Food Sovereignty

Call to action: Fair incomes for all farmers! Stop free trade agreements immediately!

European Coordination Via Campesina calls for a European mobilisation on 1 February 2024 in Brussels to express its discontent and call for a paradigm change. Europe’s neo-liberal policies are overwhelmingly responsible for farmers’ distress. ECVC has been calling for a change of direction and is therefore taking to the streets demanding suspension of FTAs and for fair prices.

Video: At the FAO panel on Family Farms, La Via Campesina fiercely defends peasant farms

According to the criteria of the dominant economic analysis, peasant and family farming should have disappeared long ago. And yet it is still there. Even in Europe, at the heart of capitalism and the modern Western world, it is still there. And it persists well beyond the official figures, in Europe too, through millions of families who continue a peasant activity that is essential to economic, social, and cultural life.

VIIIth International Conference, La Via Campesina: Bogotá Declaration

We, the peasants, rural workers, landless, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, artisanal fisherfolk, forest dwellers, rural women, youth and diversities and other peoples who work in the countryside around the world and united within La Via Campesina, declare that “Faced with global crises, we build food sovereignty to ensure a future for humanity!” towards a just and decent food system for all, recognizing peoples’ needs, respecting nature, putting people before profit and resisting corporate capture.

“Food sovereignty is to defend nature, to defend water, to defend our planet”

The 8th LVC International Conference is a space for critical reflection on the structural forces creating global crises, and the power of this moment to build connections between grassroots movements that are developing alternative worlds in the present. It presents an opportunity to deepen understanding of the contradictions and grassroots strategies of resistance. 

‘Lee Kyung-hae’ and ‘DOWN! DOWN! WTO!’ echoed in Bogotá, Colombia

Honoring the memory of Lee Kyung-hae, who died opposing the World Trade Organization, and emphasizing the importance of expanding agroecology, Kim Jung-yeol, Internal Coordination Committee of La Via Campesina for Southeast and East Asia spoke on the climate crisis, food sovereignty, and women farmers.

Strengthening Food Sovereignty in La Via Campesina’s Regions: Opportunities and Challenges

Representatives from the ten regions of La Via Campesina presented their analysis of the current political context, focusing on gains and challenges for the peasant movement worldwide. They reflected on how the climate crisis and rise of the right-wing pose new challenges to the food sovereignty movement, and how LVC should resist multiple forms of oppression and achieve food sovereignty.