Rome: La Via Campesina is steadfast in its institutional struggle for public policies in favour of Food Sovereignty
La Via Campesina (LVC) delegates are in Rome to participate in the Global Family Farming Forum, an event on the Midway of the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (2019-2028), to be held from October 14-18. They will from the 16th until 25th also participate in the 52nd Plenary Session of the Committee on World Food Security. Starting on the 16th, several preparatory meetings of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism will be held, such as the CSIPM Annual Forum on the 19th and 20th, as well as side events and the launch of outreach materials.
On the 16th of October, La Via Campesina’s International Day of Action for Peoples’ Food Sovereignty and against transnational corporations, the international peasant movement will carry out actions all over the world (click here to read the call). At the same time, the international peasant movement will join and support the preparations for the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum for Food Sovereignty, global justice and systemic change planned for 2025. In Rome, in this context, LVC will hold a public and autonomous event to make this day visible as well.
During the week of the UNDFF Forum, La Via Campesina will participate in several panels and present our main demands for Food Sovereignty under these pillars: focus on food for the people, value food providers, support sustainable livelihoods, respect the work of all food providers, localize food systems and reduce the distance between food providers and consumers. These strategic pillars are also addressed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).
Morgan Ody, the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina, will on behalf of the international movement also join and present at the high-level opening ceremony of the Global Family Farming Forum plenary on “Family Farming at the heart of sustainable agrifood systems, challenges and opportunities”.
We, the international peasant movement and the global movement for Food Sovereignty, firmly believe in the need for a systemic transformation that guarantees our rights, environmental and social justice, promoting agrarian reforms of popular character with peasant agroecology free of GMOs and pesticides, building a new trade framework outside the World Trade Organization, WTO, which ensures us to live with dignity, free of poverty and hunger in the territories. “We strongly believe that public policies must have a human rights basis.”
Committee on World Food Security Plenary Session
The 52nd Plenary Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS 52) will be held from October 21-25. As every year, La Via Campesina articulated in the Civil Society and indigenous People’s Mechanism will participate in the plenary session to give a voice and political visibility to peasants and people most affected by food insecurity and malnutrition, who contribute the most to food security and nutrition around the world. In this space, several peasant leaders have a leading role in the discussions, debates and proposals.
This year 2024 also marks the 50th anniversary of the Committee, as well as the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food. This year’s session will focus on the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition report, the endorsement of those CFS products developed by the Committee during the intersessional period, the update of the CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work for 2024-2027, the report by the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE-FSN) on “Strengthening urban and peri-urban food systems to achieve food security and nutrition in the context of urbanization and rural transformation”, and other ongoing CFS workstreams and priorities, such as the Guidelines on the right to food, inequalities, gender equality and decent work (see timeline here: https://www.fao.org/cfs/plenary/cfs52/en/).
About the CSIPM and its strategic role
The Annual Forum of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism will be held on the 19th and 20th of October. This space is an autonomous and essential part of the Committee on World Food Security, whose task is to facilitate the engagement and participation of civil society, social movements and Indigenous Peoples in the political work of the CFS.
The Mechanism brings together organizations involved in peasant and family farming, small-scale livestock and fisheries, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth, people working in agriculture and food, consumers, the landless, the urban food insecure and NGOs. In addition, they are called to exchange with governments, incorporating them more and more in the debates on family farming, increasing commitments, strengthening the work with UN agencies and various key actors of the food systems to promote public policies worldwide, for the elimination of hunger and malnutrition, and for the progressive realization of the right to food as a human right.
Press inquiries: write to press@viacampesina.org with copy to viviana.rojas@viacampesina.org