17 April: Europe needs all its farmers!

Press Release CPE, GOAG and Turkish Farmers Union

The 17th of April, International Day of Peasant’s Struggles, was established after the killing of 19 landless farmers members of the Landless Peasant Movements (MST) in Brazil while la Via Campesina was celebrating its second international conference in Txacal, Mexico, on the 17th of April 1996. At the occasion of the 17th of April 2007, the member organizations of la Via Campesina in Europe organize actions all over Europe to express their demands :

Europe needs many farmers! Employment in agriculture should be a priority, both to ensure food security for the European people, to guaranty modes of production that respect the environment and are less energy-consuming and to keep living rural areas. We refuse the organized sweeping out of the European farmers !

An agricultural public policy is needed to keep numerous farmers and to ensure food security for the Europeans. Food sovereignty is a right for the Europeans too: this means that the European food and agricultural policies have to be decided by the European citizens, not by the WTO.

The CAP has to change deeply, but it should not be erased. In front of the reforms of 2008 and 2013, we demand agricultural prices that reflects the true value of the products and that allow the farmers to live mainly from the sell of their products. In order to achieve this, we demand supply management, the end to the production concentration process, the end of dumping and the right to have tariff barriers to prevent low prices imports.

Access to land, water, seeds and credits are rights! We reject Gomes and all patents on life, which represent a theft of the humanity patrimony and which increase the threat over the biodiversity. We demand an effective policy to support the young people who want to become farmers and to help them access to land and to other agricultural resources.

Inequalities between men and women in agriculture must come to an end. Common right to the farm and access to the same social and economical rights are basic demands to achieve genuine equality.

We will mobilize in the coming months to express these demands:

• on the 19th of April, we support the action day against EPAs and against the unfair trade deals imposed by the EU over other countries.

• From June the 2nd to the 8th, we will take part to the mobilizations against G8 in Rostock, Germany, together with the other social movements. We call to rally on June the 3rd against GMOs and corporate-controlled factory farming and to take part to the Youth Assembly for the right to land and to farming.

Contacts:

European Farmers Coordination – CPE office: +32 22 173112

Coordinadora de Organisaciones de Agricultores y Ganaderos -Rafael Hernandez : +34 616436556

Turkish Farmers Unions – Abdullah Aysu: kelesoglu@gmail.com