April 17th : International Day of Farmers’ Struggles in defence of Peasants’ and Farmers’ Seeds

International Call of La Vía Campesina

(Harare, March 4, 2014) We, the women and men farmers and peasants belonging to the Via Campesina, are calling for this April 17th to be a global day of action and mobilisation in defence of the struggles of farmers and peasants, and, in particular, in defence of peasants’ and farmers’ seeds.

Seeds have a fundamental place in the struggle for food sovereignty. With every growing cycle, the crops that feed the world’s peoples – how they are grown and by whom they are grown – depend on seeds. Seeds also transmit the vision, the knowledge, the practices and the culture of farming and peasant communities.

For a hundred years, our seeds have been attacked by capitalist interests that have sought to privatize and standardize them to the benefit of industrial agriculture. In recent years, this dispossession process has been intensified, both through the new “Monsanto Laws”, which, by criminalising farmers for using their own farm-produced seeds, work to the benefit of industrially-produced registered or patented seeds, and through the genetic modification of seeds.

However, in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, year by year there is growing strength in the organized peoples’ capacity for mobilisation and struggle against an agro-industrial system that gives rise to exploitation and death, grabbing land, poisoning food, and expelling peasants and indigenous peoples from their territories. In Colombia, there was a national standstill when the government passed a law that permitted the destruction of unregistered farm seeds; and, in Mexico, there was a hunger strike in reaction to the attempt to authorize the planting of genetically-modified corn. Throughout the African continent, peasant communities are struggling against a new “Green Revolution” that wants to impose industrial and genetically-modified seeds. In every continent, we are struggling to protect our seeds that enable us to have a healthy agriculture, rich in diversity, and that truly allow us to face up to climate change.

We are struggling in defence of peasants’ and farmers’ seeds, because they are essential for a comprehensive agrarian reform, as well as in defence of our agricultural model that is based on agro-ecological production. Peasants’ and farmers’ seeds are a heritage of the world’s peoples in the affirmation of Food Sovereignty. Like land, water, and mineral resources, they are part of the common goods that must remain in the hands of the peoples.

On our International Day, we will also denounce the transnationals, agri-business, and the use of agro-toxics and genetic modification. In the same way, we reject all attempts at repression, criminalisation of protest, punishment, or assassination. We will continue to struggle to change all that is oppressing us, controlling us, subordinating us. Our struggle is growing and becoming stronger, and in response to each outcry from the people we will put into practice our indignation, solidarity, internationalism, and Struggle.

Since 1996, in memory of the massacre of 19 Brazilian landless peasants who were brutally assassinated by the military police and – indirectly – by the agri-business model, the Via Campesina has declared April 17th to be the International Day of Farmer and Peasant Struggles, organizing actions to highlight the struggles that are taking place in different parts of the world. At the same time, the Via Campesina is seeking to create a dialogue with society in the construction of a large international alliance for the sovereignty of our peoples, in building an agricultural and social model that puts back into place justice and human dignity.

The Via Campesina International calls upon all of its member organizations, friends, and allies to reinforce this global struggle by carrying out actions in their respective countries and territories. Such actions could be mobilisations, land occupations, seed exchanges, food sovereignty fairs, forums on seeds and food sovereignty, cultural events, etc. We ask you to inform us of these actions and to send us information about them, so that we can create awareness of this great world-wide day of struggle. We will publish the map of actions that are taking place around the world on www.viacampesina.org   

Globalize the Struggle! Globalize Hope!

• Watch the video Call for Action made by the International Coordination Committee of La Via Campesina in preparation for April 17

• Also watch the video made by the European Coordination Via Campesina calling for mobilization to defend peasants’ seed

• Send us reports, pictures and videos of your action by sending an email to lvcweb@viacampesina.org. If you create short videos calling for the seed mobilization or if you make video of your April 17th action, please send them to us. We will publish them on via campesina TV.

• Subscribe to our special mailing list by sending a blank email to via.17april-subscribe@viacampesina.net

• Join our facebook event