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Mozambican Peasants vs. the Great African Land Grab
by La Vía Campesina 08 Oct '14

08 Oct '14

MOZAMBICAN PEASANTS VS. THE GREAT AFRICAN LAND GRAB Maputo -- With a shimmering coastline stretching for more than 1,500 miles along the Indian Ocean, heartland game parks rivaling the Serengeti and a cornucopia of natural resources -- located mostly in land used by humble farming communities -- Mozambique is getting quite a lot of attention these days as one of Africa's most upcoming investment hubs and in vogue destinations. Investors have not wasted any time in carving out their stake in the country two decades into the relative stability following a 16-year civil war on the heels of independence. The cash-strapped Mozambican state technically owns all of the land within its borders, offering leases that are renewable up to 99 years to foreign governments and corporations for agribusiness or extractive industrial megaprojects. One such example is ProSavana [1], a Japanese and Brazilian-led development project with the blessing of the Mozambican government. ProSavana has earmarked land in the Nacala Corridor spanning three provinces and affecting 19 districts for monocrops such as soy for export. ProSavana, not unlike related land deals for coal and gas extraction, comes with hefty promises of economic growth marked by mass job creation and export potential. But under the surface, investments all too often uproot lives and livelihoods for those who depend on small-scale farming, fishing and pastoralism -- more than 70 percent of the population in the case of Mozambique. Many point to these projects as undisputed resource grabs [2] woven into the fabric of a greater neocolonial project in Mozambique and throughout Africa. "The idea of mass job creation is a myth," said Vicente Adriano, staff researcher for the Mozambican Peasant's Union (UNAC) [3], "The bottom line is that these projects create dependency within the class that has been historically, and continues to be, neglected by government policies and development plans." As a social movement, UNAC members pride themselves on being a revolutionary bunch. "Mobilization through resistance creates alternative forms of political sovereignty," Adriano offered. It was in that spirit that UNAC brought both its lead organizers and vulnerable farmers from each of Mozambique's ten provinces together in Maputo on October 1st and 2nd for its third annual peasant-led international conference on land. The conference came as the culmination of a series of regional Mozambican gatherings, where delegates shared concerns and discussed crosscutting strategies as means of opposition to land and resource grabs. "Our land is being occupied without our consultation," shared Helena Terra, a peasant from the central region, an area marked by small-scale vegetable and grain production that is now threatened by massive foreign-owned eucalyptus crops and coal exploration in residential areas. Terra explained that the once potable water in her village was now polluted by industrial activity, and unsafe for consumption. Water is not her only concern. In 2015, new coal projects seek to displace at least a hundred families -- but with the help of fellow UNAC organizers, Terra is undertaking legal measures to attempt to recover the land. "United as farmers, we have to solve these problems ourselves, and not wait for outsiders," said Augusto Mafigo, UNAC's president. The agricultural group's tactics -- from agroecology for food sovereignty to agrarian reform -- are grounded in political education and horizontal learning exchanges among its members, as well as with other African and international movements. Last week's conference featured a presentation from the Venezuelan ambassador, representing a country that has been working to radically reorient its food system to serve its poor majority. Another example was an intervention on seed saving and agrarian transformation from neighboring Zimbabwe Small Holder Organic Forum (ZIMSOFF) [4], which UNAC works closely with through their joint participation in Via Campesina [5]. Now the largest transnational agrarian movement in the world, Via Campesina has member organizations in 73 countries -- representing over 250 million peasants -- that fight for access to and control over land and its resources. "Via Campesina is a connection to what people want, as opposed to the very different reality of what is happening on the ground," said Renaldo Chingore, a leader in both UNAC and Via Campesina at the Africa regional level. Ten years ago, UNAC became Via Campesina's first African member. Today it plays a headlining role in supporting its regional and global growth, at a time when Africa is a priority for outreach and expansion -- due in large part to land and resource grabs such as those in Mozambique redefining the norm. Against such policies and sizeable odds, peasants throughout Africa are determined to hold onto -- quite literally -- the roots of their ancestors. UNAC's experience in the Mozambican field may just provide a game plan for doing so. First published on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salena-tramel/mozambican-peasants-vs-th_b_594… [6] Links: ------ [1] https://www.prosavana.gov.mz/index.php?num_lang=2 [2] http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4703-leaked-prosavana-master-plan-conf… [3] http://www.unac.org.mz [4] http://www.esaff.org/Zimbabwe/ [5] http://viacampesina.org/en/ [6] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salena-tramel/mozambican-peasants-vs-th_b_594…

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Newsletter La Via Campesina - September 2014
by La Vía Campesina 06 Oct '14

06 Oct '14

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International Symposium on Agroecology at the FAO in Rome
by La Vía Campesina 25 Sep '14

25 Sep '14

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AND TRADE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON AGROECOLOGY AT THE FAO IN ROME [1] Published on Thursday, 25 September 2014 14:20 "TODAY A WINDOW WAS OPENED IN WHAT FOR 50 YEARS HAS BEEN THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION" [2]PRESS RELEASE- LA VIA CAMPESINA The _International Symposium on Agroecology for Food and Nutritional Security_ was held on the 18th and 19th of September of 2014, at the headquarters of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome. This marked the first time that the FAO has ever officially and directly addressed the topic of agroecology. In his closing remarks at the Symposium, José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, said that: "Today a Window was opened in what for 50 years has been the Cathedral of the Green Revolution." The delegation of La Via Campesina, that participated in the Symposium, welcomes this opening, but recommends caution, given the attempts to coopt agroecology that were observed at the event. According to La Via Campesina, the science, practices and movement of agroecology are the product of centuries of accumulated peasant and indigenous knowledge, knowledge of how food was produced for humanity since long before farm chemicals were invented. This knowledge has been organized through a 'dialog of knowledges' (dialogo de saberes) with the western sciences of ecology, agronomy, rural sociology, etc. Support for agroecology, among rural social movements, consumers, environmentalists and others, has grown a lot in recent decades, in part because of it's sharp critique of, and it's alternatives to, the badly-named 'Green Revolution' of industrial agriculture. For La Via, peasant agroecology is a fundamental building block in the construction of food sovereignty. Governments and institutions, the majority of which respond to the interests of national and transnational agribusiness, have resisted agroecology. In fact, to speak of the alternatives embodied in agroecology, has until now been taboo in institutions like the FAO. Still, this situation has been changing of late, though only partially. The rapid degradation of soils and other productive resources brought about industrial farming practices, and climate change, have now created growing uncertainty about the future of industrial agriculture. And the number of scientists with studies and data that show agroecology to be a superior approach, in terms of both productivity and sustainability, is growing. The result has been more institutional opening to agroecology. But the opening is relative. While social movements like La Via Campesina see agroecology as the alternative to industrial agriculture, and highlight it's potential help in transforming grim rural realities, the new institutional opening is geared more toward a scaled-back version of agroecology. This version is limited to seeing agroecology as nothing more than the source of a few new tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture; in other words, of methods to reduce the negative impacts of industrial farming practices on future productivity. Those who promote this shrunken approach use names like 'sustainable' or 'ecological intensification,' or 'climate smart agriculture,' to refer the erroneous idea that agroecology is compatible with large extensions of industrial monoculture, pesticides and GMOs. For La Via Campesina, this is not agroecology, but rather is a blatant attempt at cooptation, which should be denounced and resisted. A decent sized delegation from La Via attended the Symposium at FAO, with delegates from Mozambique, India, Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Italy. Three of the delegates were speakers. The delegation arrived expecting the worst, ready for a pitched battle against the cooptation of agroecology. The reality was actually somewhat more refreshing, as the majority of the scientists who were invited as expert speakers, presented visions of agroecology that were quite similar to the vision of La Via. They pointed to agroecology as an alternative, for transformation, and highlighted it's social, political, economic and cultural contents, in addition to the technical content. This left the tendency toward cooptation as a minority position, though it was present, and evident. As a result, the summary of conclusions from the Symposium, presented by the reporting team on the second day, emphasized positive points, including the affirmations that: * agroecology is based on a set of principles, and is not a tool box nor a set of recipes, * agroecology implicitly questions the contemporary agrifood model, and promotes a radical transformation, which would place peasants and family farmers at the center of the social process, * agroecology is based on a dialog of knowledges, and thus must continually link science with peasant knowledge, innovation and practices. And furthermore, that the principal challenges to be faced, must address complex but urgent issues, such as: * public policies that support and promote agroecological transformation at local, national and regional scales, * the alliance of farmers with conscious and responsible consumers, based on the need for a radical transformation toward a socially just food system, * support for the efforts by rural social movements to bring agroecology to a territorial scale. Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian peasant leader, and member of the International Coordination Committee (ICC) of La Via Campesina, said that "this Symposium represents a step in the right direction for FAO," but he issued a warning about the developing conflict "between good and evil," over the definition and future of agroecology. Given this dispute, he spoke of the need to specify 'agroecological peasant agriculture,' because "agroecology is a way of life for us, not just a mode of production." Rilma Román, a leader of the National Association of Small Farmers of Cuba (ANAP), who is also a member of the ICC of La Via, highlighted the centrality of "peasant knowledge and practice as the true basis of agroecology." She insisted that in countries like Cuba, "peasant agroecology is not theoretical, rather it is already a reality." Andrea Ferrante, leader of the Italian Association of Biological Farmers (AIAB), emphasized that, "agroecology is also a reality in Europe," though he complained that "the fact of agroecology in the North was pretty much ignored in this Symposium." Marciano da Silva, of the Small Farmers' Movement of Brazil (MPA), called for vigilance, as we will face ever more attempts by agribusiness and institutions to coopt agroecology. He remarked that while the FAO, and the ministers of agriculture from several countries who spoke at the Symposium, made public commitments to agroecology, "it is up to us to hold them to those commitments." Renaldo Chingore João, from the National Peasants' Union of Mozambique (UNAC), underlined the importance of the tacit recognition by FAO that "the Green Revolution is in rapid decline," and said that "it is important to transmit this message to our African governments." Nandini Kardahalli Singarigowda, a successful agroecological producer from the Karnataka State Farmers Association of India (KRRS), said that "we peasant women of KRRS in India are already successfully promoting agroecology," and asked, therefore: "why can't the FAO do the same?" Finally, Chavannes Jean Baptiste of the Via Campesina Haití, explained that "agroecology is above all a social and organizational process." "It requires," he said, "peasant organizations and rural social movements who are capable of building social processes based on horizontal learning and peasant protagonism." FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AND TRADE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON AGROECOLOGY AT THE FAO IN ROME [1] Published on Thursday, 25 September 2014 14:20 "TODAY A WINDOW WAS OPENED IN WHAT FOR 50 YEARS HAS BEEN THE CATHEDRAL OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION" [2]PRESS RELEASE- LA VIA CAMPESINA The _International Symposium on Agroecology for Food and Nutritional Security_ was held on the 18th and 19th of September of 2014, at the headquarters of the Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in Rome. This marked the first time that the FAO has ever officially and directly addressed the topic of agroecology. In his closing remarks at the Symposium, José Graziano da Silva, Director General of the FAO, said that: "Today a Window was opened in what for 50 years has been the Cathedral of the Green Revolution." The delegation of La Via Campesina, that participated in the Symposium, welcomes this opening, but recommends caution, given the attempts to coopt agroecology that were observed at the event. According to La Via Campesina, the science, practices and movement of agroecology are the product of centuries of accumulated peasant and indigenous knowledge, knowledge of how food was produced for humanity since long before farm chemicals were invented. This knowledge has been organized through a 'dialog of knowledges' (dialogo de saberes) with the western sciences of ecology, agronomy, rural sociology, etc. Support for agroecology, among rural social movements, consumers, environmentalists and others, has grown a lot in recent decades, in part because of it's sharp critique of, and it's alternatives to, the badly-named 'Green Revolution' of industrial agriculture. For La Via, peasant agroecology is a fundamental building block in the construction of food sovereignty. Governments and institutions, the majority of which respond to the interests of national and transnational agribusiness, have resisted agroecology. In fact, to speak of the alternatives embodied in agroecology, has until now been taboo in institutions like the FAO. Still, this situation has been changing of late, though only partially. The rapid degradation of soils and other productive resources brought about industrial farming practices, and climate change, have now created growing uncertainty about the future of industrial agriculture. And the number of scientists with studies and data that show agroecology to be a superior approach, in terms of both productivity and sustainability, is growing. The result has been more institutional opening to agroecology. But the opening is relative. While social movements like La Via Campesina see agroecology as the alternative to industrial agriculture, and highlight it's potential help in transforming grim rural realities, the new institutional opening is geared more toward a scaled-back version of agroecology. This version is limited to seeing agroecology as nothing more than the source of a few new tools for the toolbox of industrial agriculture; in other words, of methods to reduce the negative impacts of industrial farming practices on future productivity. Those who promote this shrunken approach use names like 'sustainable' or 'ecological intensification,' or 'climate smart agriculture,' to refer the erroneous idea that agroecology is compatible with large extensions of industrial monoculture, pesticides and GMOs. For La Via Campesina, this is not agroecology, but rather is a blatant attempt at cooptation, which should be denounced and resisted. A decent sized delegation from La Via attended the Symposium at FAO, with delegates from Mozambique, India, Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Italy. Three of the delegates were speakers. The delegation arrived expecting the worst, ready for a pitched battle against the cooptation of agroecology. The reality was actually somewhat more refreshing, as the majority of the scientists who were invited as expert speakers, presented visions of agroecology that were quite similar to the vision of La Via. They pointed to agroecology as an alternative, for transformation, and highlighted it's social, political, economic and cultural contents, in addition to the technical content. This left the tendency toward cooptation as a minority position, though it was present, and evident. As a result, the summary of conclusions from the Symposium, presented by the reporting team on the second day, emphasized positive points, including the affirmations that: * agroecology is based on a set of principles, and is not a tool box nor a set of recipes, * agroecology implicitly questions the contemporary agrifood model, and promotes a radical transformation, which would place peasants and family farmers at the center of the social process, * agroecology is based on a dialog of knowledges, and thus must continually link science with peasant knowledge, innovation and practices. And furthermore, that the principal challenges to be faced, must address complex but urgent issues, such as: * public policies that support and promote agroecological transformation at local, national and regional scales, * the alliance of farmers with conscious and responsible consumers, based on the need for a radical transformation toward a socially just food system, * support for the efforts by rural social movements to bring agroecology to a territorial scale. Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian peasant leader, and member of the International Coordination Committee (ICC) of La Via Campesina, said that "this Symposium represents a step in the right direction for FAO," but he issued a warning about the developing conflict "between good and evil," over the definition and future of agroecology. Given this dispute, he spoke of the need to specify 'agroecological peasant agriculture,' because "agroecology is a way of life for us, not just a mode of production." Rilma Román, a leader of the National Association of Small Farmers of Cuba (ANAP), who is also a member of the ICC of La Via, highlighted the centrality of "peasant knowledge and practice as the true basis of agroecology." She insisted that in countries like Cuba, "peasant agroecology is not theoretical, rather it is already a reality." Andrea Ferrante, leader of the Italian Association of Biological Farmers (AIAB), emphasized that, "agroecology is also a reality in Europe," though he complained that "the fact of agroecology in the North was pretty much ignored in this Symposium." Marciano da Silva, of the Small Farmers' Movement of Brazil (MPA), called for vigilance, as we will face ever more attempts by agribusiness and institutions to coopt agroecology. He remarked that while the FAO, and the ministers of agriculture from several countries who spoke at the Symposium, made public commitments to agroecology, "it is up to us to hold them to those commitments." Renaldo Chingore João, from the National Peasants' Union of Mozambique (UNAC), underlined the importance of the tacit recognition by FAO that "the Green Revolution is in rapid decline," and said that "it is important to transmit this message to our African governments." Nandini Kardahalli Singarigowda, a successful agroecological producer from the Karnataka State Farmers Association of India (KRRS), said that "we peasant women of KRRS in India are already successfully promoting agroecology," and asked, therefore: "why can't the FAO do the same?" Finally, Chavannes Jean Baptiste of the Via Campesina Haití, explained that "agroecology is above all a social and organizational process." "It requires," he said, "peasant organizations and rural social movements who are capable of building social processes based on horizontal learning and peasant protagonism." Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/food-sovereign… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/chavennes%20roma%202014.jpg

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UN-masking Climate Smart Agriculture
by La Vía Campesina 23 Sep '14

23 Sep '14

UN-MASKING CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE [1] Published on Tuesday, 23 September 2014 15:13 PRESS RELEASE INTERNATIONAL PEASANT MOVEMENT/MOVIMIENTO CAMPESINO INTERNACIONAL [2]History presents itself first as tragedy, and the second time as a farce. As women, men, peasants, smallholder family farmers, migrant, rural workers, indigenous, and youth of La Via Campesina, we denounce climate smart agriculture which is presented to us as a solution to climate change and as a mechanism for sustainable development. For us, it is clear that underneath its pretense of addressing the persistent poverty in the countryside and climate change, there is nothing new. Rather, this is a continuation of a project first begun with the Green Revolution in the early 1940's and continued through the 70's and 80's by the World Bank's Poverty Reduction projects and the corporate interests involved. These projects, such as the so-called Green Revolution, decimated numerous peasant economies, particularly in the South, to the extent that many countries, like México for example, that were self-sufficient in food production, became dependent on the North to feed their population within a short couple of decades. The result of these projects, dictated by industrial capital's need for expansion, was the coopting of traditional agricultural producers and production and their insertion into the present industrial agriculture and food regime. A regime that is based on increased use of toxic chemicals, dependent on fossil fuel inputs and technology, increasing exploitation of agricultural and rural workers, with its resulting loss of biodiversity; a food system that is now under the control of corporations and large industrial farmers, the main beneficiaries of these projects. The result has been the loss of food security and sovereignty, transforming entire countries that were once net food exporters into net food importers. This is not so much that they cannot produce food, but because now, instead, they produce commodity crops used to produce industrialized foods, fuels, manufactured products for sale, and for speculation in the world financial markets. Today, some of the same actors of these previous projects, such as the World Bank, are the forces behind the imposition of climate smart agriculture as a solution to climate change and to increase income of the rural poor using the same failed thesis that to increase incomes one must increase productivity. It is clear that the intention is to create a market for the Green Revolution as a solution to climate change, poverty and as a proposal for sustainable development in rural areas. We identify this as part of a larger process of "green" structural adjustment projects required by an economic system and the political elites in distress, because they have exhausted other places for enormous speculative financial investments and now see agriculture and agricultural land as the new frontier. Climate smart agriculture begins with deception by not making a differentiation between the negative effects of industrialized agriculture and the real solutions offered by traditional sustainable peasant agriculture which has contributed to alleviating poverty, hunger and remediation of climate change. To the contrary, climate smart agriculture equates and equally blames all forms of agricultural production for the negative effects that in fact only industrialized agricultural and food production has caused, and fails to recognize and accept the differences between "agri-cultures" and agricultural production methods. The agricultural activity that has most contributed to greenhouse gas emissions has been industrial agriculture, not smallholder sustainable agriculture. Climate smart agriculture will lead to further consolidation of land, pushing peasant and family farmers towards World Bank Projects, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other institutions, creating dependency on so-called new technologies through their complete packages that include prescriptions of "climate smart varieties", inputs, and credit, while ignoring traditional tried and true adaptive farming techniques and stewardship of seed varieties in practice by farmers. Reliance on World Bank promoted methods of production and genetically modified seed varieties will only increase the vulnerability of peasants and small-scale producers, as those packages will not allow them to adapt to climate change, nor will they be able to improve their incomes, and will only result in pushing them further into debt and increased dependency. As the Green Revolution meant the imposition of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as requirement to access loans and technical support, now it is the imposition of transgenic and biotechnology for the same requirements, and all under the name of productivity. The idea of increasing agricultural productivity in a sustainable way, or what is now called "sustainable intensification", is false. Even more so, when one considers that raising yield per hectare through production intensification only increases the income for corporations, financial market speculators, and large landholding farmers. So called "sustainable intensification" is not really about increasing yield per acre, it is more about green-washing large scale industrialized production following the old adage "get big or get out". Increasingly, peasant and smallholder family farmers have to produce crops for the commodity market and not for local and regional food systems. They are producing for corporations who are manufacturing unhealthy processed food, fuel and supplies to make other products such as farmed -meat and pharmaceuticals. Peasants and small-scale family farmers will have no choice but to continue to accept the task of feeding the insatiable capitalist food production machine and its speculative activities in the financial markets. This intensification of production is also an effort to reduce the cost of labor, which means further degrading working conditions, and lower salaries for migrant workers. Most peasants and small holders will be cast aside because there's no room for them in industrial agriculture except as landless peasants and one of millions of migrants that are seeking to try their luck as low wage laborers in the cities and countryside. Ultimately, climate smart agriculture tries to cover-up and hide the need for genuine agriculture and land reform. It also hides, and lies about, the issue of scarcity of land and natural resources. Land and natural resources are only scarce for peasant and small holding farmers. Poverty exists as a result of lack of access to land, land tenure and use, the unfair treatment and wages of workers and an unrelenting exploitation of their labor in order to meet the needs of capitalism, all of which is shaping the madness we are facing today. In addition, climate smart agriculture, like the Reduction for Emission on Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), will expand the carbon market and its use for financial speculation. The possibility of big profits with investments in carbon credits generated from farmlands involved in climate smart agriculture projects will increase speculation in the carbon market, leading to further "carbon land grabs" by large-scale investors and producers, and the further displacement of peasant and smallholder farmers, just as REDD displaces indigenous people. Under this climate smart agriculture framework, there is little hope of reducing and removing greenhouse gases, trying to solve food insecurity or any significant rural economic and social development. The problems of poverty, food insecurity and climate change are not market failures, but rather are structural flaws that will persist and worsen with its implementation. We need systemic change NOW! Today, just as in the past, we are ready to fight against the false solutions of the capitalist "green economy" and for real solutions to climate change and poverty, through our demands for climate and environmental justice. We continue to propose and put into practice wherever we can agroecological production and the construction of people's food sovereignty. We consciously do this as another space to bring about the structural changes that we really need to deal with the issues of poverty, climate change and peoples' inability to feed themselves. We call on all social movements gathered in New York to denounce climate smart agriculture as a false solution, oppose the launching of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the UN Climate Summit in New York City, and to join us in the struggle for food sovereignty, and for a different model of agriculture and food production that will provide a just economic well being for small-scale farmers and their communities while producing enough healthy food to meet people's nutritional needs and guaranteed access to food for everyone. Any method of production and consumption, to be truly sustainable, must enrich and protect Mother Earth. (Download PDF [3]) NO TO CLIMATE SMART AGRICULTURE! YES TO LAND REFORM AND AGROECOLOGY FOR PEOPLE'S FOOD SOVEREIGNTY! GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE GLOBALIZE HOPE! For more information during the NYC Climate Summit, you can contact: Dena Hoff, Antolin Huascar or Carlos Marentes Jr., at (413) 345-1137 (USA). Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/1670-un… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/logo%202014.JPG [3] http://viacampesina.org/downloads/pdf/en/LVC%20UNmasking%20CSA%20_ENG-FINAL…

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Nyeleni Newsletter: Community struggles for the defence of their territories - New edition online!
by La Vía Campesina 15 Sep '14

15 Sep '14

_EN COMMUNITY STRUGGLES FOR THE DEFENCE OF THEIR TERRITORIES_ [1] The new edition of the Nyéléni Newsletter is now online! LANDGRABBING CONTINUES UNABATED WORLDWIDE. It is not only about the use of industrial agricultural means to engage in the monoculture of primary resources for exportation, or the delocalised production of foodstuffs for other countries. It implies _extractivism_: control of water, mining, oil industries, deforestation, drug trafficking, environmental services and REDD projects (land areas held in disregards or so called marginal lands), and the subsequent speculation on these, followed by real estate, tourism, urban development, military geopolitics and much more. In this edition of the Nyéléni Newsletter we want to make an overview of this process and of the possibilities of resisting it from our communities. _Click here to download the english edition_ [1]_ _or read it directly in the website at www.nyeleni.org [2] ! For any further information, please contact info(a)nyeleni.org PLEASE CIRCULATE IT TO YOUR CONTACTS! Links: ------ [1] http://www.nyeleni.org/ccount/click.php?id=59 [2] http://www.nyeleni.org

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U.S. Farmworkers and Palestinian Farmers share 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize
by La Vía Campesina 11 Sep '14

11 Sep '14

U.S. FARMWORKERS AND PALESTINIAN FARMERS SHARE 2014 FOOD SOVEREIGNTY PRIZE _HONOREES REPRESENT COMMUNITIES DEFENDING THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS TO FOOD IN THE FACE OF POLICIES OF LAND AND WATER GRABBING, MIGRATION, AND MILITARIZATION_ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 9, 2014 Des Moines, IA -- The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is honored to name the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) of Palestine, based in Gaza and the West Bank, and Community to Community Development /Comunidad a Comunidad (C2C) of Bellingham, Washington, as co-recipients of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize. Their stories of continuous struggle to defend the rights of their communities - farmers and fishers in the occupied Palestinian territories and migrant Mexican farm workers in Washington State, both seeking to produce their own food, on their own land, in their home communities - stand in stark contrast to the storylines coming from agribusiness: that technological changes to crops can meet human needs and resolve hunger. Palestine has been under Israeli occupation for decades and this summer faced heightened pressure, including thousands killed and many more injured from bombings, destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, farms, and fishing boats, and hundreds of arrests without due process, and the continued building of settlements on Palestinian farmland. UAWC builds farmers cooperatives and seed banks, and supports women's leadership, while continuing to seek its members' human rights to food, land, and water. "This important prize inspires UAWC to carry on its work in defending Palestinian farmers' rights against the brutal Israeli violations, both through supporting small-scale farmers and fishermen toward their food sovereignty and rights to land and water, and also through coordination with local and international movements for social justice and human rights," said Khaled Hidan, General Director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine. In Washington State, amid failed immigration policies that criminalize working families, Community to Community Development has supported and worked with immigrant farm workers to develop farm worker-owned cooperatives, organize a successful nutrition education project called Cocinas Sanas, and promote domestic fair trade in regional assemblies and meetings. Most recently, C2C has supported an emerging farm worker union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and organized a national boycott of Sakuma Farms, their employer, who withheld pay, provided poor housing, and has since retaliated against the workers. Familias Unidas por la Justicia recently won a settlement for wage theft and had a Superior Court Judge rule uphold their right to organize - but their fight is not over. "In honoring Community to Community, the USFSA honors indigenous farmworkers in the U.S. Displaced by NAFTA, these peasant farmers from Mexico are practicing a tradition of struggle for justice. Together, C2C and Familias Unidas are promoting food sovereignty in rural Washington State and challenging the corporate agricultural interests that are controlling our food system," said Rosalinda Guillen, Executive Director of Community to Community Development. The Food Sovereignty Prize will be awarded on the evening of October 15in Des Moines, IA, at the Historical Building. The Food Sovereignty Prize challenges the view that simply producing more through industrial agriculture and aquaculture will end hunger or reduce suffering. The world currently produces more than enough food, but unbalanced access to wealth means the inadequate access to food. Real solutions protect the rights to land, seeds and water of family farmers and indigenous communities worldwide and promote sustainable agriculture through agroecology. The communities around the world who struggle to grow their food and take care of their land have long known that destructive political, economic, and social policies, as well as militarization, deprive communities of their rights. These are the root causes of want, hunger and poverty. The USFSA represents a network of food producers and labor, environmental, faith-based, social justice and anti-hunger advocacy organizations. Additional supporters of the 2014 Food Sovereignty Prize include Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - Des Moines, and Occupy the World Food Prize, along with media sponsor EcoWatch. For event updates and background on food sovereignty and the prize winners, visit www.foodsovereigntyprize.org. Also, visit the Food Sovereignty Prize on Facebook (facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyPrize) and join the conversation on Twitter (#foodsovprize) CONTACT: Adam Mason, State Policy Organizing Director Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (515) 282-0484, adam(a)iowacci.org Lisa Griffith, National Family Farm Coalition US Food Sovereignty Alliance (773) 319-5838, lisa(a)nffc.net

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Newsletter La Vía Campesina - August 2014
by La Vía Campesina 02 Sep '14

02 Sep '14

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by La Vía Campesina 28 Aug '14

28 Aug '14

[1] CLICK HERE [1] TO SUBSCRIBE VIA CAMPESINA COMMUNICATION TEAM -- Links: ------ [1] https://mail.viacampesina.org/lists/listinfo/Via-info-en

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SADC: Building unity and solidarity to effect a system change
by La Vía Campesina 15 Aug '14

15 Aug '14

SADC: BUILDING UNITY AND SOLIDARITY TO EFFECT A SYSTEM CHANGE [1] Published on Saturday, 16 August 2014 01:55 _VIA CAMPESINA, RURAL WOMEN ASSEMBLY, PEOPLE'S DIALOGUE AND WOMIN_ Bulawayo, 14 August 2014- Women from all the corners of the Southern African region descended on Bulawayo to participate in a parallel of the SADC Heads of State Summit, the People Summit, which runs from the 14th to the 16th. They have converged to share their experiences on how they have been affected either by decisions made by governments with little consultations with the people or the inherited colonial agro-mining complex, which continues to grab land for extractive purposes. More importantly, the women have gathered to build and strengthen their solidarity, forge strong alliances and commit to the struggle to push for a system of change. Today, on the first day, the meeting was energized with a mystica, singing and a drama depicting both the challenges faced by most rural women (evictions from land, loss of livelihoods etc) and the victory that comes with unity of purpose and solidarity. Solidarity messages were expressed for the people of Palestine who currently suffer gross human rights violation from Israel's massacre of innocent civilians. Also, solidarity was offered to the many political activists imprisoned in Swaziland for expressing their political views. Mercia Andrews of Rural Women's Assembly, called on the women to build a strong unity and solidarity to strengthen the resistance and the voice of the people."Movements bring change! They change the society and the country! Only organized movements, women can change our situation", she said. Women are the majority food producers and also constitute the majority of the electorate in Southern Africa and Africa. Grace Tepula from Zambia urged the women to use their majority power to effect change. She said, "A woman is a woman, a mother. No woman, no food. Women should own land and be given the title to it". Elizabeth Mpofu, general coordinator of La Via Campesina emphasized that we should continue to build resistance so that one day change would come. She further stressed the importance of land and food sovereignty for the lives of rural people and the need to guard against GMO seeds and policies such as the seed harmonization, which destroy the people's livelihoods. This year's SADC Heads of State Summit focuses on natural resources and value addition, but not on the worsening situation affecting communities. Samantha Hargreaves from WoMin (Women in Mining) called on the gathered people to join the alliance to fight against extractive mining companies which steal from communities and pollute their environment. Farai Maguwu said that instead of the western governments giving Africa development aid to end poverty, they should stop stealing natural resources from the continent and allow its people to determine their own development path. Thus, there is a need to stop transnational corporations from stealing African natural resources. A campaign to dismantle corporate power and to stop their impunity is underway and aims to build people's sovereignty. "Such sovereignty is critical in our struggle for a better life for all people", said Brid Brennan, from the Transnational Institute. In the words of Elizabeth Mpofu, which resonated with all the speakers, "We are not here to celebrate but to know who we are and what we are fighting against. We are here to strengthen our resistance and no one is going to come and rescue us from these challenges." The People's Summit is not just a gathering that follows the Heads of States but a growing force from below which seeks and envisages a better tomorrow characterized by equality and equity for all. This movement and its voice continue to grow and cannot be ignored by governments. WATCH THE VIDEO: SADC PEOPLES SUMMIT - WHY ARE WE HERE? [2] Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/news-from-the-regions-mainmenu-29/1649… [2] https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=L75VfUGYWB0

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Farmers, rural women and mining impacted communities at the 2014 SADC People´s Summit to propose people-based regionalism
by La Vía Campesina 08 Aug '14

08 Aug '14

FARMERS, RURAL WOMEN AND MINING IMPACTED COMMUNITIES AT THE 2014 SADC PEOPLE´S SUMMIT TO PROPOSE PEOPLE-BASED REGIONALISM [1] Media Advisory VIA CAMPESINA, RURAL WOMEN ASSEMBLY, PEOPLE´S DIALOGUE AND WOMIN [2]Harare, 08 August 2014 - Hundreds of people from grassroots organizations, including small-scale farmers, rural women, farm workers and members of mining impacted communities from Southern African countries will be at the 2014 SADC Peoples Summit. The summit takes place in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe from 14 to 16 August, 2014. Members of Via Campesina Africa, the Rural Women's Assembly (RWA), WoMin and the People's Dialogue will be strongly present in Bulawayo, to build alternatives and propose a regionalism that prioritizes people, not corporations. Caravans of African farmers, rural women and mining impacted communities from Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, Lesotho, the DRC, Malawi and other countries will unite with Zimbabwean organisations and movements in Bulawayo to demand social and economic justice, based on the people´s perspectives. The southern African region is faced with ongoing challenges and deepening crisis as a direct consequence of neo-liberal economic policies. Transnational corporate capture and control of people's basic means of production (land, water, seed, etc.) is escalating, with the complicity of political and government elites. Natural resources are increasingly being privatized due to the myriad of investment agreements our governments have entered into with corporations, western governments and the "newcomer" emerging economies, like the BRICS. Land has been grabbed at a significant scale in almost all SADC countries and the agribusiness model is destroying peasant-family agriculture, the only proven sustainable and ecologically friendly model that produces most of the food for SADC countries. Extractives corporations are grabbing land and water, and polluting the soil, air and water that rural farmers rely on to grow food and sustain livelihoods. Ana Paula Tauacale, a farmer and leader of Mozambique Union of Famers, UNAC - member of Via Campesina - said that in the case of Mozambique, "land is being given away to foreigners to grow crops for export in the expense of dispossession of local small-scale farmers. This is the case of the ProSavana in Nacala Corridor", a programme to increase crop output by bringing in large-scale agribusinesses. Ana Paula added saying that "we need to defend small-scale and family based agriculture in our countries since we have proven that we can feed the world". Seeds, our common heritage, are now also within the radar of corporate control and under threat from the proposed seed protocols under the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The former seek to ease the flow and marketing of commercial seeds in the eastern and southern African regional markets and the latter, to harmonize the SADC region seed policy on Plant Variety Protection (PVP) basis respectively. These new laws will, with time, open up the whole region to transgenic seeds (GMOs), which have found space in South Africa and recently in Malawi. Traditional seeds will be pushed out and smallholder farmers' use and exchange of such seeds will be criminalized. Mercia Andrews from the Rural Women's Assembly added: "we need to fight for peoples' livelihoods, which will benefit the home market, organically linked to agriculture and manufacturing industries. This will create jobs not only for the urbanites but also for the rural communities and allow an equitable development within the SADC countries. The SADC people need to be free to self determine their destiny in all spheres of life (social, political and economic)". Samantha Hargreaves from WoMin said "we call for a just transition to an alternative development model, which protects and defends the land and natural resources upon which rural communities depend, which is based on a transformed renewable energy system, and in which decisions to extract are made by the people and not by the transnational corporations and their lackeys in our governments". In Bulawayo, Via Campesina, the RWA, the People's Dialogue and WoMin will have self-organized events addressing important themes, such as Public Policies for Food Sovereignty in SADC, Tax justice to stem the illicit flow of funds by crooked transnational corporations, and Alternative development paths to address the devastating environmental and social impacts of extractives industries. Solidarity exchanges to local communities will be undertaken, and the Southern Africa People's Tribunal on transnational corporations will also be launched. These activities will help build a consciousness within a broader constituency, which will be the locomotive of our struggle for popular sovereignty, popular livelihoods and popular democracy. CONTACTS FOR PRESS (FOR MORE INFORMATION AND PHONE INTERVIEWS): Boaventura Monjane, Via Campesina - Email: boa.monjane(a)gmail.com - Phone: +263 782049558 (From August 11) Nyoni Ndabezinhle, Via Campesina - Email: nyoni.ndabezinhle(a)viacampesina.org - Phone: +263 772 441 909 Thandiwe Chidavarume, Women and Land Zimbabwe - Email: wlz(a)mweb.co.zw - Phone: +263 77 328 9764 Links: ------ [1] http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/news-from-the-regions-mainmenu-29/1647… [2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/logo/via-mediaadvisory.jpg

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