Via-info-en May 2015

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Via Campesina denounces the takeover of the World Expo by corporate interests
by La Vía Campesina 28 May '15

28 May '15

Via Campesina denounces the takeover of the World Expo by corporate interests [1] Published on Thursday, 28 May 2015 20:08 [2](Zimbabwe, Harare,May 27th 2015) La Via Campesina (LVC), a worldwide movement representing millions of peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous villages and nomadic peoples, denounces the corporate takeover of the World Expo in Milan as well as the governmental complicity. The theme of the Expo is "Feed the planet; energy for life". The Expo in Milan serves as a showcase for multinational businesses that control the world market of food, genetic material of animals and plant seeds, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. These businesses work constantly to privatize and commercialize the public commons including the water, land, forests, minerals and seeds. They transform food into a commodity and reject the fact that food is a human right. Food is treated as a commodity, produced on a large scale using a lot of pesticides and GMOs for people of limited economic means while healthy food is only within the financial grasp of the economic elite. One highly visible company at the Expo is Coca-Cola. Aside from producing products with no nutritional value whatsoever, it is among others involved in killing Colombian trade unionists trying to protect water resources and labor rights [3][1]. McDonald's, known not only for their poor record on workers' rights and healthy food, also has a large presence at this Expo [4][2]. The Milan Expo clearly serves the interests of these companies in promoting their agro-industrial, elitist and capitalist model. Most of the participating governments have spent millions of Euros of public money to build a forum to "sell" their technological products. It is a space to promote the false solutions to hunger and climate change, for example, the climate-smart agriculture, REDD programs pushed by the new G8 Alliance, AGRA and others. Another contradiction is the fact that the Expo center was built in an area where farmland had previously existed, which is needed to assure fresh, healthy food for the urban population. [5][3] The theme of the Expo demonstrates a cynical lack of understanding of the political problem that is world hunger. The World Expo in Milan ignores the small-scale food producers who are responsible for growing 70% of food worldwide while creating employment without contaminating nature or exploiting their workers in the process. La Via Campesina denounces this vision pushed by the Expo and reaffirms that food sovereignty constitutes an alternative based on the people's right to ensure their livelihoods all while respecting the environment through agroecological practices that cool down the planet and provide healthy food in locally adapted food systems. LVC proposes a solution to the multiple crises that our societies are facing. LVC also urges a paradigm shift so that decisions about what people produce and eat, as well as how, where and for whom they do so are driven by the people who grow and consume said products and not by the corporate entities who sell them as commodities. La Via Campesina will participate in the People's Expo in Milan to propose real alternatives to the hopeless model suggested in the "official" Expo. CONTACTS Marina Dos Santos: +55 21981850558 Andrea Ferranti: +39 3480189221 Contact in Milan during the People's Expo (3-5 June): Tel: +32473300156 Email:idelforge@viacampesina.org ------------------------- [6][1] http://www.cetim.ch/es/interventions/383/violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-po… [7] [8][2] Terranuovaedizione.it [9][3] http://www.altreconomia.it/site/fr_contenuto_detail.php?intId=4579 [10] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1810-th… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2014%20Logo.jpg [3] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftn1 [4] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftn2 [5] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftn3 [6] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftnref1 [7] http://www.cetim.ch/es/interventions/383/violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-po… [8] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftnref2 [9] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/Proofread_Milan-draftpositionLVCEnglish.doc#_ftnref3 [10] http://www.altreconomia.it/site/fr_contenuto_detail.php?intId=4579

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La Via Campesina in Milan: joining the peasant farmer's expo
by La Vía Campesina 21 May '15

21 May '15

La Via Campesina in Milan: joining the peasant farmer's expo [1] Published on Friday, 22 May 2015 01:53 [2] LA VIA CAMPESINA - MEDIA ADVISORY (Brussels, 21st of May 2015) - The international peasant's movement La Via Campesina will take part in People's Expo in Milan, at the Fabbrica del Vapore, from the 3rd to the 5th of June 2015. The People's Expo is the international forum of the civil society and farmers' movements organised to defend the principles of Food Sovereignty and Environmental Justice, to fight against the commodification of the right to food promoted by Expo 2015 and to state aloud, once again, that it is the peasant agriculture that feeds the world, not the multinationals or the agribusiness. La Via Campesina denounces the Milan Expo as a great "world showcase" that deliberately chose to hide one of the largest ongoing world conflict: hunger, land and energy grabbing at a global level. >From the 1st of May to the 31st of October 31 2015, Milan is hosting the Universal Exposition with the theme 'Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life'. Expo 2015 has been described by the organizers as 'the biggest event ever organized on Food and Nutrition [with intent to] give a concrete answer to a vital need: being able to guarantee healthy, safe and sufficient food for everyone, while respecting the Planet and its equilibrium' [3][1]. However, Expo 2015 is sponsored and financed by some of the most important multinationals of food and agriculture, such as McDonald's and Coca Cola. According to Andrea Ferrantes of La Via Campesina Europe: 'Expo 2015 is hiding behind a green-washed façade that doesn't show us the violent face of the corporate interests which are controlling the whole food chain, grabbing the land , controlling seeds and patenting life. The narrative of Expo 2015 does not speak of the stories of farmers and peasants starving because they being expulsed from their land, of the indigenous people expulsed from their territories, of the fishermen and fisherwomen who are being denied access to the seas in which they have always fished, of the nomadic pastoralists forced to live a sedentary life or of the consumers forced to eat junk food'. Expo Milano 2015 is not a neutral event, as some would have liked us to believe. On the contrary, it is an event promoting the industrialisation of agriculture and the financialisation of agricultural markets. Agribusiness concentrates food production and distribution in the hands of the few big companies, regardless of the producers and consumers' needs. Expo 2015 goes in the opposite direction from the path on which food producers and citizens march together, claiming their right to food sovereignty through agroecological models of production and consumption. To propose real alternatives to the agro-industrial model supported by Expo 2015 and to give voice to those who cannot tell their own story in its "showcase", a delegation of Via Campesina farmers from around the world will be present at the People's Expo in Milan, along with other international networks and many non-profit Italian associations that defend peoples' rights. #peoplesexpo #laviacampesina #ecvc #foodsovereignty PRESS CONFERENCE: "Peasants from around the world: views on Expo 2015" 2nd of June 2015 - 18h00 - La Stecca, Via Gaetano de Castillia 26, 20124 Milan MEDIA CONTACTS Federica: +39 333 7217660 Elisa: +32 495 34 59 80 ------------------------- [1] [4] Expo Milano 2015 official website: http://www.expo2015.org/it/cos-e [5] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1809-la… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/banners/lvc%20ecvc.jpg [3] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/EN%20Media%20advisory.docx#_ftn1 [4] file:///C:/Users/nyoni/Downloads/EN%20Media%20advisory.docx#_ftnref1 [5] http://www.expo2015.org/it/cos-e

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La Via Campesina - Newsletter April 2015
by La Vía Campesina 07 May '15

07 May '15

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Via-info-en May 2015