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Correct logo: On 17th April, We Struggle Against Transnational Companies and Free Trade Agreements
by La Vía Campesina 31 Mar '15

31 Mar '15

On 17th April, We Struggle Against Transnational Companies and Free Trade Agreements [1] Published on Monday, 30 March 2015 15:04 17 APRIL 2015: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEASANT AND FARMER STRUGGLE AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES AND FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS (Zimbabwe, Harare, March 30, 2015) La Via Campesina declared April 17th as the International Day of Peasant Struggle in order to highlight the struggle and to denounce the criminalization of protests. Peasant and farmers are persecuted and suffer violence on a daily basis as a result of the actions of agribusiness and the implementation of neoliberal policies in the countryside. For the International Peasant and Farmer Movement, it is urgent to speed up the approval of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people living in rural areas. The Declaration will be a tool to support the struggle for life and dignity in the countryside. This April 17th 2015, La Via Campesina will focus its mobilizations on the impacts of Transnational Corporations and Free Trade Agreements on peasant and small-scale agriculture and national food sovereignty. We are calling for the further strengthening of social struggle and of the world-wide organization of peoples, in order to demand a genuine agrarian reform and to assert the ancestral right to lands and territories, a central element of Peasant Agriculture and Peoples' Food Sovereignty. Since 1996 - in honour of the 19 landless peasants massacred in Brazil - the International Peasant Movement has celebrated this global day of action and mobilization. It is a day to celebrate and strengthen people's solidarity and resistance, and to deepen the alliance between city and countryside in support of a societal project based on social justice and the dignity of peoples. We, the women and men peasants and small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, afro-descendants, and landless people of the world are struggling to build a model of production based on peasant and small-scale agriculture and food sovereignty. Free Trade Agreements run counter to this project; they further increase the displacement, expulsion, and disappearance of peasants by promoting a capitalist industrialised mode of production heavily reliant on agrochemicals. These agreements are negotiated under the influence, and for the interests, of a handful of transnational corporations; the voice of the people is excluded. For La Via Campesina, policies that aim to open up and deregulate markets only serve the interests of transnational corporations. These commercial and trade agreements - be they multi- or bi-lateral - basically seek to protect foreign companies by establishing a set of conditions, measures, and rules to protect their investments. Meanwhile, the liberalization of markets has severe social and economic impacts on peasants and farmers in the North and in the South. Free Trade Agreements put the rights of commerce over all other rights and concerns. To provide just one example, the European Union, the United States, and Canada are currently negotiating the most significant Free Trade Agreements in history. Those agreements will liberalize trade and investment markets. They will have a global impact and define, in a way that is favourable to business, the new rules by which transnational companies can operate. If passed, these agreements will provide corporations with the new tools that they need to manipulate regulations, norms, and public policies in order to increase their profits, namely the Investor-State Dispute Resolution and the Regulatory Cooperation Council. As a result, states, regions and communities will lose the power to protect their own citizens and environments. In this context, we denounce the "arbitration" mechanism being used by these transnational companies to globalize, transnationalize, and privatize the world's judicial systems. Private corporations are being allowed to write the laws and to pursue a strategy aimed at weakening states and national sovereignty. Meanwhile, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is currently trying to re-invent itself and has launched a new offensive against national food production, distribution, and reserve systems, which is aimed at weakening the public systems that protect the people. On this Global Day of Action, La Via Campesina calls on its member organizations, friends and allies to take action in their countries and regions to strengthen our international struggle. These actions can be mobilizations, land occupations, seed exchanges, food sovereignty fairs, forums, cultural events, etc. You can register these actions and send us information about the planned events by sending a mail to lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org Please also send us pictures, videos, posters, flyers We will publish a map of all actions on www.viacampesina.org [2] GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE, GLOBALIZE HOPE! FOR PEOPLE FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES AND FTAS! Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/17-apri… [2] http://viacampesina.org/

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On 17th April, We Struggle Against Transnational Companies and Free Trade Agreements
by La Vía Campesina 30 Mar '15

30 Mar '15

On 17th April, We Struggle Against Transnational Companies and Free Trade Agreements [1] Published on Monday, 30 March 2015 14:04 17 APRIL 2015: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEASANT AND FARMER STRUGGLE AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES AND FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS (Zimbabwe, Harare, March 30, 2015) La Via Campesina declared April 17th as the International Day of Peasant Struggle in order to highlight the struggle and to denounce the criminalization of protests. Peasant and farmers are persecuted and suffer violence on a daily basis as a result of the actions of agribusiness and the implementation of neoliberal policies in the countryside. For the International Peasant and Farmer Movement, it is urgent to speed up the approval of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people living in rural areas. The Declaration will be a tool to support the struggle for life and dignity in the countryside. This April 17th 2015, La Via Campesina will focus its mobilizations on the impacts of Transnational Corporations and Free Trade Agreements on peasant and small-scale agriculture and national food sovereignty. We are calling for the further strengthening of social struggle and of the world-wide organization of peoples, in order to demand a genuine agrarian reform and to assert the ancestral right to lands and territories, a central element of Peasant Agriculture and Peoples' Food Sovereignty. Since 1996 - in honour of the 19 landless peasants massacred in Brazil - the International Peasant Movement has celebrated this global day of action and mobilization. It is a day to celebrate and strengthen people's solidarity and resistance, and to deepen the alliance between city and countryside in support of a societal project based on social justice and the dignity of peoples. We, the women and men peasants and small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, afro-descendants, and landless people of the world are struggling to build a model of production based on peasant and small-scale agriculture and food sovereignty. Free Trade Agreements run counter to this project; they further increase the displacement, expulsion, and disappearance of peasants by promoting a capitalist industrialised mode of production heavily reliant on agrochemicals. These agreements are negotiated under the influence, and for the interests, of a handful of transnational corporations; the voice of the people is excluded. For La Via Campesina, policies that aim to open up and deregulate markets only serve the interests of transnational corporations. These commercial and trade agreements - be they multi- or bi-lateral - basically seek to protect foreign companies by establishing a set of conditions, measures, and rules to protect their investments. Meanwhile, the liberalization of markets has severe social and economic impacts on peasants and farmers in the North and in the South. Free Trade Agreements put the rights of commerce over all other rights and concerns. To provide just one example, the European Union, the United States, and Canada are currently negotiating the most significant Free Trade Agreements in history. Those agreements will liberalize trade and investment markets. They will have a global impact and define, in a way that is favourable to business, the new rules by which transnational companies can operate. If passed, these agreements will provide corporations with the new tools that they need to manipulate regulations, norms, and public policies in order to increase their profits, namely the Investor-State Dispute Resolution and the Regulatory Cooperation Council. As a result, states, regions and communities will lose the power to protect their own citizens and environments. In this context, we denounce the "arbitration" mechanism being used by these transnational companies to globalize, transnationalize, and privatize the world's judicial systems. Private corporations are being allowed to write the laws and to pursue a strategy aimed at weakening states and national sovereignty. Meanwhile, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is currently trying to re-invent itself and has launched a new offensive against national food production, distribution, and reserve systems, which is aimed at weakening the public systems that protect the people. On this Global Day of Action, La Via Campesina calls on its member organizations, friends and allies to take action in their countries and regions to strengthen our international struggle. These actions can be mobilizations, land occupations, seed exchanges, food sovereignty fairs, forums, cultural events, etc. You can register these actions and send us information about the planned events by sending a mail to lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org Please also send us pictures, videos, posters, flyers We will publish a map of all actions on www.viacampesina.org [2] GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE, GLOBALIZE HOPE! FOR PEOPLE FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL COMPANIES AND FTAS! Links: ------ [1] http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/17-… [2] http://viacampesina.org/

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New edition of the Nyéléni Newsletter is now available online!
by La Vía Campesina 27 Mar '15

27 Mar '15

Rights to Natural Resources Published on Wednesday, 18 March 2015 15:41 [1]NEW EDITION OF THE NYÉLÉNI NEWSLETTER IS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE! As the world lurches from crisis to crisis, the value of land, water, forests, minerals and other natural resources as sources of wealth creation continues to rise. For those with long-standing ties to land, water and territories, nature's greatest wealth and value is life itself, and these crises simply confirm the necessity for humans to live symbiotically with nature. However for many, natural resources are things that can be parceled, packaged, changed, bought, sold and traded in markets far away from the original location of the resource. In this edition of Nyéléni learn more how peoples across the world are fighting to secure and defend their rights to natural resources and the rights of nature. Click here to download the english edition [2] or read it directly from www.nyeleni.org [3]! Links: ------ [1] http://www.viacampesina.org/en/images/2015-nyeleni-newsletter-natural%20res… [2] http://www.nyeleni.org/ccount/click.php?id=65 [3] http://www.nyeleni.org/

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La Via Campesina - Newsletter March 2015
by La Vía Campesina 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

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LVC-La Via Campesina at the World Social Forum in order to promote Food Sovereignty
by La Vía Campesina 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

La Via Campesina at the World Social Forum in order to promote Food Sovereignty [1] Published on Thursday, 26 March 2015 20:29 [2]Harare, 15 March, 2015 - La Via Campesina, an International Peasant Movement, will be represented at the World Social Forum in Tunis as from March 24th up to 28th by a bunch of fifty delegates, made up of peasant (men and women), farming labors, from more than 20 countries of the global regions, with a particular focus of the Arabic world delegates. La Via Campesina considers this as an important space for mobilization opportunity around alternatives and proposals in favor of Food sovereignty as well as strengthening the solidarity with the allies and other social movements, mainly the Maghreb and Mashreq ones. In fact, the 2015 WSF will be held at a crucial moment at which the social movement are seeking for justice, freedom and solidarity. The set goals and orientations do take into consideration the political, social and economic changes in Maghreb-Mashreq, and as well in the African continent, with regard to the ecological and economical crisis around the entire globe. The identified objectives are indications of a better solution to all these crucial issues, and promote the convergences and alternative construction. According to N'Diakhate Fall, a CNCR Peasant leader in Senegal, and a member of the International Coordination Committee of la Via Campesina, « Food sovereignty is an alternative, if well implemented, can solve in major part the crisis being lived by humanity, mainly the food and climate crisis». In Tunis, La Via Campesina will take part in many self-directed activities, and will be part of the Land and Water Global Convergence, the Resistance Global Convergence to the rhythm of the Transnational cooperation and a workshop to restore the local food systems withURGENCI, HIC and RIPESS. The complete agenda of la Via Campesina in Tunis is available here. A press conference is scheduled on March 26th at 11h30 in a venue to be confirmed. CONTACT FOR PRESS Lamine COULIBALY, laminezie(a)gmail.com +216 41293663 Boaventura MONJANE, boa.monjane(a)viacampesina.org +216 41293767 http://viacampesina.org/ [3] http://tv.viacampesina.org/ [4] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1768-la… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/2015-Tunis%20%20press%20release.jpg [3] http://viacampesina.org/ [4] http://tv.viacampesina.org/

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La Via Campesina at the World Social Forum in order to promote Food Sovereignty
by La Vía Campesina 26 Mar '15

26 Mar '15

La Via Campesina at the World Social Forum in order to promote Food Sovereignty Harare, 15 March, 2015 - La Via Campesina, an International Peasant Movement, will be represented at the World Social Forum in Tunis as from March 24th up to 28th by a bunch of fifty delegates, made up of peasant (men and women), farming labors, from more than 20 countries of the global regions, with a particular focus of the Arabic world delegates. La Via Campesina considers this as an important space for mobilization opportunity around alternatives and proposals in favor of Food sovereignty as well as strengthening the solidarity with the allies and other social movements, mainly the Maghreb and Mashreq ones. In fact, the 2015 WSF will be held at a crucial moment at which the social movement are seeking for justice, freedom and solidarity. The set goals and orientations do take into consideration the political, social and economic changes in Maghreb-Mashreq, and as well in the African continent, with regard to the ecological and economical crisis around the entire globe. The identified objectives are indications of a better solution to all these crucial issues, and promote the convergences and alternative construction. According to N'Diakhate Fall, a CNCR Peasant leader in Senegal, and a member of the International Coordination Committee of la Via Campesina, « Food sovereignty is an alternative, if well implemented, can solve in major part the crisis being lived by humanity, mainly the food and climate crisis». In Tunis, La Via Campesina will take part in many self-directed activities, and will be part of the Land and Water Global Convergence, the Resistance Global Convergence to the rhythm of the Transnational cooperation and a workshop to restore the local food systems with URGENCI, HIC and RIPESS. The complete agenda of la Via Campesina in Tunis is available here. A press conference is scheduled on March 26th at 11h30 in a venue to be confirmed. Contact presse Lamine COULIBALY, laminezie(a)gmail.com +216 41293663 Boaventura MONJANE, boa.monjane(a)viacampesina.org +216 41293767 http://viacampesina.org/ [1] http://tv.viacampesina.org/ [2] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/ [2] http://tv.viacampesina.org/

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New peoples' declaration brings common understanding of agroecology
by La Vía Campesina 23 Mar '15

23 Mar '15

New peoples' declaration brings common understanding of agroecology [1] Published on Friday, 20 March 2015 17:51 [2]LVC, MAB, MAELA, ROPPA, WFF, WFFP, WAMIP, IPC FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Zimbabwe, Harare, 18 March 2015 - "Agroecology is political; it requires us to challenge and transform structures of power in society. We need to put the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture and the commons in the hands of the peoples who feed the world," according to the declaration [3] of the International Forum of Agroecology. More than 200 people took part in the forum, held in Nyéléni, Mali, from February 23 to 27, representing organizations of peasants, indigenous people, agricultural workers, artisanal fisherfolks, and nomadic pastoralists, as well as consumers and other urban people. They met to develop joint strategies to promote agroecology and defend it from corporate co-optation. The declaration, available in English [3], Spanish [4] and French [5], calls for an immediate transformation based on truly agroecological food production by peasants, artisanal fishers, urban farmers etc. "Agroecology was always essential to humanity, because it builds autonomy for the food producers and provides a strong base for food sovereignty," says the document. The participants warn that "agroecology is at a crossroads." They note that "many multilateral institutions, governments, universities and research centers, some NGOs, corporations and others, [have] finally recognized agroecology. "But, they continue, "they have tried to redefine it as a narrow set of technologies, to offer some tools that appear to ease the sustainability crisis of industrial food production, while the existing structures of power remain unchallenged." They call this the "co-optation of agroecology to fine-tune the industrial food system, while paying lip service to the environmental discourse", and note that this has various names, including "climate smart agriculture", "sustainable-" or "ecological-intensification", industrial monoculture production of "organic" food, etc. For them, "these are not agroecology: we reject them, and we will fight to expose and block this insidious appropriation of agroecology." In the declaration they go on to say that: "The real solutions to the crises of the climate, malnutrition, etc., will not come from _conforming_ to the industrial model. We must_transform_ it and build our own local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on truly agroecological food production by peasants, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, urban farmers, etc. We cannot allow agroecology to be a tool of the industrial food production model: we see it as the essential _alternative_ to that model, and as the means of _transforming_ how we produce and consume food into something better for humanity and our Mother Earth." According to Andrea Ferrante, from the Italian Association of Biological Farmers [6] (AIAB) and La Via Campesina, the answer to feeding the world lies with agroecology. "We want a model that is based on our knowledge, our way of living, not on petrol and fake answers from the industrial world. We are looking at the future of our children," he said. Participants of the forum worked out a strategy plan with nine main targets and several sub-goals to support the political, social and economic issues of food producers. The action plan clearly places women at the centre, as fighting gender-based inequality is essential for agroecology. For Maria Noel, from Movimiento Agroecológico de America Latina y el Caribe [7](MAELA) agroecology has been practiced for centuries and it represents more than just a system of production. "It was a way of being, a way of life that respects the environment, provides a livelihood and income to the majority of food producers and in which women have always played great role," she said. The action plan also includes the building of local economies, sharing knowledge and building alliances between diverse constituencies. These constituencies claim their legitimacy to lead it into the future, as "policy makers cannot move forward on agroecology without us. They must respect and support our agroecological processes rather than continuing to support the forces that destroy us". They also call on peoples to join them in the collective task of jointly constructing agroecology as part of popular struggles to build a better world, a world based on mutual respect, social justice, equity, solidarity and harmony with our Mother Earth. FOR MORE INFORMATION Ibrahima Coulibaly, CNOP-LVC, + 22366761126, i_ibracoul(a)yahoo.fr (French and English) María Noel Salgado, MAELA, +59899762883, maria.noel.salgado(a)gmail.com (Spanish) Andreas Ferrante, AIAB-LVC, +393480189221, a.ferrante(a)aiab.it (English, Spanish, French and Italian) Judith Hitchman, Urgenci, +33 680600391, hitchman(a)club-internet.fr (English and French) WEBSITES http://www.foodsovereignty.org/ [8] http://www.viacampesina.org [9] see photos http://tv.viacampesina.org/Mali-Agroecology-is-in-our-hands [10] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/Nyeleni%20agroecolgy%2043.jpg [3] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe… [4] http://viacampesina.org/es/index.php/temas-principales-mainmenu-27/agricult… [5] http://viacampesina.org/fr/index.php/les-grands-ths-mainmenu-27/agriculture… [6] http://www.aiab.it/ [7] http://maela-agroecologia.org/ [8] http://www.foodsovereignty.org/ [9] http://viacampesina.org/ [10] http://tv.viacampesina.org/Mali-Agroecology-is-in-our-hands-669?lang=en

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La Via Campesina Program at the World Social Forum in Tunis 2015
by La Vía Campesina 19 Mar '15

19 Mar '15

LA VIA CAMPESINA PROGRAM AT THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN TUNIS 2015 [1] DOWNLOAD THE PROGRAM IN PDF HERE. [2] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/world-s… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/pdf/lvc-program-tunis.pdf

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Declaration of the International Forum for Agroecology
by La Vía Campesina 09 Mar '15

09 Mar '15

DECLARATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR AGROECOLOGY (http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe… [1]) NYÉLÉNI, MALI, 27 FEBRUARY 2015 We are delegates representing diverse organizations and international movements of small-scale food producers and consumers, including peasants, indigenous peoples and communities (together with hunters and gatherers), family farmers, rural workers, herders and pastoralists, fisherfolk and urban people. Together, the diverse constituencies our organizations represent produce some 70% of the food consumed by humanity. They are the primary global investors in agriculture, as well as the primary providers of jobs and livelihoods in the world. We gathered here at the Nyéléni Center in Sélingué, Mali from 24 to 27 of February, 2015, to come to a common understanding of agroecology as a key element in the construction of Food Sovereignty, and to develop joint strategies to promote Agroecology and defend it from co-optation. We are grateful to the people of Mali who have welcomed us in this beautiful land. They have taught us through their example, that the dialogue of our various forms of knowledge is based on respectful listening and on the collective construction of shared decisions. We stand in solidarity with our Malian sisters and brothers who struggle - sometimes sacrificing their lives - to defend their territories from the latest wave of land grabbing that affects so many of our countries. Agroecology means that we stand together in the circle of life, and this implies that we must also stand together in the circle of struggle against land grabbing and the criminalization of our movements. BUILDING ON THE PAST, LOOKING TO THE FUTURE Our peoples, constituencies, organizations and communities have already come very far in defining Food Sovereignty as a banner of joint struggle for justice, and as the larger framework for Agroecology. Our ancestral production systems have been developed over millennia, and during the past 30 to 40 years this has come to be called agroecology. Our agroecology includes successful practices and production, involves farmer-to-farmer and territorial processes, training schools, and we have developed sophisticated theoretical, technical and political constructions. In 2007 many of us gathered here at Nyéléni, at the Forum for Food Sovereignty, to strengthen our alliances and to expand and deepen our understanding of Food Sovereignty, through a collective construction between our diverse constituencies. Similarly, we gather here at the Agroecology Forum 2015 to enrich Agroecology through dialogue between diverse food producing peoples, as well as with consumers, urban communities, women, youth, and others. Today our movements, organized globally and regionally in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), have taken a new and historic step. Our diverse forms of smallholder food production based on agroecology generate local knowledge, promote social justice, nurture identity and culture, and strengthen the economic viability of rural areas. Smallholders defend our dignity when we choose to produce in an agroecological way. OVERCOMING MULTIPLE CRISES Agroecology is the answer to how to transform and repair our material reality in a food system and rural world that has been devastated by industrial food production and its so-called Green and Blue Revolutions. We see agroecology as a key form of resistance to an economic system that puts profit before life. The corporate model over-produces food that poisons us, destroys soil fertility, is responsible for the deforestation of rural areas, the contamination of water and the acidification of oceans and killing of fisheries. Essential natural resources have been commodified, and rising production costs are driving us off the land. Farmers' seeds are being stolen and sold back to us at exorbitant prices, bred as varieties that depend on costly, contaminating agrochemicals. The industrial food system is a key driver of the multiple crises of climate, food, environmental, public health and others. Free trade and corporate investment agreements, investor-state dispute settlement agreements, and false solutions such as carbon markets, and the growing financialization of land and food, etc., all further aggravate these crises. Agroecology within a food sovereignty framework offers us a collective path forward from these crises. AGROECOLOGY AT A CROSSROADS The industrial food system is beginning to exhaust it's productive and profit potential because of its internal contradictions - such as soil degradation, herbicide-tolerant weeds, depleted fisheries, pest- and disease-ravaged monocultural plantations - and it's increasingly obvious negative consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, and the health crisis of malnutrition, obesity, diabetes, colon disease and cancer caused by diets heavy in industrial and junk food. Popular pressure has caused many multilateral institutions, governments, universities and research centers, some NGOs, corporations and others, to finally recognize "agroecology". However, they have tried to redefine it as a narrow set of technologies, to offer some tools that appear to ease the sustainability crisis of industrial food production, while the existing structures of power remain unchallenged. This co-optation of agroecology to fine-tune the industrial food system, while paying lip service to the environmental discourse, has various names, including "climate smart agriculture", "sustainable-" or "ecological-intensification", industrial monoculture production of "organic" food, etc. For us, these are not agroecology: we reject them, and we will fight to expose and block this insidious appropriation of agroecology. The real solutions to the crises of the climate, malnutrition, etc., will not come from conforming to the industrial model. We must transform it and build our own local food systems that create new rural-urban links, based on truly agroecological food production by peasants, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, urban farmers, etc. We cannot allow agroecology to be a tool of the industrial food production model: we see it as the essential alternative to that model, and as the means of transforming how we produce and consume food into something better for humanity and our Mother Earth. OUR COMMON PILLARS AND PRINCIPLES OF AGROECOLOGY Agroecology is a way of life and the language of Nature, that we learn as her children. It is not a mere set of technologies or production practices. It cannot be implemented the same way in all territories. Rather it is based on principles that, while they may be similar across the diversity of our territories, can and are practiced in many different ways, with each sector contributing their own colors of their local reality and culture, while always respecting Mother Earth and our common, shared values. The production practices of agroecology (such as intercropping, traditional fishing and mobile pastoralism, integrating crops, trees, livestock and fish, manuring, compost, local seeds and animal breeds, etc.) are based on ecological principles like building life in the soil, recycling nutrients, the dynamic management of biodiversity and energy conservation at all scales. Agroecology drastically reduces our use of externally-purchased inputs that must be bought from industry. There is no use of agrotoxics, artificial hormones, GMOs or other dangerous new technologies in agroecology. Territories are a fundamental pillar of agroecology. Peoples and communities have the right to maintain their own spiritual and material relationships to their lands. They are entitled to secure, develop, control, and reconstruct their customary social structures and to administer their lands and territories, including fishing grounds, both politically and socially. This implies the full recognition of their laws, traditions, customs, tenure systems, and institutions, and constitutes the recognition of the self-determination and autonomy of peoples. Collective rights and access to the commons are a fundamental pillar of agroecology. We share access to territories that are the home to many different peer groups, and we have sophisticated customary systems for regulating access and avoiding conflicts that we want to preserve and to strengthen. The diverse knowledge and ways of knowing of our peoples are fundamental to agroecology. We develop our ways of knowing through dialogue among them (diálogo de saberes). Our learning processes are horizontal and peer-to-peer, based on popular education. They take place in our own training centers and territories (farmers teach farmers, fishers teach fishers, etc.), and are also intergenerational, with exchange of knowledge between youth and elders. Agroecology is developed through our own innovation, research, and crop and livestock selection and breeding. The core of our cosmovisions is the necessary equilibrium between nature, the cosmos and human beings. We recognize that as humans we are but a part of nature and the cosmos We share a spiritual connection with our lands and with the web of life. We love our lands and our peoples, and without that, we cannot defend our agroecology, fight for our rights, or feed the world. We reject the commodification of all forms of life. Families, communities, collectives, organizations and movements are the fertile soil in which agroecology flourishes. Collective self-organization and action are what make it possible to scale-up agroecology, build local food systems, and challenge corporate control of our food system. Solidarity between peoples, between rural and urban populations, is a critical ingredient. The autonomy of agroecology displaces the control of global markets and generates self-governance by communities. It means we minimize the use of purchased inputs that come from outside. It requires the re-shaping of markets so that they are based on the principles of solidarity economy and the ethics of responsible production and consumption. It promotes direct and fair short distribution chains. It implies a transparent relationship between producers and consumers, and is based on the solidarity of shared risks and benefits. Agroecology is political; it requires us to challenge and transform structures of power in society. We need to put the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture and the commons in the hands of the peoples who feed the world. Women and their knowledge, values, vision and leadership are critical for moving forward. Migration and globalization mean that women's work is increasing, yet women have far less access to resources than men. All too often, their work is neither recognized nor valued. For agroecology to achieve its full potential, there must be equal distribution of power, tasks, decision-making and remuneration. Youth, together with women, provide one of the two principle social bases for the evolution of agroecology. Agroecology can provide a radical space for young people to contribute to the social and ecological transformation that is underway in many of our societies. Youth bear the responsibility to carry forward the collective knowledge learned from their parents, elders and ancestors into the future. They are the stewards of agroecology for future generations. Agroecology must create a territorial and social dynamic that creates opportunities for rural youth and values women's leadership. STRATEGIES _I. Promote agroecological production through policies that…_ 1. Are territorial and holistic in their approach to social, economic and natural resources issues. 2. Secure access to land and resources in order to encourage long term investment by small-scale food producers. 3. Ensure an inclusive and accountable approach to the stewardship of resources, food production, public procurement policies, urban and rural infrastructure, and urban planning. 4. Promote decentralized and truly democratized planning processes in conjunction with relevant local governments and authorities. 5. Promote appropriate health and sanitation regulations that do not discriminate against small-scale food producers and processors who practice agroecology. 6. Promote policy to integrate the health and nutrition aspects of agroecology and of traditional medicines. 7. Ensure pastoralists' access to pastures, migration routes and sources of water as well as mobile services such as health, education and veterinary services that are based on and compatible with traditional practice. 8. Ensure customary rights to the commons. Ensure seed policies that guarantee the collective rights of peasants' and indigenous peoples' to use, exchange, breed, select and sell their own seeds. 9. Attract and support young people to join agroecological food production through strengthening access to land and natural resources, ensuring fair income, knowledge exchange and transmission. 10. Support urban and peri-urban agroecological production. 11. Protect the rights of communities that practice wild capture, hunting and gathering in their traditional areas - and encourage the ecological and cultural restoration of territories to their former abundance. 12. Implement policies that ensure the rights of fishing communities. 13. Implement the Tenure Guidelines of the Committee on World Food Security and the Small-scale Fisheries Guidelines of the FAO. 14. Develop and implement policies and programs that guarantee the right to a dignified life for rural workers, including true agrarian reform, and agroecology training. _ II. Knowledge sharing_ 1. Horizontal exchanges (peasant-to-peasant, fisher-to-fisher, pastoralist-to-pastoralist, consumer-and-producer, etc.) and intergenerational exchanges between generations and across different traditions, including new ideas. Women and youth must be prioritised. 2. Peoples' control of the research agenda, objectives and methodology. 3. Systemize experience to learn from and build on historical memory. _III. Recognition of the central role of women_ 1. Fight for equal women's' rights in every sphere of agroecology, including workers' and labour rights, access to the Commons, direct access to markets, and control of income 2. Programs and projects must fully include women at all stages, from the earliest formulation through planning and application, with decision-making roles. _IV. Build local economies _ 1. Promote local markets for local products. 2. Support the development of alternative financial infrastructure, institutions and mechanisms to support both producers and consumers. 3. Reshape food markets through new relationships of solidarity between producers and consumers. 4. Develop links with the experience of solidarity economy and participatory guarantee systems, when appropriate. _V. Further develop and disseminate our vision of agroecology_ 1. Develop a communications plan for our vision of agroecology 2. Promote the health care and nutritional aspects of agroecology 3. Promote the territorial approach of agroecology 4. Promote practices that allows youth to carry forward the permanent regeneration of our agroecological vision 5. Promote agroecology as a key tool to reduce food waste and loss across the food system _VI. Build alliances _ 1. Consolidate and strengthen existing alliances such as with the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) 2. Expand our alliance to other social movements and public research organizations and institutions VII. Protect biodiversity and genetic resources 1. Protect, respect and ensure the stewardship of biodiversity 2. Take back control of seeds and reproductive material and implement producers' rights to use, sell and exchange their own seeds and animal breeds 3. Ensure that fishing communities play the most central role in controlling marine and inland waterways _VIII. Cool the planet and adapt to climate change_ 1. Ensure international institutions and governments recognize agroecology as defined in this document as a primary solution for tackling and adapting to climate change, and not "climate smart agriculture" or other false versions of agroecology 2. Identify, document and share good experiences of local initiatives on agroecology that address climate change. _IX. Denounce and fight corporate and institutional capture of agroecology_ 1. Fight corporate and institutional attempts to grab agroecology as a means to promote GMOs and other false solutions and dangerous new technologies. 2. Expose the corporate vested interests behind technical fixes such as climate-smart agriculture, sustainable intensification and "fine-tuning" of industrial aquaculture. 3. Fight the commodification and financialization of the ecological benefits of agroecology. We have built agroecology through many initiatives and struggles. We have the legitimacy to lead it into the future. Policy makers cannot move forward on agroecology without us. They must respect and support our agroecological processes rather than continuing to support the forces that destroy us. We call on our fellow peoples to join us in the collective task of collectively constructing agroecology as part of our popular struggles to build a better world, a world based on mutual respect, social justice, equity, solidarity and harmony with our Mother Earth. The International Forum on Agroecology was organized at the Nyeleni Center in Mali, from 24 to 27 February 2015 by the following organisations: Coordination Nationale des Organisations Paysannes du Mali (CNOP) as chair; La Via Campesina (LVC), More and Better (MaB), Movimiento Agroecológico de América Latina y el Caribe (MAELA) , Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA) , World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers (WFF), World Forum of Fisher Peoples (WFFP), World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP). Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-pe…

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March 8th: Women’s Struggle for Food Sovereignty; against violence and agribusiness
by La Vía Campesina 04 Mar '15

04 Mar '15

WOMEN WOMEN’S STRUGGLE: FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY; AGAINST VIOLENCE AND AGRIBUSINESS [1] Published on Thursday, 05 March 2015 00:12 (Harare, March 8th, 2015) Today, March 8th, International Women's Day, the Via Campesina calls for the coordination of actions to highlight the fundamental role played by women in guaranteeing Food Sovereignty - not only as a means of confronting the food crisis but as an essential ethical principle that has as its basis social justice and equality. On this day of struggle, we denounce the prevailing violence, against women specifically, because the agribusiness model and capitalist interests in the countryside have exacerbated social and gender inequalities. It is in this way that we struggle against patriarchy, which affects all aspects of our lives within our families, our organisations and communities and all that has to do with our gender and our sexuality. We also express our condemnation of feminicide, the murder of millions of girl children and women in all parts of the world, and we stand in solidarity with all the people who suffer discrimination and violence because of their gender and/or sexual identity. The role of women in the Via Campesina is part of what makes this movement unique, both in the history of peasant and farmer movements and among other social movements and international organisations. For Nettie Wiebe of the Via Campesina North America, "the work, the perspectives, the energy, the leadership, and the presence of women in the Via Campesina have transformed and strengthened our movement." Not only does the model of peasant and small-scale agriculture espoused by the Via Campesina International include women, but it also insists upon their rights and allows them to be fully equal as women peasants and small-scale farmers. In the present context, land-grabbing, dispossession, and exploitation by transnationals are increasing with the expansionist model of agribusiness, and there is a corresponding increase in the vulnerability of women peasant and indigenous women who every day face expulsion from their land. In the light of the foregoing, the Via Campesina affirms the necessity of an International Convention on the Rights of Women and Men Peasants. The existing international mechanisms and conventions have proved to be limited, both with regard to the protection of the rights of peasants and small-scale farmers and to the consequences of neo-liberal policies. On this International Day of March 8th, we, women and men of the Via Campesina are defending comprehensive land reform and the natural goods - land, water, and territory - that together guarantee food sovereignty through agroecological production and a renewed awareness of the value of peasant and small-scale agriculture. For this reason, we strongly decry the destruction and depredation resulting from monoculture and the indiscriminate use of toxic chemical inputs and from the harmful effects of the activities of the transnationals in our territories. Greater profitability and productivity in the countryside means a decline in decent living conditions for millions of women and men peasants and small-scale farmers. The market cannot continue to dictate agricultural policies and to damage the health of people and of nature. On this March 8th, 2015, we will continue to globalize our struggle and to globalize hope for a fairer and more egalitarian world for all women and men. We stand in solidarity with the Peruvian indigenous peasant woman Máxima Acuña in her struggle of resistance to a transnational mining company. Her strength and her dignity are a source of inspiration, enabling us to say: We want an end to the capitalist patriarchal system. See more on the following links: * WOMEN'S MANIFESTO [2] * Video: Women planting struggles and hope [3] * Post cards to End 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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