Declaration of La Vía Campesina International Youth Meeting

Aldea Puy de Cinca, Aragon, Spain
24-30 September 2009
We, male and female youth peasants and farmers representing 9 different regions including Africa-1, Africa-2, Caribbean, Europe, Central America, North America, South America, South Asia and South East Asia, with different nationalities, communities, cultures, languages and religions, are meeting for the first *La Vía Campesina International Youth Camp* in Aldea Puy de Cinca, Aragon, Spain from September 24-30, 2009.

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The La Vía Campesina youth present here, are facing discrimination, inequalities, injustice and miseries that are happening all over the world due to feudalism, neo-liberal capitalism and neo-colonialism. This discriminatory system is imposing the corporatization of agriculture and the commodification of food for mongering profit and making the life for peasants and farmers miserable which is compelling them to abandoning farming. This is resulting in the rise of the expulsion of young peasants to the city or to other countries in order to survive.

*WE DENOUNCE:*

1. Neo-liberal capitalism and its policies that affect the life and livelihood of peasants, small farmers, fisher folks and food growers all over the world including the peasant and indigenous youth.
2. The neo-colonialism that is facilitating the illegal land grabbing and land concentration by richer countries and large corporations in the weak and poor countries around the world which is forcing peasants, youth and the land holders to be displaced from their own land and to migrate to urban areas within their own countries or abroad.
3. The feudalist system that prevails in some parts of the world that allows a handful of landlords to hold a large area of agricultural land and denies the access to the land for farmers, agricultural workers, poor and landless people and forces them to a form of slavery.
4. The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, which with the help of World Trade Organization (WTO), Regional Trade Agreement (RTAs), Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), are enforcing neo-liberal and neo-colonial policies in favor of wealthy governments and Multinational Companies (MNCs)
5. The imperialist control over nation-states through militarization that is generating the forced displacement of peasant and indigenous families.
6. The criminalization and violence towards social movements, especially farmer organizations.
7. The exploitation of natural resources along with the land, air, water, forest resources and biodiversity for benefit of a few profiteering transnational corporations (TNCs).
8. The intellectual property rights among which the most important is the patenting of seeds and life in general.
9. The introduction of GMOs, which are threatening the diversity of traditional species in favor of monoculture that destroys identity, culture and rights of the peasant farmers and indigenous communities.
10. The dependence on Multinational Agribusiness and the destruction of biodiversity through the use of certain technological packages of production being imposed.
11. The use of arable land for non-agricultural purposes and a non-food corporate agricultural for agro-fuel, paper, rubber, etc.

We, peasant farmers and indigenous youth, organized in defense of life, are a present reality and we are building the future. The identity of the youth is critical for the development of humanity.

*THEREFORE, WE DEMAND:*

1. An agricultural policy that works for peasants, farmers and all people which guarantees the peoples’ fundamental right to Food Sovereignty and creates an attractive environment for young farmers to maintain producing good quality and healthy food.
2. An agricultural policy that recognizes agriculture as a dignified profession and maintains a positive identity of peasants and farmers, especially the rural youth and the youth peasants.
3. A comprehensive agrarian reform based on biodiversity, ecological agriculture, sustainable, and organic practices which is independent of agricultural technological packages, therefore reducing the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
4. Encouragement of co-operative agricultural models to support peasants and small farmers and to struggle against the exploitation from TNCs and corporate agriculture.
5. An immediate stop to the violence against farmers, especially women farmers.
6. An end to the criminalization of social protest and the persecution of the peasant and indigenous movements.
7. A return to their land and secured rights to those who have been expelled, evicted and displaced by military force, paramilitaries, transnational corporations and their own state.
8. The elimination of all kinds of discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, caste and religion in all aspects of life and work including agriculture.

Long Live: Agricultural Revolution.
Long Live: La Vía Campesina.
Long Live: Youth Peasants’ Unity.
Globalize the Struggle. Globalize the Hope.

*INTERNAL COORDINATION:*

1. Implement the campaign: “Young Peasant in Struggle for the Land in resistance to the Transnational Neo-liberalism”.
2. Launching of the campaign at the CLOC meeting in October 2010, Equador.
3. Create an international youth commission of La Vía Campesina with focus on gender parity.
4. April 2010 – International Youth Commission of La Vía Campesina meeting
5. Begin to implement the political-ideological and technical training within the youth movement of La Vía Campesina.