fisherfolk

By staff - La Via Campesina, December 5, 2023

La Via Campesina’s 8th International Conference, held in Bogotá, Colombia, after a six-year break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was filled with excitement even before it opened. The conference opened on the 3rd of December, but before that, the Youth Assembly was held on the 1st of December, and the Women’s Assembly, Men Against Patriarchy meeting, and Gender Diversities meeting were held on the 2nd of December. The Men Against Patriarchy meeting and Gender Diversity meeting were held for the first time at La Via Campesina at an international conference and were a great example of how important diversity, equality, and solidarity are to the global peasant movement.

The 5th Youth Assembly, which took place on the first day, was organized under the slogans “Unity in Diversity, Young Peasants Change the World”.

First of all, Pramesh Pokharel from Nepal said, “There are a lot of social movements around the world, but I don’t think there’s one that’s as diversity-oriented as La Via Campesina. We’re here today to talk about the challenges that young people in agriculture and young peasants face in rural communities, and how young people are not able to own land. In particular, at the 5th Assembly, we will be electing youth delegates from each region to strengthen youth leadership. We will also collectively address how to design the agenda.”

By staff - La Via Campesina, December 4, 2023

On the afternoon of Sunday, December 3^rd, La Via Campesina representatives from every continent and Palestine offered critical analyses of their regional contexts, drawing connections between the climate crisis, migration, and political instability. This is a critical component of building and advancing a global movement for food sovereignty to foster critical consciousness of disparate geographic realities, struggles and victories.

César Villanova, a LVC representative from El Salvador, shared that Latin America is one of the final critical battlegrounds in the struggle against neoimperialism. A war is being fought over the blood—that is the resources—of Latin America, and that war is not simply symbolic but very real, and felt in territories from Mexico and El Salvador, through Colombia, and to the south in Chile.

Building upon Villanova’s discussion of territorial conflict, Albert Bahana Manzambi (COPACO, Democratic Republic of Congo), next offered insights into the African experience, emphasizing that a number of multinational corporations are pushing to destabilize Africa. “We see the lack of security increasing,” Bahana Manzambi suggested, “taking the form of increasing coup d’états and contestation governments.” Importantly, this lack of security is deeply rooted in questions of food sovereignty, and its interconnections with the political context. Bahana Manzambi drove home the point that “there is no security, and no one is protecting peasants”. The question of political instability is driving an increasingly grave migration crisis. “People are fleeing to Europe, and are trying desperately to get there in whatever way possible, and are dying on the way, and when they die, whole families are lost, children, partners; everyone is losing.”

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 22, 2023

(Bagnolet: November 24, 2023) In response to the genocidal war being waged on the people of Palestine, we, La Via Campesina, reiterate our steadfast solidarity with the peasants, fisherfolk and working families of Palestine. Many of them dedicate themselves daily to the realization of Peasants Rights and Food Sovereignty, engage in heroic acts such as planting their lands, caring for their orchards, fishing in their rivers and sea, and organizing themselves within the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), a longstanding member of La Via Campesina.

There are no words to describe the pain and the heartbreak felt within all of La Via Campesina with each life lost, each child maimed and orphaned, each home and hospital destroyed, each farm and field abandoned for fear of death by air raids in Gaza or armed emboldened settlers across the West Bank. This illegal Israeli occupation that has lasted far too long now carries out what one UN official described as a “textbook case of genocide”.

Over 13,500 civilians have been killed, at the time of writing this press release, and the numbers of lost souls continue to increase. The majority of the casualties are women and children. Another 3,000 missing trapped under the rubble. A ceasefire is imperative to prevent further horrors. It is our duty as social movements, organizations, and individuals within society to globalize the struggle and solidarity, and put to an end these shameful crimes that do not lead to peace and undermine sovereignty, destroying the future of generations.

By Memet Uludag - Global Ecosocialist Network, November 17, 2023

As thousands of civilians continue to die and millions suffer under the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza, there is another horror that threatens the future of the Palestinian people and the future of our planet: The deepening environmental crisis.

Wars create environmental disasters. We witnessed this in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. The consequences of these wars for the environment are well documented. Toxic weapons and the destruction of civilian infrastructure have created long-lasting pollution of the air, land and water sources. Millions of people continue to suffer long after the bombs stop.

Today we are witnessing yet another bombing of Gaza as an escalation of the long-running siege by Israel. On October 26th the Municipality of Gaza City issued a warning that the city is witnessing an environmental disaster due to the accumulation of garbage. The bin crews cannot service the city because of the ongoing Israeli airstrikes. This can cause serious health and environmental problems. More than 2,500, including 1500 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble. Gaza Municipality officials warn about the serious health risks this is creating for the people.

However, the environmental crisis in Gaza is not new and Israel is responsible for it. The New Arab Newspaper puts it plainly: “By limiting what is fished, what comes in and out of Gaza, and routinely bombing civilian and agricultural infrastructure, Israel has contributed to Gaza’s barely liveable conditions.”

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 3, 2023

On the 11th of October, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution to establish a Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. This resolution (A/HRC/54/L.11), tabled by the Plurinational State of Bolivia and supported by other members, including Cuba, Costa Rica, South Africa, Gambia, Paraguay, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, and Luxembourg, was adopted at the 54th session of the Council in Geneva, with an overwhelming majority, with 38 out of the 47 members supporting it.

The group, which will be established for a period of three years, will consist of five independent experts, with balanced geographical representation, to be appointed by the Human Rights Council at its fifty-fifth session.

This marks a great leap forward in meaningfully translating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) into pragmatic public policies at the national and local levels.

As the resolution rightly notes, ‘the UNDROP is an important recognition of the past, present, and future contributions of peasants and other people working in rural areas in all regions of the world to development and to conserving and improving biodiversity, which constitutes the basis of food and agricultural production throughout the world, and their contribution to ensuring the right to adequate food and food security, which is fundamental to attaining the internationally agreed development goals, including those in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’.

The 28 specific articles within UNDROP offer a much-needed framework for governments worldwide to craft national and state-level policies that genuinely support and strengthen local food production and empower local food producers. UNDROP lays down the pathway to fight against hunger, protect and nourish biodiversity, and preserve cultural heritage. It forms the basis for advocating food sovereignty, agroecology, climate justice, agrarian reform, and human rights.

Hunger, like poverty, is still predominantly a rural problem. It is also ironic that in the rural population, it is those who produce food who suffer disproportionately. Eighty percent of people suffering from hunger live in rural areas, particularly in developing countries, and 50 percent are small-scale and traditional farm-holders, as well as subsistence peasants and other people working in rural areas, and they are especially vulnerable to food insecurity, malnutrition, discrimination, and exploitation.

It is this difficult reality that prompted the majority of countries in the Global South to overwhelmingly support the adoption of the Declaration in 2018 at the UN General Assembly in New York, with 121 nations voting in favour. Notably, 54 countries abstained from voting. In essence, 90% of the world’s nations either supported or did not oppose the need for a global framework that addresses the concerns and aspirations of billions of small-scale food producers.

However, like many UN Declarations, even after five years, UNDROP has yet to meaningfully influence national food and agriculture policies because it is not legally binding on the member states of the United Nations to implement it. This is why the resolution for a UN Working Group is all the more important in facilitating mechanisms that encourage member states to frame national policies based on the framework this Declaration provides.

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 2, 2023

On 27th October 2023, ESAFF Uganda, through the ESAFF Women Forum together with partners, organised the 5th Women in Agriculture (WiA) Conference, an annual event that empowers small-scale women in agriculture. This year, with support from Oxfam in Uganda, Humundi and GIZ, the 5th National Women in Agriculture (WiA) Conference was conducted under the theme “Equal access and control of agricultural resources for all”. Small-scale women from 54 districts under the ESAFF Women Forum, a platform set up by ESAFF Uganda to purposefully position women’s issues for policy and practice change in Uganda. Apart from small-scale farmers, the conference also attracted local leaders, investors, and farmer leaders, among others. The discussions focused on the constraints they face in accessing equal rights of agricultural resources and what should be done for them to have equal access.

The National Chairperson ESAFF Uganda Mr Hakim Baliraine, acknowledged that 88% of women in Uganda engage in agriculture, and from the majority of the ESAFF Uganda membership districts, women have been empowered in different capacities to enable them to achieve equal access to agricultural resources. “Over 70% of the women empowered by ESAFF Uganda know their land rights, and they have come to appreciate and believe that the resilient way of farming is agroecology. Women small-scale farmers can now fight for their resources for production.” Mr. Hakim added.

During the conference, women small-scale farmer leaders highlighted key agricultural resource challenges, including access to land, access to water, access to quality seeds and access to finance, among others.

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 1, 2023

We, La Via Campesina, the international peasant movement with over 182 local and national organisations in 81 countries from Africa, Asia Europe and Americas stands in solidarity with the Kenyan Peasants League (KPL) our member organization in their legal struggle to continue the ban on GMOs in Kenya. In October 2022 the Kenyan Government lifted the ban on importation and cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) that had been in place for ten years.

The conservatory orders maintaining the GMO ban by the High Court in December 2022 and the decision of the Court of Appeal to uphold the conservatory orders due to a lack of adequate public participation in the decision by the government to lift the GMO ban gave a temporary relief to the struggle.

The legal struggle will start at the High Court soon. We call upon all social movements and activists to mobilize and support the Kenya Peasant League in their continued struggle against the lifting of the ban on importation and cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in Kenya.

We call on the government of Kenya to respect the rights of peasants to determine their future. Lifting the GMO ban goes against the rights of the peasants (article 10 – Right to Participation; 15- Right to Food and Food Sovereignty; 19 – Right to Seeds and 20 – Right to Biological Diversity) enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

Again, lifting the GMO ban contravenes Article 9 of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), also known as “Seed Treaty”, which affirms that no law(s) should “limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material”. We know from experiences in many countries that have allowed GMO production that the local seed systems suffered a lot. The local biodiversity and the environment suffered too due to excessive use of toxic agro-inputs required to guarantee GMO crops maximum yield. People’s health suffered too.

We, thus believe that if the ban on GMOs is lifted, this will not only be a direct attack on the peasants way of life in Kenya, but the East African region and the African Continent as it will unleash the untold destruction of the peasant managed seeds systems. The continent is already under enormous pressure to reformed seed legislations in favour of commercial seed companies and big agribusinesses.

Peasants’ organizations and other social movements will continue to mobilize so that the general GMO ban in Kenya prevails.

By Paola Romero and Paula Gioia - La Via Campesina, October 27, 2023

By staff - La Via Campesina, October 25, 2023

This week (23-27 October) United Nations member states resume historical negotiations in the ninth session at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva with the mandate to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations (TNCs).

The consistent participation of members of communities affected by activities of transnational corporations, civil-society organisations, trade unions and social movements makes it one of the most strongly supported processes in the history of UN human rights treaty negotiations. The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign), representing more than 260 million people globally affected by Transnational Corporations has, once again, a strong presence in Geneva, where it is contributing decisively to the negotiations.

At the opening day, a broad group of states blocked the adoption of the program of work because of their concerns about the new text’s failure to incorporate their views and address the core mandate of the treaty to focus on transnationals. They also raised broader concerns regarding the non-democratic and non-transparent methodology of the Chair of the process, Ecuador.

In particular, the African group –representing all 54 African states took the lead and was backed by numerous state delegates from Global South countries, such as Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The backlash was so strong that the Chair had to suspend the morning session to seek consensus, and was only able to proceed after conceding to use a track-changes version of the text, which reflected prior proposals of states they felt had been unfairly removed. The Chair was also forced to defend the shift in focus from transnational corporations to all businesses – a shift that accommodates the positions of the EU, US, other developed countries, as well as industry trade groups involved in the process. He insisted he was not trying to impose a new focus for the treaty, and agreed that it was not within his power to make such a shift and that issues of scope would decided through negotiations.

By Cody Lonning, Anthony Flaccavento, Alan Minsky, and Marilyn Wrenn - Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, October 5, 2023