Communiqué of the Working Group “Rural Workers and Migration” of ECVC on the meeting for Agroecology and Food Sovereignty in Hornachuelos (Cordoba, Spain)

From 31 August to 3 September 2023, 150 activists from various organisations from different parts of Spain gathered in Hornachuelos (Córdoba) in a camp dedicated to agroecology and food sovereignty, to ratify the need to break with the agro-industrial food model and system. Under the slogan “we stand up”, the meeting took a stand in favour of a fair and sustainable food model and a living rural world. It was also an opportunity to make contact with the local agroecological movement (Ecomercado, Asociación de productores y consumidores La Acequia) and to demonstrate in the city of Cordoba in the framework of the meeting of EU Ministers of Agriculture.

Among the organisations present were Friends of the Earth, Justicia Alimentaria, Ecologistas en Acción, the Spanish Society for Organic Agriculture (SEAE), Greenpeace, the Spanish Platform “For another Common Agricultural Policy” and WWF. The trade unions SOC-SAT Andalucía, SLG and COAG from Spain, as well as Uniterre from Switzerland and Confédération Paysanne from France participated. ECVC (European Coordination of La Via Campesina) was represented by two CC members, as well as by the Working Group “Migration and Rural Workers“. We were also supported by a colleague from the International Secretariat of LVC.

The meeting took on a strategic character, laying the foundations of a movement that works systematically and continuously to reject industrial agriculture and the agribusiness that forms the basis of the current CAP, and to make the transition to agroecology and a sustainable food model based on the control of resources, short circuits, the defence of peasants, the environment and respect for the rights of rural and migrant workers.

The people and organisations present defined themselves as a movement and as a network, “Nos Plantamos” or “Nos Sembramos” (“we are sowing ourselves”). It will focus on concrete actions to shape the rejection of agribusiness and lay the foundations for the development of agroecology through to transition. It will function as a network, or even as a network of networks, enabling the participation of all on the basis of common positions and joint control of direction and activities, as well as a decentralised and flexible movement of exchange and support for concrete territorial struggles. The basic principles, organisational forms, actions and priorities of the movement will be elaborated by a working group and discussed in autumn 2023, with a further meeting planned for October 2024 in Galicia.

For the ECVC Working Group “Rural Workers and Migration” it was the occasion to present our analyses and proposals, as well as to maintain and develop bilateral contacts with various organisations and to establish lines of joint work on issues of trade union action with migrant women day labourers in Huelva, the European campaign against Agroindustry and the Social Conditionality of the CAP in Spain. We welcome the initiative materialised by the Hornachuelos meeting and affirm our willingness to work within the movement and the newly created networks, hoping also that similar movements will spread to other European countries.

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