Via Campesina denounces the takeover of the World Expo by corporate interests
by La Vía Campesina
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
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[6][1]
http://www.cetim.ch/es/interventions/383/violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-...
[7]
[8][2] Terranuovaedizione.it
[9][3]
http://www.altreconomia.it/site/fr_contenuto_detail.php?intId=4579 [10]
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1810-...
[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-...
[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
9 years, 7 months
La Via Campesina in Milan: joining the peasant farmer's expo
by La Vía Campesina
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
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[1] [4] Expo Milano 2015 official website:
http://www.expo2015.org/it/cos-e [5]
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1809-...
[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
9 years, 7 months
