green unionism

By staff - La Via Campesina, January 30, 2018

Excerpts from the joint press release of German civil society organizations participating last weekend in Berlin’s “We’re fed up with it” demonstration. For the complete text (German only) please click here

With a deafening cooking-pot concert, 33,000 people at the “We’re fed up!” demonstration at the start of the Green Week in Berlin called on the next German government to come up with a new agricultural policy. ‘Industrial agriculture and food industry is causing local and global problems for farmers, climate, animals and the environment,’ says Jochen Fritz – spokesperson of “We´re fed up!” – on behalf of the more than 100 organisations that called for this demonstration. He adds: ‘The transition to an environmentally friendly, animal-friendly and climate-friendly agriculture in which farmers can live justly from their work must not be postponed by politicians.’

Demonstrators beat their pans in front of the Agriculture Ministers’ Summit gathered in the German Finance Ministry. They demanded respect for human rights, fair trade conditions and more support for the rural population worldwide. Already in the morning the 160 farmers who led the demonstration with their tractors handed over a protest note to the 70 ministers from all over the world present in the Summit. ‘We want to get out of the fatality of export agendas and land concentration, which have tied a noose on the neck of farmers here and around the world,’ says Fritz about the consequences of agricultural policies. ‘In the last 12 years, one third of all farms in Germany had to close their doors.’

Alliance spokesman Fritz continues: ‘Food is political, more and more people are recognizing this. But our policies are feeding the agricultural industry and produce at the expense of the environment, climate and animals. So that we don’t have all to pay for it in the long term, the big coalition (GroKo – CDU/CSU-SPD) must now turn the tables*. Those who produce and eat sustainably must be rewarded.’

Concrete projects in the next legislative period must be – in addition to glyphosate phase-out and proper transformation of livestock stables and pens – the obligation to label animal foodstuffs, prohibiting last-resort antibiotics in animal husbandry and fair market rules for the protection of farms. Furthermore, the payment of EU agricultural subsidies to non-agricultural investors, who are grabbing more and more farmland, must be stopped immediately.

‘We need a fundamental reform of European agricultural policy. Those who cultivate crops in an environmental and climate friendly way and raise animals in an appropriate manner must be supported by direct payments, not those who own the most land. Farmers are ready, but politicians must create the framework. Rural areas are in particular need of small and medium-size farms’, says Georg Janßen, Head of Office of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (AbL).

* at the moment, the three biggest political parties in Germany (CDU/CSU-SPD) are negotiating the formation of the next government

By Michaelin Sibanda and Boaventura Monjane - La Via Campesina, November 17, 2017

Food sovereignty and peasant agroecology – which should be understood in the context of national sovereignty – are the true solutions to build resilience and resistance.

The transnational corporations responsible for over 70% of the man-made emissions continue to push forward new false solutions to address the climate crisis. Such solutions not only focus on growing their profits but create more conditions to commodify nature, while turning a blind eye to the increasing social and environmental crisis they have created. Today, millions of peasants, indigenous people and fisherfolks are losing their source of livelihood to rising sea levels and adverse weather conditions.

It is clear that capital survives and feeds on chaos and destruction of nature. Human dignity and life are not respected at all. Recent climate disasters in Puerto Rico expose this immoral behavior. After suffering two hurricanes (Irma and Maria), the US administration blocked any form of assistance to rebuild the island, only allowing its corporations.

For Jesús Vázquez Negrón from Puerto Rico, who was attending the people’s mobilizations parallel to the 23rdedition of the Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, climate change is real. “We are here to remind the world that the change must be systemic. That is why the proposal of systemic change proposed by La Via Campesina, a global grassroots movement and alliance, is crucial.”

The peasant struggle is not just about climate resilience – which is an act of resistance in itself. It is also a global fight against the expansion of agribusiness, which relies on free trade agreements. There is an urgent need to critically question the mass production of meat and reduce the import of feed from the global south to Europe.

To make sure they keep growing despite global climate change, transnational corporations have developed their own ways – false solutions such as blue carbon, REDD[1] mechanism and climate smart agriculture.

Another issue that is generally undermined in climate change debates is migration. There are today more than ever before a growing number of climate-migrants. According to Massa Koné of the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles – West Africa, the climate and the migrantion crisis are the two sides of the same coin. “…  It is those who try to contain migrations who have also provoked it! It is their false solutions that are taking over our land, disturb our rainfall, that create wars! This is why migration increases everyday”, says Koné.

The good news is that the debates have a strong youth movement that is leading the struggle in various places of the globe, as they are the future of humanity. “We are the present for a better future and we will not give up, but continue to defend the interests of the peasants, the whole society, for a social transformation. We, peasants across the world, firmly reject the industrial model of agriculture which is at the very root of climate change”, says young French peasant Fanny Metrat of Confederation Paysanne. “We are the ones who can cool the planet and feed the world”, she added.

There have been many COPs before and many more will follow, but their impact on public policies is minor. Sustainable development, green economy, REDD are the buzzwords of capitalism being hammered these days in Bonn. But social movements expect governments and multinationals around the negotiating table to deliver real solutions.

To change the system, grassroots and peasant movements have to keep growing and establish more alliances. Our governments do not realize the urgency of the situation but the peasantry suffers from it on a daily basis. Food sovereignty and peasant agroecology – which should be understood in the context of national sovereignty – are the true solutions to build their resilience and resistance.

By Staff - La Via Campesina, March 2, 2017

They also demanded that farmers arrested from the protest site be immediately released.

Kanpur, India: Since 21 November 2016, farmers in Lahurmau village of Kanpur, whose lands were acquired to build a Nyveli-owned thermal power plant, have been staging an indefinite strike by the banks of Yamuna river. 

These farmers from neighbouring eight villages allege that the construction at the site have already begun even before they have received compensations for their lost land and livelihoods. Nearly 1850 farmers in these villages are directly affected by the power project.

The ownership of the acquired land had already been issued to the power plant. While the planning for the project had begun at least four years before, apart from a few farmers most of them allege that they have not received any compensation so far. 

In these four years, none of these farm families have been able to cultivate in their land, leading to loss of livelihoods and considerable fall in their farm incomes. Farmers have been forced to take to the streets in protest. The project plan which came about during the term of the previous Central government, was pushed forth under the pretext that the affected farmers would be compensated four-times the market rate of land in the region, considering the permanent loss of livelihoods and farm incomes. When the new government came to power in 2014, it took the implementation of the project forward, but farmers’ demands remained unmet. In the meantime, farmers allege that there have been massive discrepancies in ascertaining the compensation amount from what was agreed initially. They also accuse the plant owners for providing inadequate compensation to some farmers before the land prices were expected to appreciate. 

Worse, some of the protesting farmers like Niraj Singh Rajput and Vishaka of Bharatiya Kisan Union were arrested by the police in January, false cases slapped and jailed. Visakha, was arrested in the absence of any woman police official and farmers accused the administration of high handedness in dealing with the issue.

In response, on 1st March 2016, Bharatiya Kisan Union, issued an ultimatum to the district officials to immediately release Niraj Singh and Vishaka Rajput. They have also demanded that the false cases slapped on the protesting farmers be immediately taken back. Keeping in line with the original agreement, all affected farmers, including the few who were inadequately compensated, be provided compensation that is four times the current circle rate of the land. They have also insisted that one member from each family, whose land were acquired be given a job as per their qualification and monetary compensation for the families. The agricultural workers, have demanded that they be rehabilitated adequately and members of their families be given jobs at the plant. Farmers whose crops have been damaged as part of the project and whose borewells and electric transformers have been affected be also compensated adequately. Many of them, who have not been able to cultivate for four years and have seen their farm incomes dip in this period have demanded that the calculation of compensation must consider this aspect as well. The common-village land that was acquired also needs to be compensated and this must be passed onto the respective village councils for local development, the union demanded. In their demand letter, the union members have also asked for strict action on the police officers who abused their power and assaulted and jailed protesting farmers.

By Marienna Pope-Weidemann - New Internationalist, December 13, 2015

In 2007, a man named Keno was killed with two bullets to the chest at point blank range near the Iguagu National Park in Brazil. He was one of many farmers peacefully occupying a GMO research plant to protest the imposition of an industrial agricultural system that had no place for them. The men who murdered him were part of a private militia working for the Syngenta biotech corporation. They perpetrated what the courts would later describe as an attempted ‘massacre’ to, in Syngenta’s chilling words: ‘propagate the idea that every action results in a reaction.’

As any physicist (or farmer) can tell you, this is a basic law of the universe. But it also applies the actions of big agribusiness, whose land grabs, pollution and exploitation have reaped their own reactions from peasant farmers across the world. They are organizing, across communities, sectors and borders, and now they made themselves heard here in Paris.

‘They are destroying our homes, our livelihoods and poisoning the food in people’s mouths.’ Maria, another Brazilian farmer and spokesperson for La Via Campesina, had tears in her eyes as she finished telling me about the relentless destruction of indigenous and farming communities back home. But she held her microphone tight like a weapon. ‘This pollution is worse than death. If we have to give our lives to fight these transnationals, then that is what we should do.’

By Katie Ward - La Via Campesina, December 1, 2016

(Saskatoon, SK, November 30, 2016) – The 47th Annual National Convention of the National Farmers Union (NFU) resolved to denounce the repression of peaceful protesters, including Indigenous land protectors, and expressed its support for the rights of people to engage in acts of civil disobedience in defence of the preservation of water, air, land and wildlife for future generations.

"With this statement, the NFU joins the many thousands of grassroots groups, unions, and Indigenous communities around the world in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as they defend the land and water on their traditional territories," said Katie Ward, NFU Women's Vice President. "As family farmers, we are also people of the land who, like the Indigenous water protectors in North Dakota, want our children and their children after them to be able to cultivate healthy soils, drink clean water and live in a just society."

Since April 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies have put their bodies on the line to stop construction of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL) in North Dakota. DAPL plans to go through Sioux territory because its original route under Bismarck was changed due to the town's concern for their water. The DAPL not only threatens the Missouri River and Lake Oahe reservoir which are the drinking water sources of the Standing Rock Sioux, but also burial grounds and sacred sites essential to the community's traditions and practices. In September, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples called on the USA to halt construction of the DAPL.

The water protectors' peaceful camps have been attacked by heavily militarized Morton County police and the pipeline company's private security guards using dogs, tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons and concussion grenades. Hundreds of people have been injured.

"The Dakota Access Pipeline struggle comes out of a long history of racism and colonialism in North America that has pushed Indigenous people to the margins of society," continued Ward. "It also signals that today, thousands of people from hundreds of Indigenous nations along with non-Indigenous supporters, are able to come together to resist the oil industry's power and create a space to live on the land in a good way."

By staff - La Via Campesina, December 28, 2016

Dhaka, Bangladesh. December 2016.

La Via Campesina International Working Collective on Migration and Waged Workers represented the concerns of small farmers, indigenous people, landless workers, women and youth at the People's Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights. The People's Global Action is a parallel event to the 9th Global Forum on Migration and Development, and took place 5th December to the 8th of December. Hosted by the Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Workers' Federation (BAFLF) , the group of 31 delegates participated in the PGA process especially on issues connecting migration to climate change and peasant agroecology. Following the PGA, the delegation was hosted on a field visit by BAFLF.

On the 5th of December, Abdul Majeed (President of BAFLF), Nasrin Sultana (NWFA), Omoli Kisku (Bangladesh Adviasi Samiti) and Asma Begum (Bangladesh Krishok Federation) attended the Asia Civil Society meeting. They presented the situation of coastal Bangladeshi communities, rural farm workers and small holder farmers who are facing the brunt of the climate crisis.

Speaking at the working group, Omoli shared, "Very often, the scant attention on rural agriculture aggravates the distress induced by climate change. The depleting groundwater level in rural Bangladesh is forcing the small farmers to go deeper to look for water sources. In the process, they incur huge debts and place high demands on energy needs."

The energy crisis in the country in forcing the government to look for quick fix solutions leading to thermal plants coming up in the eco-sensitive areas of Sunderbans. These quick-fix solutions, she alleges, further endanger an already vulnerable region by forcing locals migrate. Asma Begum and Nasrin also highlighted the increasing micro-credit institutions that are coming up in the countryside are further worsening the debt crisis of small farmers.

"The decision to migrate is very often a forced choice, due to the developmental model that is focused only on production and profit. Unless we question this developmental model, and force the GFMD to acknowledge the linkages between migration and the neo-liberal developmental model, we are not going to address the root causes that lead people to flee their home land and communities", said Nasrin.

On the 6th and 7th of December, a wider delegation of La Via Campesina, comprising of leaders from All Nepal Peasant Federation (ANPFA), Bangladesh Krishok Federation, Bangladesh Adivasi Samiti, Bangladesh Kisani Sabha, BAFLF, Bharatiya Kisan Union (India) and SOC (Spain) intervened at two plenaries on Climate Change and Labor Markets.

Rajbir Singh, a farmer from Bundelkhand region of India, presented the alarming situation of water scarcity and continuous droughts that have forced the region's farmworkers to migrate to the cities in hordes. He said that for farmers farm labour is increasingly hard to find in the region and very often small farmers turn to farm workers. Many a times, he says, cattle are unattended. The worst affected are women and elders who are left behind in the villages. He cited Bundelkhand as an example of how climate induced migration leads to more exploitation of workers in the cities, where they are left with little bargaining power and are often at the mercy of agents who promise work.

Sarita Bhusal and Bimala Kumari, representing the peasant women in Nepal, re-emphasized the increasing feminization of agriculture in and the additional burden on a woman peasant to manage her fields and home.

Speaking at the forum, Lal Bahadur Biswokarma presented the case of Dalit landless farmers who have yet to benefit from the promise of agrarian reform. He attacked the neo-liberal capitalist model that created the crisis of migration in the first place, while questioning its symbolic attempts to now address the same.

La Via Campesina insisted throughout the PGA that peasant agroecology is a solution to climate change and the need to call upon the nation states who are participating in GFMD to rethink the development model they are pursuing.

Young farmers in the group represented the need to make agriculture more viable for small farmers, particularly the youth by providing fair support price to their produce and by investing in rural infrastructure. Gaurav Tikait, Dharmendra Jumar (of BKU) and Pramesh of ANPFA made presentations that asked for implementation of the agrarian reform and increased investment in rural infrastructure that will encourage youth to take up farm and non-farm labour in their communities and country side.

By La Via Campesina - In These Times, November 17, 2015

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agriculture is responsible for a major portion of the increase of greenhouse gases. Not all agriculture has the same impact, however—the vast majority of the effect comes from the post WWII industrial agricultural system.

This system—an agricultural model based on capital concentration, high fossil energy consumption, overproduction, consumerism and trade liberalization—has put our planet’s ecosystems at risk and pushed human communities toward disaster. 

Industrialized countries and the industrialization of agriculture are the biggest contributors to global warming, but it is farmers and rural communities—especially in developing countries—that are among the first to suffer from climate change. Changing weather patterns bring unknown pests along with unusual droughts, floods and storms, destroying crops, farmlands, farmstock and farmer’s houses. Moreover, plants, animal species and marine life are threatened or disappearing at an unprecedented pace due to the combined effects of warming and industrial exploitation. It is estimated that by 2080, Latin America will likely see a 24.3 percent decline agricultural yields, Asia 19.3 percent and Africa 27.5 percent. Life at large is endangered by the decreasing availability of fresh water resources. By 2050 an estimated 4 billion people will live in highly water-stressed environments.

In tropical regions, global warming is likely to lead to a serious decline in agricultural production and to the acceleration of the desertification of farmland. On the other hand, vast regions of Russia and Canada will turn into cropland for the first time in human history. Yet it is still unknown how these regions will be able to grow crops. Farmers have to adjust to these changes by adapting their seeds and usual production systems to an unpredictable situation.

What is expected is that millions of farmers will be displaced from the land. Such shifting is regarded by industry as a business opportunity to increase food exports and imports, when the reality is that hunger and dependency will only increase around the world.

Via Campesina, a transcontinental movement bringing together of small farmers and producers, asserts that it is time to radically change the industrial way to produce, transform, trade and consume food and agricultural products. We believe that sustainable small-scale farming and local food consumption will help reverse the devastation and support millions of farming families. Agriculture can also cool down the earth by using farming practices that store CO2 and reduce the use of energy on farms.

By Ulf Allhoff-Cramer and Paula Gioia - La Via Campesina, November 6, 2017

PEASANT AGROECOLOGY CAN FEED THE WORLD AND COOL THE PLANET | FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS THE TRUE SOLUTION TO UPHOLD PEOPLES’ RIGHT TO CLIMATE JUSTICE

On Friday, November 3rd, at 6pm in Bonn (Germany), the People’s Climate Summit 2017 began, opening an important space for social movements to put forward alternatives and solutions to the global climate crisis. This summit will last until 7th of November and bring together thousands of delegates and climate activists from all over the world.

Just this year, we witnessed several disasters due to increased impacts of climate change, both in scale and intensity: hurricanes, floods, tropical storms, droughts, heat waves and other forms of devastation. The most affected are the world’s peasants, poor people, rural workers, fisherfolk and Indigenous peoples, especially the women and youth among them. Tragically, many people have been uprooted from their homes and livelihoods and forced to migrate. The stakes for action are high and mounting.

“Humanity is on a collision course with itself. We are generating nuclear waste that we can’t get rid of for a million years! We are taking back the planet’s climate to a state that existed millions of years ago and it is unjust and inhumane for our generation to do so. Our actions are not only harming ourselves but also future generations who never contributed to the climate crisis. For peasants all over the world, climate change is a question of survival. The climate crisis has to be stopped!”, says Ulf Allhoff-Cramer of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (AbL).

To the accelerating crisis, world governments are responding with business-as-usual ‘false’ solutions that seek to maintain and expand markets for transnational corporations. These false solutions, including Carbon Capture and storage, creation of carbon markets, so-called Climate Smart Agriculture, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), geoengineering and other schemes further degrade life on Earth. They do not meet the requirements for action that science and justice demand. We must, therefore, make peoples’ voices heard at all levels of the UN COP23.

“The voice of the people is needed now more than ever before. We urgently need to mobilize together with civil society to push for our true solutions based on food sovereignty, which cool the Earth and increase democratic control of energy production at the local level. We must change the system, and by this, stop the system from changing the climate”, says Paula Gioia, who is La Via Campesina’s International Coordinating Committee member from the European Coordination Via Campesina (ECVC).

La Via Campesina—the world’s largest peasant movement—will be represented at the People’s Summit by delegates from East Timor, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Brazil, Puerto Rico, USA, Canada, France and Belgium. They will cooperate with the Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft (AbL) – LVC’s member organisation in Germany – and other allied grassroots movements and NGOs.

The programmes include plenary sessions, a people’s tribunal for the rights of nature and street mobilisations. Many issues will be discussed including: peasant agroecology, food sovereignty, climate justice, just transition towards building local economies and the collective cooling of the planet. Other issues of importance such as migrant rights in a context of climate crisis will also be addressed.

By Jonathan Rosenblum - La Via Campesina, March 23, 2017

Harare, 23 March 2017: The international farmers’ movement La Via Campesina calls all its members and allies to mobilise on April 17, the International Day of Peasant's struggles.[1]

This year, we want the world to know that peasants and other people working in rural areas have been working very hard for their rights. The rights of peasants initiative, which La Via Campesina started 17 years ago, now is in advanced process within the United Nations towards a Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. This declaration, if approved, will create an international legal instrument to protect the rights of and draw attention to the threats and discrimination suffered by peasants and other people working in rural areas.

The need for a UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other People Working Rural Areas is more urgent and evident in the 21^st century. Peasants, who produce the bulk of the food consumed globally, continue to face criminalisation, discrimination, displacements and persecution despite existence of numerous international legal instruments for recognition and protection of such rights.

Peasants’ basic rights are increasingly very vulnerable as the economic and ecological crisis worsens. This situation is closely linked to human rights violations: expropriation of land, forced eviction, gender discrimination, the absence of right to land and lack of rural development, low income and lack access to means of production, insufficient social protection, and criminalization of movements defending the rights of peasants and people working in rural areas.

For instance, in Africa, over 70% of the agricultural production and care-giving is done by women but there is little recognition of their rights in relation to asset ownership, access to credit, information and participation in policy making etc. In Brazil, despite many years of peasants struggling for comprehensive agrarian reform, fair redistribution of land remains unfulfilled. In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy and market deregulation of the milk sector affect hundreds of thousands of family farmers. In Asia, much as in rest of the world, free trade agreements and bilateral treaties have destroyed local markets and continue to threaten local and traditional ways of farming and farmers‘ exchange. Land concentration is increasing as some of the affected farmers are forced to sell their land; youth participation in farming is at its lowest. 

We call upon the people around the world to celebrate International Day of Peasants’ Struggle by continuing to work to reinforce food sovereignty, the fight against climate change and the conservation of biodiversity; to fight for a genuine agrarian reform and a better protection against land-grabbing; continue to conserve, use, and exchange our seeds; and strengthen the solidarity among ourselves. These give strength for us to defend our land against corporate interest, persecution and violence against peasants and other people working in rural areas.

This year in July 2017 in the Basque Country, La Via Campesina will hold its VII^th International Conference to deepen our analysis of the current crisis and agree on strategic lines for action to strengthen our movement.

We also call upon countries to support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. We will mobilise our members and allies to pressure our governments to make the next negotiation in the 4^th session of Open Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on rights of peasants and other people working in rural area at UN HR Council Geneva successful. We believe in championing the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, humanity also wins.

By staff - La Via Campesina, November 1, 2017

Solidarity Statement

Harare: October 27, 2017

La Via Campesina International Coordinating Committee (ICC) gathered in Harare affirms its support and solidarity with the victims of the climate crisis around the world.

Since August this year we witnessed several disasters due to increased impacts of the human made climate change both in scale and intensity: hurricanes, floods, tropical storms, droughts, heat waves and more. This year only the Atlantic hurricane season had about 15 tropical storms, 10 hurricanes of which 6 (Harvey, Irma, Maria, etc.), were major and led lost lives, homes, and damage running in to huge financial impacts in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, United States of America, etc. Africa also experienced flooding in West Africa (i.e. Sierra Leone) besides continuing droughts in parts of North and sub-Sahara Africa. In Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, etc.) experienced flooding which led to thousands of deaths and the destruction of croplands.

In Europe too, severe droughts and high temperatures and winds have made it difficult to control forest fires. Recently, intense storms (Xavier, Herwart, Ophelia) have battered some countries (Germany, Ireland, Britain, Poland, and the Czech Republic) leaving a trail of destruction devastating storms. In all these cases hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, thousands killed. The most affected are our brothers and sisters, the peasants, poor people, rural workers, the indigenous and the fisherfolk, some of whom have been forced to migrate. Climate change continues to aggravate the life conditions of many peasants who are already suffering marginalisation and repression from capitalist state. Both in the urban areas and countryside, our sisters and brothers have limited resources to rebuild their lives, their homes, their plots and their communities.

La Via Campesina is appalled by the continued denial of the link between these climate change catastrophes to anthropogenic emissions and also by the recent pull out by U.S. President Donald Trump.

We urgently call upon our allies, friends and social movements to galvanise their struggles towards a system change. We urgently need to mobilize together with the civil society to push for our true solutions based on food sovereignty and peasant agroecology which cool the Earth and increase democratic control of energy production at the local level.

Therefore, during the forthcoming UN climate talks in Bonn (Germany) we will be on the streets pushing forward our peasant agenda, our true solutions and staying in solidarity with all climate change affected communities of the world today.