At a time when the Spanish government is taking over the presidency of the European Union, La Via Campesina, together with allied social movements, denounced the impunity of the Melilla massacre, in which dozens of migrants were killed while trying to cross the border fence from Morocco to Spain. La Via Campesina is commited to continue building the Global Pact of Solidarity for the Rights of Migrants and Refugees.
For nearly 40 years, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been fighting the concentration of landownership among the country’s elite through the direct occupation and settlement of fallow lands. Now a Parliamentary Inquiry Commission, which has been set up to investigate the activities of Brazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST), actually seeks to divert focus from illegal actions committed by agribusiness.
The Basic Law on Food, Agriculture, and Rural Areas in Japan, the most important legislation in the agricultural sector, is currently under review by the Japanese government. Alarmed at the threat to the country’s food sovereignty, the Japan Family Farmers Movement (Nouminren) has presented a proposal advocating for a departure from the neoliberal food and agricultural policies that have been in place.
The International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty’s (IPC) Working Group on Agrobiodiversity is in Rome this week to enhance the functioning of the Multilateral System, and to fight the private interests that try to get rid of their obligations as set by the FAO Plant Treaty 20 years ago.
Within the CFS data definition, there is space for data to enable food sovereignty by facilitating exchange on farming techniques and agroecological climate adaptation, increasing the viability of smallholder food producers, or revealing the true cost of the industrial agricultural system.
Efforts to tackle the climate crisis through the much-herald “ecological transition” run the risk of being in vain if they are not accompanied by support for peasant agroecological practices, which are the fruit of thousands of years of experience and traditional knowledge aimed at achieving a balance between food production and natural cycles.
The National Farmers’ Union of Canada has called on the French government to cease its violations of human rights, in particular the rights of farmers and peasants recognised in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Rural Workers (UNDROP).
For the International day of Peasants’ Struggles, La Via Campesina and Defending Peasants’ Rights organized a webinar on the uses of the UN Declaration on Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in peasant’s struggles since its adoption. Here are eight instances of how the Declaration is being put to use.
Speaking at a meeting of the Youth Peasants’ Association of Nepal (a sister organisation of ANPFa and a member of La Via Campesina), Nepal’s Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development hinted at a national food sovereignty law that could soon become a reality.
Jessie explains how UNDROP has been used in Canada, a country which abstained from voting in 2018 when the Peasants’ Rights Declaration was adopted, highlighting the opportunities and challenges of implementation.
