Press Release: Peasants’ Rights Declaration presented before the UN General Assembly
by La Via Campesina
NEW YORK – OCTOBER 26, 2018 - The "UN Declaration on the rights of
peasants and other people working in rural areas" was presented in the
UN headquarters to the Third Committee of the General Assembly on 25th
October. This comes on the back of a nearly two decade long process of
consultations and negotiations led by millions of peasants from La Vía
Campesina, along with pastoralists, artisanal fisher folk, agricultural
workers and indigenous peoples' organizations, with the support of CETIM
and FIAN International. The Declaration, if accepted can ensure that the
rights of rural populations are better recognized and protected by the
international community.
As it stands, peasants suffer from hunger and poverty at a
disproportionate level**. It is estimated that out of 821 million people
suffering hunger in the world (2018 UN figure), 80% live in rural areas.
These people are particularly vulnerable and discriminated, they suffer
forced expulsions and lack access to essential resources: land, seeds,
loans, education, justice and basic services. They have unequal access
and control over land, genetic resources and other natural resources;
suffer from restricted access to markets and means of production to
ensure a decent livelihood and are constantly imposed agricultural
policies skewed in favour of elite farmers and of industrial
agriculture. Yet, on average, small food producers contribute 70% of the
world's food, with this figure rising to more than 80% in so-called
developing countries. Small scale food producers also play a decisive
role in the fight against climate change and biodiversity conservation.
> "There is no free and healthy citizen without free peasants: our freedoms and rights are prerequisites of the right to food, social justice and democracy for all mankind. This Declaration will provide a universal Human Rights frame to all the efforts and initiatives we peasants, all around the globe, take to feed our communities in locally adapted and sustainable ways, displaying great resilience, inventiveness and perseverance. For us, it is a vital source of legitimacy as it recognizes, in a single and coherent manner our existence, our specificities, our values but also our role to achieve food sovereignty, foster rural development, and sustain human life on Earth. We call for the widest support to the Declaration as it both gathers and globalizes the basic protections vital to our continuation and our development in such as changing world. VINCENT DELOBEL, AN ORGANIC GOAT HERDER FROM BELGIUM AND ALSO A MEMBER OF LA VIA CAMPESINA
A vast majority of the citizens support the Declaration. The European
Economic and Social Committee has shown its support [1], and the
European Parliament voted a resolution [2] asking EU states to back the
project. On 2nd October in France, the National Advisory Committee on
Human Rights urged the French government, in an advisory opinion, to
back the text. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has also
expressed its support to the Declaration and so has the former
rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter as well as his
successor, Hilal Elver.
This past 28 September at Palais des Nations, home of the UN Human
Rights Council in Geneva, 33 member states voted in favour [3] and 3
voted against (Australia, Hungary and the United Kingdom) the adoption
of the Declaration, while 11 of them abstained.
For the sake of consistency with the Paris Agreements on climate, the
commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (in particular Goal
2 to eradicate hunger) , the UN Decade of family farming and the
commitments announced by the European diplomacy to build a fairer and
more sustainable world, our governments should have the courage to take
the right decision and to vote clearly and unanimously in favor of the
Declaration.
Let's recall that even if declarations are not binding, the existence of
such an instrument is a clear and symbolic recognition of the
fundamental role of small scale food producers worldwide who work hard
to make a living and feed people, and hearten rural communities. The
world needs this Declaration to foster sustainable food systems all over
the planet and to make the world safer.
-------------------------
CONTACT:
ENGLISH:
Henry Saragih: +62 811 655 668, Email: hspetani(a)gmail.com
Elizabeth Mpofu: +263 77 244 3716 Email: eliz.mpofu(a)gmail.com
Ramona Duminicioiu: +40 746 337 022, Email: ramona(a)ecoruralis.ro
SPANISH:
Diego Monton: +54 9 261 561 5062, Email: diegomonton(a)gmail.com
FRENCH:
Ndiakhate Fall: +221 77 550 89 07, Email: fallriso(a)yahoo.fr
-------------------------
NOTES TO THE EDITORS:
* The "UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working
in rural areas" will be presented at the UN General Assembly. Following
a last intergovernmental working group in April 2018 and a broadly
affirmative vote in the Human Rights Council on September 28th, the
Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Bolivian Mission in Geneva, M. Ruddy Jose
Flores Monterrey, presented the resolution in favour of this new
instrument aimed to bring together, specify and expose the rights of
peasants and other agricultural workers, women and men.
** Final study of the UN Human Rights Advisory Council, 2012
For more information
www.viacampesina.org [4]
https://viacampesina.org/en/press-release-peasants-rights-declaration-pre...
Links:
------
[1]
https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/documents/resolution/declaration-rights-pea...
[2]
https://www.eurovia.org/the-european-parliament-demands-that-eu-members-s...
[3]
https://viacampesina.org/en/un-human-rights-council-passes-a-resolution-a...
[4] http://www.viacampesina.org
6 years, 2 months
- 1
- 0
16 October: La Via Campesina relaunches “Global Campaign for Seeds, a heritage of Peoples in the Service of Humanity”
by La Via Campesina
PRESS RELEASE
LA VIA CAMPESINA RELAUNCHES THE "GLOBAL CAMPAIGN FOR SEEDS, A HERITAGE
OF PEOPLES IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY", ON THE OCCASION OF THE
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR THE FOOD SOVEREIGNTY OF PEOPLES AND
AGAINST MULTINATIONALS
(HARARE, OCTOBER 16, 2018) Peasants' seeds are a heritage of peoples in
the service of humanity. They are the basis of global food production
and they enable peasants to produce and consumers and citizens to find
healthy and diversified food. They allow us to resist, maintain our
ancestral cultures and defend our peasant identity.
However, these seeds of life are threatened by the seed policies of rich
countries, free trade agreements and agribusiness. Under the pretext of
"improving" seed productivity, agribusiness has created a neo-liberal
seed system that has homogenized, impoverished and monopolized seeds,
causing the loss of three-quarters of seed diversity and annihilating a
diversity that it took people - thanks to the work of peasants - 10000
years to generate.
Three companies, Monsanto-Bayer, Syngenta-ChemChina and Dupont-Dow,
control more than 50% of the world's commercial seeds - increasingly
genetically modified seeds to resist herbicides and produce
insecticides. Under the impetus of the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF,
and through free trade agreements and laws protecting seed and breeders'
rights, such as UPOV standards, this seed system only allows the
circulation of its own seeds, criminalizing the saving, exchange,
donation and sale of local farmer seeds.
The situation is such that farmers have lost a lot of their local seeds,
are put in prison for the defense and exchange of their seed heritage,
and risk raids and seizure of their seeds. Biodiversity is destroyed by
the use of chemical fertilizers, hybrid seeds and genetically modified
organisms developed by multinational companies. Citizens have difficulty
accessing healthy, diversified and healthy food.
La Via Campesina and its allies are fighting to change the situation.
All over the world, La Via Campesina and its member organizations are
stepping up their efforts in training, education, mutual support and
seed exchange. We fight for national laws and international treaties to
guarantee the rights of farmers to save, use, exchange, sell and protect
their seeds against biopiracy and genetic contamination, we write books
on the history of seeds, carry out studies and mapping. We also found
agro-ecology schools and organize peasant' seed exchange fairs. We
exercise our right of self-determination to select the seed varieties we
want to plant and reject economically, ecologically and culturally
dangerous varieties. These are rights affirmed by the International
Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and by the
United Nations Declaration on Peasants' Rights which has just been
adopted by the Human Rights Council in Geneva. It is also the only way
to ensure healthy food for citizens, the preservation of biodiversity
and the achievement of food sovereignty.
It is in this spirit that we launched in 2001 in Rome the International
Campaign of PEASANT SEEDS, A HERITAGE OF PEOPLES IN THE SERVICE OF
HUMANITY, with the objective of promoting the recovery of traditional
systems for the conservation, maintenance and exchange of local seeds
and the inalienable collective rights of peasants over their seeds. On
this October 16, 2018, on the occasion of the World Day of Action for
Food Sovereignty of Peoples and Against Multinationals, we are
relaunching this campaign and the "ADOPT A SEED" ACTION.
We call on every peasant, peasant family or community to engage in the
adoption of a variety of plant or animal seeds, to become the guardian
of this seed, ensuring its propagation, reproduction and distribution
and to engage in the collective defense of their rights to use,
exchange, sell and protect them. In this way, we will create a large
network of peasant seeds to save those that have become rare and extend
production towards the food sovereignty of peoples.
By adopting a seed, peasant families preserve their identity and
territory and affirm their peasant way of life. They claim the
historical memory and ancestral culture of seed management, promoting an
urban and rural ecological agriculture that reproduces the miracle of
more seeds and food of better quality, taste and nutritional value.
No government measure can limit the collective rights of farmers to use,
exchange and sell their seeds. Free consent between farmers should be
applied without restriction.
LA VIA CAMPESINA
WITHOUT SEEDS, THERE IS NO AGRICULTURE; WITHOUT AGRICULTURE, THERE IS NO
FOOD; AND WITHOUT FOOD, THERE ARE NO PEOPLES.
WE FEED OUR PEOPLES AND BUILD THE MOVEMENT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!
-------------------------
Contact :
[FR/EN] Geneviève Lalumière (Québec) | genevieve.lalumiere(a)gmail.com |
00 1 514 577 9265
[FR/EN/ES] Antonio Onorati (Italy) | antonio.onorati48(a)gmail.com | 00 39
340 821 9456
[FR] Guy Kastler (France) | guy.kastler(a)wanadoo.fr | 00 33 6 03 94 57 21
6 years, 2 months
- 1
- 0
Press Release: World Bank – IMF Guilty of Promoting Land Grabs, Increasing Inequality
by La Via Campesina
-------- Original Message --------
SUBJECT:
Press Release: World Bank - IMF Guilty of Promoting Land Grabs,
Increasing Inequality
DATE:
2018-10-08 06:57
FROM:
Abhilash <abhilash(a)viacampesina.org>
TO:
viacampesina(a)viacampesina.org
WORLD BANK – IMF GUILTY OF PROMOTING LAND GRABS, INCREASING INEQUALITY
> "Annual meeting in Bali this week is just a sham to cover up their criminal negligence of people's interests," say peasants.
> -------------------------
_LA VIA CAMPESINA PRESS RELEASE: _
07 OCTOBER, BALI: At a meeting of La Via Campesina facilitated by
Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) in Bali, peasant organisations from Asia,
Africa, Americas and Europe have unanimously held World Bank and IMF
responsible for facilitating large scale land grab, deforestation and
ocean grabbing around the world, which has led to inequality, poverty
and global hunger. Peasants pointed to several decades of neo-liberal
push from World Bank and IMF for privatisation and de-regulation in
developing countries, as among the major factors that has led to
increased cost of living for peasant communities.
Over the last 30-40 years the World Bank and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and more recently the WTO have forced countries to decrease
investment in food production and to reduce support for peasant and
small farmers.Under neo-liberal policies, state managed food reserves
have been considered too expensive and governments have been forced to
reduce and privatize them under structural adjustment regimes.
Representatives from countries such as Timor Leste, Thailand, Kenya,
Cambodia, Malaysia, France, Indonesia, South Korea, India, Nepal and Sri
Lanka have cited several instances of large scale land grab in their
countries, to facilitate massive infrastructural projects that are
funded by the World Bank and IMF.
DAVID CALLEB OTIENO FROM KENYAN PEASANTS LEAGUE said, "In Kenya
recently, IMF pushed for the enactment of Finance ACT 2018 that has
increased tax on fuels, mobile money transfer, and repealed the interest
rate law. The intention is to benefit Kenyan creditors to continue
earning from Kenya's servicing of the debts at the expense of the well
being of Kenyan people. There is a freeze on welfare spending in Kenya.
Kenyan Debt to GDP ratio now stands at almost 70% of the GDP. Caught in
this debt trap, almost everything is being privatised - transport,
water, telecommunication. Peasants have lost their autonomy over seeds
and our agricultural policies are pushed towards incentivising
cultivation of cash crops. All these policies are being pushed at the
behest of IMF and World Bank."
MS JEONGYEOL KIM FROM KOREAN WOMEN PEASANTS' ASSOCIATION added, "South
Korea has signed trade agreements with 52 countries and these agreements
guide how agricultural policies are framed in the country. There has
been a consistent drive to turn away from peasant agriculture and adopt
an export-oriented agribusiness model. This has led to increase in rural
debt and a complete destruction of peasant livelihoods. Peasant women
face the worst of this industrial model, that is heavy on use of
chemical inputs. This shift in the way we do agriculture came about
largely due to conditions put forth by IMF and World Bank while giving
loans."
BARAMEE CHAIRAYAT FROM ASSEMBLY OF THE POOR, THAILAND said "The National
Development Plan in Thailand always had the blessing of World Bank and
it meant that agricultural land and public forests were being diverted
to make way for massive highways, large agribusiness plantations and
sugar cane factories. Over a period of four decades much of rural
Thailand has become landless. They have enacted laws that alienated
indigenous peoples from their forest."
CLAUDE GIROD FROM CONFEDERATION PAYSANNE, FRANCE, the massive drive for
industrialisation and agribusiness in African continent, coming as a
result of conditional loans extended by World Bank and IMF have led to
inescapable debt traps resulting in conflicts, wars and mass migration."
"World Bank and IMF have, in the name of Structural Adjustment
Programme, pushed for financialisation and privatisation of natural
resources in Indonesia. When people resist these land grabs - taking
place whether in the name of REDD+ or any other such programs - peasants
are attacked, jailed and criminalised. We have the most recent case of
Ahmad Azhari, who was kept in prison for nearly 9 months for defending
the rights of peasants. All these institutions are here to help
corporations expand their businesses rather than lifting people out of
poverty", SAID ZAINAL ARIFIN FUAD, NATIONAL PEASANT LEADER FROM SERIKAT
PETANI INDONESIA (SPI)
"There is also a danger of co-option and appropriation. If you take the
case of agrarian reform there have been several instances where World
Bank and IMF also tries to speak the language of the peasant struggle by
supporting agrarian reform, but those are in fact market-linked or
market assisted forms of agrarian reform, which is not what peasant
communities want", ADDED ZAINAL
The peasant organisations have pledged to expose the incriminating role
of World Bank and IMF in increasing inequality, land dispossession and
poverty, even as the annual meeting of these bodies are under way this
week in Bali, starting from 08 October.
La Via Campesina denounces the impunity with which these destructive
policies are pushed forth by World Bank and IMF. We will continue our
campaign for realising food sovereignty and freeing agriculture from
trade negotiations.
-------------------------
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Zainal Arifin Fuad, SPI, Indonesia -- +62812 8932 1398 --
zainal(a)spi.or.id
Jeongyeol Kim, KWPA, Korea -- +82 10 4811 7996 -- kimj77689(a)gmail.com
https://viacampesina.org/en/world-bank-imf-guilty-of-promoting-land-grabs...
6 years, 3 months
- 1
- 0
- ← Newer
- 1
- Older →