La Vía Campesina’s position on the International Year of Family Farming – 2014

Press Release – La Vía Campesina

A space for the promotion of concrete policies on peasant family farming

(Harare, 25 June 2014) La Vía Campesina defines participation in the International Year of Family Farming, propelled by the UN in 2014, as the creation of a space for discussion and collective action to push Food Sovereignty that has peasants and small farmers as a basis. All throughout the world they continue to grow and distribute healthy, self-produced food in their towns, in stark contrast to the commercial food industry, whose priorities are profit and speculation and whose strategy is to make agriculture increasingly dependent on agro-toxics, increasing their profits through the sale of herbicides, whilst damaging and contaminating natural resources.

We have witnessed a profound food crisis, which has brought attention to peasant based food production and the eradication of hunger within the UN’s agenda. The UN has recognised the crucial role that male and female peasants play in this arduous task.

During the International Year of Family Farming, La Vía Campesina looks to offer political proposals within the framework of Food Sovereignty, constructed by small farmers. The term ‘family farming’ is vast, and may include almost any agricultural model or method whose direct beneficiaries are not corporations or investors. It includes both small-scale and large-scale producers (with farms covering thousands of hectares), as well as small-scale producers who are entirely dependent on the private sector, through contract farming or other forms of economic exploitation, promoted though concepts such as “The value chain”. This is why La Vía Campesina defends family farming in terms of peasant based ecological Farming, as opposed to the large-scale, industrial, toxic farming of agribusinesses, which expel peasants and small farmers and grab the world’s lands.

It is imperative, during this International Year of Family Farming, that critical steps be taken and that commitment be mobilised so that policies to protect and to strengthen peasant family farming might be implemented. La Vía Campesina supports a model of food production which promotes Food Sovereignty. This includes:

·         Access to and control over productive resources such as land, water, seeds and finance. It is important to highlight, in this space for discussion, the urgent need for Integral Agrarian Reform: the democratisation of land, and the creation of direct employment, housing and food production. We consider that the concept of integral agrarian reform should not be limited to just the redistribution of land. We support an Integral Agrarian Reform which offers full rights over lands, which recognises the legal rights of indigenous populations over their territories, which guarantees fishing communities access to and control over fisheries and ecosystems, and which recognises the right of access to and control over livestock migration routes and pastures;

·         The recognition that female peasants and female agricultural workers have the same rights as their male counterparts;

·         The prioritisation of local food systems and markets;

·         The recognition of rights and protection against corporation-led production, and the large-scale production of agro-fuel;

·         The use of ecological production methods.

During this UN International Year, as La Vía Campesina, we contemplate certain threats such as the criminalisation, the judicialisation and the continuous repression under which male and female peasants live, not just at the hands of their states, but also at those of the transnational corporations. Conflicts over land and other natural resources exist throughout the world.

Of the national governments, we therefore demand: an end to land grabbing, and that of water and seeds; that they promote policies which guarantee Food Sovereignty, biodiversity and peasants’ seeds, and that they improve access to land and water; that they recognise peasant rights regarding the production, reproduction and exchange of their traditional seeds, guarantees of agro-biodiversity and peasants’ autonomy; and that they increase the support and public investments for peasant based production, and guarantee markets and equitable trade.

At international level, we urge governments to apply the Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, and other key decisions from the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), and that they adopt the UN Declaration of Peasants’ Rights. Additionally, we urge that they implement the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and that they end negotiations for any new commercial agreements, particularly the TTIP (Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) or the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership).

In La Vía Campesina, we believe that we have to use this year to redirect agriculture towards a model of Food Sovereignty which will generate employment, provide healthy food, and respect natural resources. We call for the creation of an alliance between countryside and city, that it might revive the peasants’ dignity and highlight their great contribution to food production; we need important political changes, both for our tables and for our fields.

Contact for the press:

S.Kannaiyan: +91 9444979543 –sukannaiyan69@gmail.com

Chukki Nanjundaswamy: + 919845066156 –chukki.krrs@gmail.com

 

Andrea Ferrante: + 393480189221 –a.ferrante@aiab.it