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[Info EN] Position of the La Via Campesina in Honduras against the increasing criminalisation of the peasant and indigenous social struggle
by La Vía Campesina 22 Mar '16

22 Mar '16

HUMAN RIGHTS POSITION OF THE LA VIA CAMPESINA IN HONDURAS AGAINST THE INCREASING CRIMINALISATION OF THE PEASANT AND INDIGENOUS SOCIAL STRUGGLE [1] Published on Tuesday, 22 March 2016 20:12 [2](Comayagua, March 16th, 2016) We, the organisations belonging to La Via Campesina Honduras - The National Office of Rural Workers (CNTC); The National Association of Honduran Peasants (ANACH); The Council for the Integral Development of Women Peasants (CODIMCA); The National Peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant Youth Front (FRENAJUC); and the regional representatives of the Association for the Development of Honduras (ADROH) from Gracias, Lempira; Opatoro and Márcala, La Paz; Colomoncagua, and Intibucá, meeting together in the municipality of Siguatepeque, Comayagua - responding to the very serious social and political crisis affecting women and men peasants, indigenous people, the Garifuna people, and the popular movement throughout the country, strongly condemn: 1. The state policy of neglecting and fragmenting small-scale peasant production. 2. The extreme poverty in rural areas (more than 3 million peasants are suffering from hunger) with poverty levels as high as 70% of the population, of whom 54% are in extreme poverty. 3. The violent evictions taking place on orders of the Courts and the National Police and serving the interests of the power elite and landowners. 4. The imprisonment of more than 5,000 peasants, including 1,700 peasant women, and the assassination of over 140 women and men peasants in conflicts involving land tenure or the defence of territory. 5. The new Criminal Code bill, which we strongly oppose - both because the peasant movement was not consulted and it criminalises the peasant struggle for land as well as all social movement demands. 6. The negative effects of climate change on production, productivity and food sovereignty. These are so severe that, as has never happened before in the history of Honduras, we now have to import corn, beans, rice, vegetables, meat, eggs, and other foods. 7. The total lack of interest shown by the Executive and the Parliament in discussing or passing the proposed bill for a Comprehensive Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity for Food Sovereignty and Rural Development. The purpose of the bill is to create a new, equitable, and fair legal framework for the nonviolent resolution of the country's agrarian problems. 8. The very worrisome levels of breakdown of state institutions. The Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches, the Supreme Court, and the Office of the Public Prosecutor have all been linked to acts of corruption. These government bodies have chosen a public policy of open repression against peasants, human rights defenders, and social commentators like the journalist David Romero Ellner, to whom the Honduran state has given a ten-year prison sentence for six defamation offenses. Similarly, the fire sale of our national sovereignty, with the creation of Economic Development Zones (ZEDE), has led to the large-scale displacement of rural families. 9. The persecution and assassination of persons engaged in struggles to defend land and territory. This includes the assassinations of Margarita Murillo, Berta Cáceres, and Nelson Noé García, among other sisters and brothers. The arrest without warrant of Juan Angel Flores, the president of the Unified Peasant Movement of the Aguan (MUCA), and that of human rights defender and member of the Permanent Human Rights Observatory of the Aguan, Orbelina Flores Hernández. 10. The political persecution of the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina Honduras, Rafael Alegría, and other peasant leaders at the national, regional, and local levels, as well as the stalking of and attacks against La Via Campesina offices - a total of 6 incidents since the 2009 coup. We are very concerned by the attack on our employee Cristian Mauricio Alegría, who was shot in his left hand in front of La Via Campesina premises in the Colonia Alameda in Tegucigalpa, on March 15th of this year. For these and other reasons, we, the progressive Honduran peasant movement belonging to La Via Campesina, are making the following demands: 1. That the Parliament immediately discuss and pass the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity for Food Sovereignty and Rural Development Bill, which was presented to it on April 9th, 2014. 2. The immediate and unconditional release of the more than 5,000 peasants who are on trial for asserting their right to land and defending their territory. 3. As a Peasant Movement, we are joining the Popular Honduran Articulation "Berta Cáceres Lives On" (Articulación Popular Hondureña "Berta Cáceres Vive") in demanding that the political assassination of our sister Berta Cáceres be clarified. We are calling for the immediate withdrawal of DESA-Agua Zarca from the sacred waters of the Gualcarque River; this also applies to the international bodies that are supporting these death projects. 4. We are proposing a Peasant-Indigenous-Garifuna Alliance for the defence of land and territory, and we are calling for a National mobilisation. 5. We are in complete solidarity with the journalist David Romero, and we demand that the government provide a just and peaceful solution to this case. The Honduran people will not permit more attacks against freedom of expression and the reporting of corruption in our country. 6. We call upon the national and international community to speak out in defence of life and of Human Rights in our country, and to condemn the state policy of criminalizing and suppressing social struggles. HONDURAN PEASANT MOVEMENT BELONGING TO LA VIA CAMPESINA (MOVIMIENTO CAMPESINO HONDUREÑO ARTICULADO EN LA VÍA CAMPESINA). CENTRAL NACIONAL DE TRABAJADORES DEL CAMPO (CNTC) ASOCIACIÓN NACIONAL DE CAMPESINOS HONDUREÑOS (ANACH) CONSEJO PARA EL DESARROLLO INTEGRAL DE LA MUJER CAMPESINA (CODIMCA) FRENTE NACIONAL DE JUVENTUD CAMPESINOS, INDIGENAS Y AFRODESCENDIENTES (FRENAJUC) REPRESENTACION DE ASOCIACIÓN PARA EL DESARROLLO DE HONDURAS (ADROH) LA VIA CAMPESINA HONDURAS (LVC) Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/human-rights-m… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/Comunicado%20Honduras%202.jpg

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[Info EN] International Condemnation: Honduras - End the violence and death against the peasant-indigenous movement
by La Vía Campesina 16 Mar '16

16 Mar '16

HUMAN RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION: HONDURAS - END THE VIOLENCE AND DEATH AGAINST THE PEASANT-INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT [1] Published on Thursday, 17 March 2016 04:30 (Managua, 16 March 2016) La Vía Campesina denounces the grave criminalization taking place in Honduras today in the form of prisons, repression and the assassination of peasant and indigenous leaders. In the last few weeks the situation has worsened greatly with the proliferation of hired assassins aiming to take the lives of those who demand land to produce food, of those who struggle against extractivism, dams, and agribusiness. Yesterday, March 15th, several regrettable events took place which we summarize below. All require the urgent attention and action of our organizations, allies and human rights entities: 1. Assassination attempt on Cristian Alegría, cousin of Rafael Alegría, lawmaker for the Libre Party and Coordinator of La Vía Campesina Honduras. This attack ocurred in front of La Vía Campesina offices located at Colonia Alameda, Tegucigalpa. 2. Assassination of Nelson García, member of COPINH and community leader in Río Chiquito. This tragic event took place during the forced eviction of the Río Lindo community, in department of Cortés, when an estimated 100 police officers, 20 members of the military police, 10 members of the Army, and various members of DGIC invaded the territory previously recovered by 150 families, 75 of which had built homes in the area with materials and efforts they worked hard to obtain. 3. Capture of Muca President Juan Ángel Flores in the departament of Colón. Detained in the early morning and accussed of links to drug trafficking, the lack of evidence forced authorities to release him hours later. 4. Detention of public defender Orbelina Flores Hernández, member of the Permanent Human Rights Observatory of the Aguan, accusing her of involvement in land conflicts. 5. Sentencing of David Romero, journalist of Radio Globo, to 10 years in prison. David has been courageously denouncing the embezzlement of social security and other acts of corruption in Honduras, all of which indicate involvement of the ruling party. It is evident that these attacks are directed at combative social movements engaged in the struggle for land and in defense of territories such as La Vía Campesina, COPINH and Muca. As such, we of La Vía Campesina: 1. Denounce the Honduran government for executing a plan of repression against leaders and social movements. 2. Demand respect for the life of Honduran social activists. 3. Call for international human rights organizations to come to Honduras and accompany the grave humanitarian situation being faced in the country. It is important that the Honduran government be denounced at the international level for its direct attacks on, and criminalization of, social struggles. 4. Ask for all those concerned with human rights and justice to articulate public acts of solidarity at Honduran embassies around the world. To make these actions known write to viacampesina(a)viacampesina.org and, in Honduras, contact the offices of La Vía Campesina in Tegucigalpa by emailing viacampesinahonduras2015(a)gmail.com. Members of the press and allies should contact: Rafael Alegría, 00504 9969-5091, office 00504 2235-9915 and Wendy Cruz 00504 9983-8506. For La Vía Campesina, solidarity and internationalism are the key values of our movement. As such, we will continue monitoring the situation in Honduras closely, making public and denouncing internationally the persecution and criminalization faced by peasant, indigenous, and afro movements engaged in the frontline struggle to defend our territories against transnational capital and its attempt to take control of our natural resources. GLOBALIZE STRUGGLE! GLOBALIZE HOPE! FOR OUR DEAD, NOT ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE! AN ENTIRE LIFE OF STRUGGLE! Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/human-rights-m…

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[Info EN] La Via Campesina e-Newsletter, February 2016
by La Vía Campesina 16 Mar '16

16 Mar '16

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[Info EN] March 8th: Organising and struggle to win our rights
by La Vía Campesina 07 Mar '16

07 Mar '16

March 8th: Organising and struggle to win our rights [1] Published on Monday, 07 March 2016 20:36 (Harare, March 8th, 2016) Today, International Women's Day, La Via Campesina is calling for action against capitalist violence all over the world. Capitalist violence is not only the violence that is directly inflicted upon women; it is also an integral part of a social context of exploitation and dispossession that is characterised by the historical oppression and violation of the basic rights of women peasants, farmers, and farmworkers, landless women, indigenous women and black women. La Via Campesina emphasises the importance of organising and struggle, leading to liberation and awareness and enabling women to participate in politics as historical subjects - with the goal of building a just society, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. The international peasant and farmer movement is very troubled to see that, with the spread of conservative policies which constitute an attack on women's human rights and their very lives, there is growing oppression of women by capitalism and the patriarchy around the world. In Turkey, where we recently held the La Via Campesina Midterm Women's Assembly, we saw how the situation of women has worsened with the growing extension of neoliberal and conservative policies. Women continue to be deprived of their most basic freedom, of their elementary rights; they are exposed to violence and to feminicide. In recent years, in this region of the world, there has been a dramatic increase in murders of women. Girls are forced to marry when they are still very young. In the economic sphere, most of the precarious work is done by women. In the rural areas, women perform many jobs; they do not, however, have economic freedom or access to property, and still less do they have social rights. In south-eastern Turkey, women's problems are being exacerbated by the ongoing war, and their lives are under very real threat. The current political situation in Turkey does not offer any solution to the problems faced by women. In fact, current policies are compounding the problems and increasing the discrimination against women. For these reasons, women are organising, and they are now leading many environmental, social, and political struggles. In recent days, we have learned with great sadness of the assassination of Berta Cáceres, peasant leader of the Lenca indigenous people and member of COPINH (the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras). Berta Cáceres had repeatedly expressed her opposition to the destructive plans and actions of the Honduran government, which is offering natural resource concessions to foreign transnational corporations for dam construction and is facilitating the takeover of the resources belonging to the indigenous peoples. It is for these reasons, that the women and men of La Via Campesina, confronted by this context of criminalisation, are calling for March 8th, 2016, to be a day of mobilising and organising against all forms of oppression, of taking to the streets and public areas of our cities, towns, and territories, in order to denounce the destructive capitalist and agribusiness model and to show how it harms the lives of women and jeopardises the food sovereignty of the world's peoples - directly affecting women peasants and small-scale farmers. We will continue to struggle for new gender relations within our movement, and we will continue to promote a societal model based on justice and equality. BERTA LIVES ON! THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES! GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE! GLOBALIZE HOPE! LONG LIVE OUR SOLIDARITY WITH TURKISH WOMEN! _See also:_ La Via Campesina Women's Manifesto [2] _Video:_ Women Planting Struggles and Hope! [3] _Postcards and audios:_ Campaign to Stop Violence Against Women [4] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/women-mainmenu… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/our-conferences-mainmenu-28/6-jakarta-… [3] http://tv.viacampesina.org/Women-planting-struggles-and-hope?lang=en [4] http://tv.viacampesina.org/Post-cards-to-End-violence-againts?lang=en

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[Info EN] Assassination of Bertha Cáceres - Statement from La Via Campesina
by La Vía Campesina 03 Mar '16

03 Mar '16

STATEMENT AND CALL TO ACTION FROM LA VIA CAMPESINA IN RESPONSE TO THE ASSASSINATION OF OUR SISTER IN IN STRUGGLE: BERTHA CÁCERES The international peasant movement La Via Campesina denounces to the national and international public that on this day, 3 March 2016 in the early hours of dawn, our dear sister in struggle, BERTHA CÁCERES, General Coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) was assassinated. The assassination of BERTHA CÁCERES took place in her home, while she was resting, which drastically increases the risk to women and men defenders, to the indigenous peoples who resist in communities, and to members of popular and social movement organizations who have taken up our legitimate struggle. On numerous occasions, BERTHA CÁCERES had publicly denounced ill-intentioned actions and threats both by the current government regarding concessions of natural resources, and by the foreign transnational corporations involved in the construction of dams and the capture of resources that belong to indigenous peoples. BERTHA CÁCERES was assigned precautionary measures demanding that the State of Honduras protect her physical integrity. That same State of Honduras took measures to persecute BERTHA CÁCERES for her struggle against foreign companies that destroy natural resources. The whole world recognized the courage and contribution of BERTHA CÁCERES in her struggle for human rights, when she was honored with the prestigious international Goldman Prize for the defense of natural resources in the country. We recognize the historic struggle of BERTHA CÁCERES, side by side with our peoples, to claim the right to land, her struggle for the defense of our sovereignty, for comprehensive agrarian reform, for the food security of our peoples. It is fitting to highlight that on 9 April 2014, parliament member and General Coordinator of La Via Campesina Honduras, Rafael Alegría, introduced in National Congress a proposed law for Comprehensive Agrarian Reform with Gender Equity for Food Sovereignty and Rural Development, to seek solutions through the political channels to the problems that peasants and indigenous peoples face today in Honduras. To this day, this proposal has not been taken into account by the Board of Directors of the National Congress. For this reason, La Via Campesina Honduras denounces the government of Honduras and the transnational companies that extract and exploit our country's natural resources. As an international movement of peasants, we demand that the State of Honduras punish those responsible for this vile assassination, and we call to all international organizations that defend human rights to join this demand. La Via Campesina makes a call to organize protest actions in the embassies of Honduras around the world to demand clarity in this crime, and to protect defenders of land and territory, and of human rights in Honduras. We express our solidarity and extend our condolences to the family of Bertha Cáceres, to the Lenca people, and to the people of Honduras who suffer her irreparable loss. TEGUCIGALPA M.D.C. 3 MARCH 2016 GLOBALIZE STRUGGLE, GLOBALIZE HOPE BERTHA CÁCERES ¡VIVE! THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES --

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[Info EN] Guy Kastler: FAO should support seed selection by peasants and small scale farmers
by La Vía Campesina 16 Feb '16

16 Feb '16

Guy Kastler: FAO should support seed selection by peasants and small scale farmers [1] Published on Tuesday, 16 February 2016 18:18 THE FAO SHOULD SUPPORT SEED SELECTION BY PEASANTS AND SMALL-SCALE FARMERS, AND IT SHOULD CONDEMN THE CONFISCATION OF CULTIVATED BIODIVERSITY THROUGH GENE PATENTING _ [2]La Via Campesina, Guy Kastler_ It was to be expected that, in order to discuss the subject of biotechnology, the FAO would call upon those who are using biotechnology in research and in industry. However, what was definitely not to be expected was for the FAO, in conducting its discussions on public policy and food policy, to turn almost exclusively to these same actors, while at the same time a very large number of peasant, small-scale farmer, and civil society organisations that are opposed to the uncontrolled development of biotechnology have not been invited to speak - or only in a very marginal way through the invitation that was sent to me. The organisations in question have released a public statement that I am asking you to take into consideration. Genetically-modified plants have not fulfilled their promises. The majority of them have been modified so as to be tolerant to herbicides. They have led to the rapid appearance of herbicide-resistant adventitious weeds, to an exponential rise in the use of ever more toxic herbicides, and, in turn, to serious harm to public health and to the environment. Peasant farmers and rural area residents and their families are the first victims of these negative effects. The other large class of genetically-modified plants produces insecticidal substances that lead to insects' becoming resistant - and thus to an already programmed agronomic failure. Here again, the first victims are the peasants and small-scale farmers who have lost their harvests, often despite additional use of toxic chemical insecticides. The genetic technologies used to produce these plants have caused numerous unintended and unforeseen effects that industry is desperately trying to hide. The most visible of these effects have been the loss of harvests and the decline in the quality of crops. Thus, the Burkina Faso cotton sector lost its place in the market, which it had won with much effort and which was based on the quality of its cotton fibre; with the switch to GMOs there was a drastic decline in quality. What good is it to increase yields if the harvest is unsaleable. Here, once more, peasants and small-scale farmers are the first to suffer, whereas the corporations that are responsible for such catastrophes simply say that they are unable to explain what happened. Genetically-modified seeds will always be of no importance for food security. Their purchase cost and the cost of the inputs that are indispensable for their cultivation limits their use to the only markets in which they are affordable: the production of industrially-farmed crops for animal feed in the rich countries, for agro-fuels, and for the emerging biomass economy - which is taking over agricultural land for non-food uses. Industry is not interested in the food crops that provide three quarters of the world's available food. The peasants and small-scale farmers who produce this food do not have enough money to buy GMOs and the inputs indispensable to their cultivation. GMOs are only a means of taking over their farmland so as to replace their food crops by the industrial monoculture of agro-exports. Every time genetically-modified plants are approved, the immense biodiversity of cultivated plants resulting from many centuries of selection by peasants and small-scale farmers is replaced by a few patented varieties. When pollen and seeds are moved by wind, by insects, or by farm equipment, patented genes are carried from one field to another. They contaminate peasant seeds, which are then considered as infringements of industry's patented varieties. That is how, in the United States, in less than 20 years, a point has been reached where patented GMOs represent 89% of the maize and 94% of the soya that is planted. The prohibition against farmers' reusing their own harvested seeds, as well as constituting a violation of their rights, also prevents them from adapting their crops to climate change. Climate change is not linear. At the moment when the seeds are planted, nobody knows what that year's weather is going to be like. Genes that are resistant to drought are useless in years when there are tornados or exceptional floods, and vice versa. The resilience of our crops in the face of the increasing violence of climate shocks, depends above all on their genetic diversity and on their adaptation to their local areas - and not on this or that new gene that has been patented in a laboratory. Only the selections made by peasants and small-scale farmers in their fields, from seeds that have been harvested locally, can foster such an adaptation; without them, there can be no real solution. The patents that accompany all GMOs are a false solution because they prohibit seed selection by peasants and small-scale farmers. Confronted with the rejection of GMOs by a large number of consumers, industry has invented new genetic modification techniques which it wants to have exempted from GMO regulations. These genetic engineering techniques consist of modifying the genes of plant cells that are grown in vitro. There is no possible question that they produce modified living organisms as included in the definition in the Cartagena Protocol. But, on the pretext that some of these techniques do not leave visible traces, in the plants that are finally sold on the market, of the genetic material that was introduced into the plant cells in order to modify their genome, industry wants these plants not to be classified as GMOs - so as to avoid both the international rules of the Cartagena Protocol and the labelling, evaluation, and follow-up requirements that are part of many national regulatory systems. In order to bring this about, industry is trying to limit the definition of GMOs so that it only applies to the insertion of recombinant DNA that can be found in the final product. It is inadmissible that the FAO, in its own publications, has taken up, and given credibility to, this flagrant violation of the only recognised international definition of GMOs given by the Cartagena Protocol. This new manoeuvre is all the more perverse because it allows industry to patent genes without distinguishing them from genes existing naturally in the seeds of peasants and small-scale farmers and in seed banks. In this way, the whole of available cultivated biodiversity comes under the control of the handful of multinationals holding the largest patent portfolios. Peasants and small-scale farmers and small seed selectors can no longer find out - in order to protect themselves - whether or not the seeds that they are using contain patented genes. This legal insecurity is leading to an acceleration of the extreme concentration of the seed industry that allows three multinationals to control more than half of today's world seed trade. It is also leading to the disappearance of the immense diversity of peasant seeds that are saved and renewed year after year by peasants and small-scale farmers in their fields. In order to contribute to this new biopiracy, the Divseek programme is making freely available information on the genetic sequences of all of the plant resources in the ITPGRFA's Multilateral System. In so doing, it is violating the obligations of prior consent and benefit sharing. ITPGRFA's complicity in collaborating with this programme is an unacceptable betrayal of the trust of millions of peasants and small-scale farmers who have entrusted it with their seeds. La Via Campesina and allied civil society organisations expect the FAO to put an immediate end to this new biopiracy and to any type of support for genetic modification technologies, the only purpose of which is to allow a handful of multinationals to take over and to patent the entirety of existing cultivated biodiversity. The FAO should support the peasants and small-scale farmers organisations and the researchers that are involved in collaborative peasant seed selection programmes which strengthen food sovereignty and peasant agroecology. Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/biodiversity-a… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-16-Guy%20FAO.jpg

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[Info EN] Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN: More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting
by La Vía Campesina 15 Feb '16

15 Feb '16

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN [1] Published on Monday, 15 February 2016 10:37 PRESS RELEASE – LA VIA CAMPESINA, ETC AND GRAIN _ [2]_ _More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting_ (Rome, Monday 15 February, 2016) Just when the biotech companies that make transgenic seeds are merging, the corporate vision of biotechnology is showing up at FAO. At today's opening of the three-day International symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 civil society and social movement and organizations (CSOs) from four continents have issued a statement [3] denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for Genetically-engineered crops and livestock. The global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina, invited CSOs to sign the letter when the symposium's agenda became public. Two of the FAO keynote speakers are known proponents of GMOs, and the agenda and side events over the three days include speakers from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (a biotech trade group in the USA), Crop Life International (the global agrochemical trade association), DuPont (one of the world's largest biotech seed companies) and CEVA (a major veterinary medicine corporation), among others. FAO has only invited one speaker or panellist openly critical of GMOs. Worse, one of the two speakers at the opening session is a former assistant director general of FAO who has pushed for so-called Terminator seeds (GMO seeds programmed to die at harvest time forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every growing season), in opposition to FAO's own public statements. The second keynoter's speech is titled, "Toward Ending the Misplaced Global Debate on Biotechnology" - suggesting that the FAO symposium should be the moment for shutting down biotech criticism. In convening the biased symposium, FAO is bowing to industry pressure that intensified following international meetings on agroecology hosted by FAO in 2014 and 2015. The agroecology meetings were a model of openness to all viewpoints, from peasants to industry. But the biotech industry apparently prefers now to have a meeting they can control. This is not the first time FAO has been drawn into this game. In 2010, FAO convened a biotechnology conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that blocked farmers from its organizing committee, and then tried to prevent their attendance at the conference itself. "We are alarmed that FAO is once again fronting for the same corporations, just when these companies are talking about further mergers amongst themselves, which would concentrate the commercial seeds sector in even fewer hands" the CSO statement denounces. It is clear, according to the Civil Society Statement, that industry wants to use FAO to re-launch their false message that genetically engineered crops can feed the world and cool the planet, while the reality is that nothing has changed on the biotech front. GMOs don't feed people, they are mostly planted in a handful of countries on industrial plantations for agrofuels and animal feed, they increase pesticide use, and they throw farmers off the land. Transnational biotech companies are trying to patent the planet's bodiversity, which shows that their main interest is to make enormous profits, and not to guarantee food security or food sovereignty. The industrial food system that these companies promote is also one of the main drivers of climate change. Confronted with the rejection of GMOs by many consumers and producers, the industry is now inventing new and possibly dangerous breeding techniques to genetically modify plants, without calling them GMOs. In doing so, they are trying to avoid current GMO regulations and trick consumers and farmers. The agroecology activities were much closer to the way that FAO should act, the Statement points out, "as a centre for knowledge exchange, without a hidden agenda on behalf of a few." Why does FAO now limit itself again to corporate biotechnology and deny the existence of peasant technologies? FAO should support the peasant technologies, that offer the most innovative, open source, and the effective pathway to ending hunger and malnutrition. It is time to stop pushing a narrow corporate agenda, says Civil Society. "The vast majority of the world's farmers are peasants, and it is peasants who feed the world. We need peasant-based technologies, not corporate biotechnologies." "It is high time that FAO puts an end to biopiracy and to its support for genetically modified crops, which only serve to allow a handful of transnational companies to patent and to grab all the existing biodiversity," said La Via Campesina leader Guy Kastler. "On the contrary, FAO should support farmers' organisations and researchers engaged in collaborative plant breeding in the service of food sovereignty and peasant agroecology". The statement and the list of signatories can be downloaded here: http://goo.gl/mjaZor [3] _Media contacts in Rome:_ Guy Kastler and other Via Campesina leaders Phone numbers: + 39 329 665 53 44 and +39 331 188 64 35 E-mail: lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/biodiversity-a… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-15-ETC-GRAIN-LVC.jpg [3] http://goo.gl/mjaZor

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[Info EN] Dairy Crisis: Enough evaluations, it’s high time for the Commission to act
by La Vía Campesina 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

Dairy Crisis: Enough evaluations, it's high time for the Commission to act [1] Published on Wednesday, 03 February 2016 19:47 [2]PRESS RELEASE Brussels, 2 February 2016 At the height of a crisis that has ruined thousands of dairy producers across Europe, the European Commission has once again chose to delay action, and opted for its usual practice of consultations, evaluations and studies. Claiming it is part of a larger effort to improve existing legislation, the EC has recently sent out a questionnaire to producer and agricultural organisations, alleging that by inquiring on the benefits and difficulties of the "Milk Package", the survey will improve its implementation in the field. ECVC believes that the current crisis of the milk sector and the desperate situation of milk producers demands measures that are well beyond the European Commission's conventional procedures of postponing decisions due to further studies, evaluations and the convening of experts to analyse what is clear to everyone: the complete failure of the measures contained in the "Milk Package". To assess the functioning of the "Milk Package" one only has to look out the window and behold the ruin of thousands of producers across the European Union and the disappearance of milk production in several regions, facts that have been pointed out by many sectorial organizations, including ECVC, after the High Level Group presented its recommendations. By favoring these narrow studies and evaluations, the European Commission, refuses to question its wrong assumptions that market volatility is inevitable and that the problem lies in the organizational model of production. What's more, it effectively closes the debate to other solutions, such as the restoring of an effective public instrument of production control that, among other things, assures the continuity of dairy farms - based on sustainable models- in all European territories. ECVC believes that it's high time to conclude and recognize, not to carry out further studies; not evaluate, but to take action for efficient tools of public regulations in order to maintain decent prices and fair incomes for dairy farmers, as well as to allow the control and adjustment of European production. _Contacts :_ Isabel Vilalba: (0034) 608905444 (ES) Jose -Miguel Pacheco: (0035) 1918736441 (PT, ES) Genevieve Savigny: (0033) 625551687 (EN, FR) Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2016-02-03-EU%20Milk%20Crisis.jpg

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[Info EN] La Via Campesina - Electronic Newsletter January 2016
by La Vía Campesina 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

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[Info EN] Happy New Year!
by La Vía Campesina 23 Dec '15

23 Dec '15

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