People have the right to land and seeds to produce healthy food, and practice food sovereignty!
La Via Campesina Call
October 16 – Global Day of Action for Food Sovereignty
La Via Campesina calls for international support for the Global Day of Action for Food Sovereignty, this coming October 16, the same day that FAO celebrates as World Food Day. The peasant movement affirms that it is only possible to end the global food crisis and hunger through food sovereignty and agro-ecological production.
Current economic policies hinder the development of peasant agriculture and favor agribusiness. Today, the expansion of agribusiness around the world has caused market speculation and food price volatility, destroying people’s food sovereignty, increasing insecurity.
In this sense, La Via Campesina affirms that the only way out of this food crisis is to end the agribusiness model, and neo-liberal policies which expel peasants from their territories, and drive a process of forced de-peasantization of the countryside. They also cause land grabs, corporate control of our seeds, destruction of biodiversity, and have generated hunger and misery around the World.
Since 1996, Via Campesina has advocated for food sovereignty as a practice that allows people around the world to design their own food and agriculture policies. Policies that promote peasant agriculture, local markets and focus on feeding local populations first.
The food crisis is the most catastrophic among the multiple crises that neo-liberal policies have generated. At this moment, more than one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition while multinational companies continue to speculate on food. Agriculture, water, land, food and other public resources have now become central to profit-making for them.
We emphasize that it is urgent to realize the right to food and nutrition, the most basic human right, as mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today, peasant women and men reaffirm our commitment to a healthy, environmentally friendly, food sovereignty with agroecology.
On this Global Day of Action, we should show the strength and diversity of our movements, coordinating actions against transnational agribusinesses like Monsanto, against land grabbing, against the use of pesticides and genetically modified seeds.
For Land and People’s Sovereignty. Solidarity and Struggle!
We want to gather and share information about actions that your organizations are planning to do around the world: photos, forums, demonstrations, video watching sessions, exchange of seeds and agro-ecological fairs. Please send information to: lvcweb@viacampesina.org