horticulture, poultry farming, and local product transformation. In Mali, CNOP organized agroecology training sessions to contribute to soil restoration and its sustainable exploitation with respect for the environment, while strengthening participants’ capacities in the use of fertilizers, chemical pesticides, seeds, and the production of organic inputs, among others.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, ESAFF in Uganda demanded the government implement the UN Declaration on Peasants’ Rights (UNDROP) and protect peasants. They also called on the government to ensure the proper interpretation and application of existing international human rights standards and norms. In Kenya, the Kenyan Peasant League organized a hybrid launch of key advocacy actions for the implementation of UNDROP, as well as sessions on corrective and preventive actions against violations of peasant rights as defined in UNDROP. In Mozambique, UNAC organized celebrations under the slogan “Defending our peasant rights to land, native forests, and food sovereignty,” which included marches, agricultural fairs, and debates on the struggles and challenges faced by peasants.
In the Arab and Northern African region, in Tunisia, several mobilizations were organized in different regions of the country. Peasants came together in peaceful demonstrations in areas like Borj Toumi, Zaghouan, Bizerte, and Jbeniana to show solidarity with Palestinian peasants and fishermen, who are on the front lines defending their land and resources from colonization. Following these actions, the Million Rural Women and the Landless Association organized a conference to discuss the struggles of peasants from Tunisia to Palestine. The conference also served as a space to reflect on the current realities and challenges facing the agricultural sector, highlighting the common struggles of rural communities in both countries.
In Morocco, FNSA mobilized in front of the regional office in Berkane, in front of the Moroccan Labor Union headquarters, demanding pension increases and solutions to the issue of transportation accidents causing the deaths of peasant workers. The protest also called for a sectoral dialogue with the Minister of Labor to present their demands for dignity, rights, and appropriate recognition of their labor.
In Southeast and East Asia, creativity and popular pedagogy took center stage. In Indonesia, Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) organized public events with street theater, involving peasant families, children, and student movements to explore the realities faced by food producers, agricultural workers, and the vision of building food sovereignty, as well as honoring global peasant struggles.
In Japan, peasant organizations held a national mobilization in Tokyo, bringing together farmers and consumer groups. The mobilizations highlighted the decline in food self-sufficiency, the lack of price support, and crop losses suffered by peasants due to climate disasters.
In Australia, AFSA participated in a public action organized by the Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET), which brought together organizations such as the Landless Workers’ Movement, the Australian Network for Degrowth (DNA), and the Guerrilla Agriculture Collective of Naarm. The event focused on exploring food sovereignty and Indigenous solidarity in both international and local contexts.
In South Asia, organizations mobilized thousands of people to defend the right to land, peasant production, and food sovereignty.
In Pakistan, the Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee (PKRC) organized a massive protest demanding land rights, a minimum support price for wheat, and the cessation of major infrastructure projects threatening the lives and livelihoods of riverside communities.
In India, the national peasants’ union — BKU — organized a village council and updated the community on ongoing protests related to prices, pending payments from sugar mills, electricity subsidies, rising debt, and inequality in society, as well as the imminent threat of free trade agreements. Meanwhile, in the South, the Karnataka State Farmers Association in Karnataka held two direct market fairs between producers and consumers in Mysore, which was very well received, with over 5,000 consumers visiting it in three days.
In Europe, the Landworkers’ Alliance in the United Kingdom pushed the “Food in Our Hands” campaign, with marches, sit-ins, and symbolic actions demanding access to land, justice for migrant agricultural workers, and public policies recognizing the central role of those who feed the country.
The European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC) launched a new publication on the digitalization of agriculture and how it is being driven by corporations to control and continue grabbing peasant production territories.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, organizations combined mobilization, legislative advocacy, and grassroots work. In Brazil, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) set up the national youth camp “Oziel Alves” at the S curve of Eldorado dos Carajás to strengthen the role of youth in the fight for land and in building Popular Agrarian Reform. Debates, exchanges, and workshops in theater, music, and crafts were held, focusing on strengthening knowledge in a practical and collaborative manner.
In Peru, the CNA managed to enter the General Law on Traditional Seed Systems into Congress, aiming to strengthen native seed systems as the basis of the country’s food security and sovereignty against the advance of privatization.
In Panama, the Panamanian Peasant Union mobilized against the current president Mulino’s economic policy and in defense of the country’s sovereignty and trade union freedom. They also demanded the repeal of Law 462, which increases the retirement age and reduces pension payments, among other measures. They also called for opposition to the harmful intentions of reopening the copper mine between Colón and Coclé and the dam on the Indio River, which only seek to benefit entrepreneurs.
In El Salvador, members of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC) and La Vía Campesina El Salvador assured that the government’s abandonment of agriculture would lead to a food crisis. The organizations expressed that, according to agricultural projections for the current year, if no urgent measures are taken, the rural population could face a national food crisis.
In Haiti, movements mobilized against the violence and hunger imposed by local elites and international geopolitical interests. Despite this, peasant resistance continues. On April 17, 2025, the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP) organized a major demonstration under the banner: “Peasant farms are neither for sale nor for gift.” United, they demanded an end to land grabbing and blocked the construction of a Papaye farm, reaffirming their struggle for dignity and food sovereignty.
In the Dominican Republic, the National Peasant Articulation denounced that the decree eliminating the Dominican Agrarian Institute is a threat to agrarian reform. Instead of dismantling the IAD, they demanded a process of cleaning up agrarian settlements and a review of the IRADER bill. And in a concrete act of hope, we celebrated the graduation of the first class of IALA Mamá Tingó, a formative conquest of the peasantry that strengthens the struggle for food sovereignty in the Caribbean.
In North America, movements also raised their voices. In Canada, the National Farmers Union (NFU) urged the federal government to strengthen resilience and food sovereignty to better position Canada in the face of challenges in food supply and agricultural production caused by President Trump’s tariff actions. Canadian voters will elect a new federal government on April 28. In the United States, the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) promoted the Local Food Act, an initiative to strengthen family farming, local economies, and equitable access to healthy food.
From the mountains to the coasts, from the great plains to the cities, the peasant struggles of April were seeds of hope, resistance, and life. In every demonstration, every fair, every proposal, we reaffirmed that food sovereignty is inseparable from social justice and the dignity of peoples. And that, in the face of false solutions imposed from above, true answers arise from the territories, from collective labor, and from the wisdom of the people.
You can also find detailed coverage and in-depth articles about the 17 April solidarity actions here.
We wrap up this months edition here. For more updates from April 2024, click here. If there are any important updates we have missed, please send the links to communications@viacampesina.org so that we can include them in the next edition. We only include updates from La Via Campesina members. Previous editions of our news wrap are also available on our website, and condensed versions are accessible as a podcast on Spotify.