. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Jeff Abbott, Waging Nonviolence (abridged)

There is a crisis facing campesinos in rural Guatemala, as tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors have traveled to the United States over the last year in search of work. Yet the same forces that have driven many onto the migrant trail have led to the emergence of a movement of young campesinos organizing to stay on their land, and not be forced to migrate to the cities or the United States. In the process, they hope to recuperate the ancestral Mayan forms of agriculture, and combat hunger and poverty in their communities. . .

Thousands of Q’eqchi’ Maya farmers from the communities around Chisec gather in the central square of Chisec to celebrate the campesino. (WNV/Jeff Abbott)

On a national level, the young campesinos have found support from a number of grassroots organizations, including the Coordinator of NGOs and Cooperatives, the United Campesino Committee and the Campesino Committee of the Plateau. Since 2009, these organizations have campaigned for laws that will allow farmers to stay on their land. One of these laws is Law 40-84, or the Rural Integral Development law.

“This law would oblige the state of Guatemala to assist the people living in rural areas,” Mauritius said. “It would ensure that the local market is supported.”

Since the law was first proposed in 2009, there have been regular protests demanding that the law be passed. Yet with each attempt, and each protest, the law is blocked by a coalition of right-wing parties.

Organizers have hoped to overcome the blockage through an awareness campaign entitled “I support 40-84,” which targets urban populations, trying to bring awareness of the importance of farmers to those who live in the city. The campaign has utilized videos and other materials to build support among civil society.

The campesinos have continued to keep the pressure on the government to provide a solution by holding regular protests, blocking highways, and occupying space in Guatemala City, demanding that the government pass the law.

In September and November 2014, farmers shut down major highways throughout Guatemala. And on April 17, over 400 families from the states of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz and Izabal, traveled from their homes to occupy different parts of Guatemala City to demand a solution to the hundreds of conflicts over land in their states and that the Congress pass 40-84.

“We are going to be here until the government of Guatemala meets our demands,” said Jose Chic of the Campesino Committee of the Plateau. “We’ve set up medical services, kitchens and even schools for the children. The reality is that the social services here are better than the services that these families have in their communities.”

But despite the campaigns and protests, progress has been slow.

The small farmers have received help from other organizations, such as Utz Che, or “Good Tree” in the Mayan language Kaqchikel, which have worked alongside the campesinos to assist them in renegotiation of debts. For the community of La Benediction, this has led to the lowering of the debt that is owed from the purchase of the land to 342,000 Quetzales.

“Utz Che has been assisting the community,” said Barrios. “The situation still remains critical, but we are organized.”

What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

Readers are encouraged to comment below on this theme which refers to the following CPNN articles:

Guatemalan campesinos embrace ancestral farming practices to prevent migration

Uruguay: Declaration of the National Meeting and Festival of Family Farming and Producers of Creole Seeds

Argentina: Final declaration of the 6th Congress of CLOC Via Campesina

Argentina: CLOC-VC congress for supported food sovereignty and integral agrarian reforms

April 17: Farmers mobilise around the world against Free Trade Agreements and for food sovereignty

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Red de Ecología Social (translated by CPNN)

On April 25 and 26, at the Baths of Almiron, near the city of Guichón, was held the 7th National Meeting of Producers of Creole Seeds and the 6th National Festival of the Creole Seed and family farming, under the slogan “Native seeds and the land as the heritage of peoples in the service of humanity”, drawing over 900 people. Once again, native seeds, household production, biodiversity, women, rural schools and agroecology had their festival.

The festival is a biennial space of meetings, exchange and coordination, organized by the National Network of Native and Creole Seeds. It integrates about 300 farming families from across the country articulated in 27 local groups. This time, the organization was in charge of the Guichón Collective in Defense of Natural Goods, the Paysandu Organic Garden Group, REDES – Friends of the Earth, the Program for Sustainable Uruguay, the Melchora Cuenca Schools (Paysandu) and Agrarian Guichón, and Tecnicatura of Family Farming.

The Seed Network is a joint initiative of local family producers, the Network for Social Ecology (NETS) – Friends of the Earth Uruguay and the Faculty of Agronomy of the University of the Republic through the Southern Regional Center.

As part of the festival there was an exhibition of Biodiversity with an exchange of native and creole seeds, accompanied by the presentation of collective experiences of urban and school gardens and the flour milling cooperative GRANECO. There were two roundtables: one on the National Plan of Agro-ecology and the impacts of genetically-modified crops and pesticides in rural populations, territories and watersheds ; and the other a space for analysis and in-depth debate on key issues central to the present and future of our country and our food sovereignty. The workshops discussed the implications of the extraction of fossil fuels by hydraulic fracturing, the concept of privatization-financialization of nature and the production and conservation of seeds.

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What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

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Declaration by the participants of the National Meeting and Festival of Family Farming and Producers of Creole Seeds:

We reaffirm our commitment to the defense of our common goods and our rights, identity and culture. Among others, the right to preserve, reproduce and exchange our seeds and the right of access to seeds that are stored in genebanks

We vindicate the knowledge of those who live on the land, and we are committed to share it with society, especially with young people.

We pledge to participate in the construction of a National Plan of Agroecology, to be based on the needs of producers with a strong regional emphasis. This plan must integrate various programs – Creole and Native Seeds; Soil conservation; Water and sustainable management of watersheds; Local procurement markets and priority of ecological production; Access to land, especially for young people; Support for collective entrepreneurship; Training and participatory research in agro-ecological production systems, especially for young people; Research and development that meets the needs of producers and is adapted to local conditions. The program must also recognize the role of women and youth and promote the exchange of experiences and knowledge between the towns and regions, promoting and supporting meetings, workshops and collective regional and national conferences.

We also denounce and demand appropriate responses by the State to confront the problem of genetically modified contamination of our seeds. This contamination has already been proven as well as the impossibility of coexistence because of the massive use of pesticides in our territories that threaten our health, water resources and biodiversity, including bees whose disappearance threatens the pollination of our plants and the livelihoods of the beekeepers.

We also call attention to the danger posed by the possible approval of new transgenic traits resistant to 2,4-D and Dicamba which are herbicides even more toxic than glyphosate whose toxicity, about which we have warned long ago, was now confirmed by WHO.

Finally, the Network for Native and Creole Seeds, as a nationwide organization based on the land, promises to be vigilant and denounce all attacks on the health of the population and the environment (water, soil, biodiversity) caused the predominant agricultural development model and we will require the State to fulfill its role as guarantor of the rights of the population.

. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .

An article by La Via Campesina

On the International Day of Peasant Struggles and after a march through Buenos Aires streets from the US Embassy, an imperialistic symbol, to the Argentinean Rural Association, a symbol of agribusiness in the country, the organizers shared the final statement of the 6th Congress of the Latin American Coordination of Countryside Organizations (CLOC-Via Campesina) which you can read below.

The document is a result of eight days of debates and was read by representatives of the Youth Assembly of CLOC.

“Each person shines with his or her own light. No two flames are alike. There are big flames and little flames, flames of every color. Some people’s flames are so still they don’t even flicker in the wind, while others have wild flames that fill the air with sparks. Some foolish flames neither burn nor shed light, but others blaze with life so fiercely that you can’t look at them without blinking, and if you approach you shine in the fire”. (Eduardo Galeano)

In Argentina, the homeland of Che Guevara, Evita, Mercedes Sosa, 200 years after the Congress of Free Peoples called by Artigas which prompted the first Agrarian Reform in Latin America, 10 years after the defeat of the FTAA in Mar del Plata, we are holding the 6th Latin American Congress of Countryside Organizations.

We are the CLOC-VC, an organized expression of peasant men and women, native peoples, afro-descendants and rural workers.

CLOC is the flame, the light and the actions of Via Campesina in Latin America. We emerged from the heart itself of the 500-year process of indigenous, peasant, black and popular resistance, which gathered the historical peasant movement and the new movements emerging as a response to the dismantling processes imposed by neoliberal policies.

We gather strength, experience and struggles and we build proposals according to the new political moments, highlighting that the agrarian issues are relevant for the society as a whole, and as such, we need to face it with an alternative and popular power strategy.

Our Congress has taken place in a time where contradictions and the class struggle are reflected in the attacks of capital that promotes new wars, oppression and conspiracy against the peoples, for instance the direct attack against Venezuela by declaring it a risk for US security, but also with the different destabilizing coup strategies implemented by an alliance of large communication, business and financial groups that aim to undermine the sovereignty of our peoples and prevent progressive governments of the region from taking action.

Recognizing the advance of regional and continental processes of integration such as UNASUR, ALBA, MERCOSUR and CELAC, the 6th Congress welcomes the solidarity and unity of Latin American and Caribbean countries and organizations that supported Cuba’s position and denunciation of the US blockade and the campaigns against their people, an attitude that encourages us to continue building the Motherland of Bolivar, San Martin, Martí, Sandino and Chavez.

We reject patriarchy, racism, sexism and homophobia. We struggle for democratic and participatory societies, free from exploitation, discrimination, oppression, and exclusion of women and young people. We condemn all forms of domestic, social, work and institutional violence towards women.

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What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

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We raise the flags of our women colleagues: peasant and popular feminism is part of our strategic horizon for a socialist transformation.

The work to strengthen our organizations, especially at grassroots level, will continue being at the center of our priorities. We are committed to strengthen the participation and integration of young people in all organizational processes.

We reclaim Integral and Popular Agrarian Reform, peasant and indigenous agroecological farming as essential elements of our path towards food sovereignty and cooling down the planet, ensuring access to land and water for women, young people, landless workers and ensuring the recovery of territories by native and afrodescendant peoples. We also struggle for the recognition of the social function of land and water, and the prohibition of all forms of speculation and land grabbing affecting them.

We are committed to continue defending and keeping alive our peasant and indigenous seeds, to recover them in the hands of communities so as to reproduce and multiply them based on our peasant systems. We will not hesitate in the struggle against all forms of privatization and appropriation of seeds and life forms.

We need to defeat the agricultural model imposed by agribusiness corporations that is supported by international financial capitals and is based on GM monocultures, the massive use of agrotoxics and the displacement of peasants from the countryside. In addition, this model is responsible for the food, climate, energy and urbanization crises.

We call people to continue struggling for a world free from GMOs and agrotoxics that pollute, make ill and kill our peoples and Mother Earth. We will resist together with the people and communities against extractivism, megamining and all megaprojects threatening our territories.

We celebrate la Via Campesina´s achievement of putting the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants in the agenda of the United Nations Human Rights Council and demand governments to ratify our positions. We call our organizations to turn the declaration into an instrument for the struggle of rural peoples and the society as a whole.

The future becomes a fertile place when hundreds of children gathered at the 1st Children’s Congress delivered their message in favor of peace and protection of our Mother Earth.

Our children are the future, and the present shines with the strength of young people. Our main tools are capacity building, education, communication and mass mobilization, unity and alliances among peasants, native peoples, afrodescendants, rural and urban workers, students and popular sectors organized to conform a force that is capable of achieving the changes we are fighting for. We are living in unprecedented and complex times, determined by a new correlation of forces among capital, the government and popular forces. The imperialistic capital is now under financial and transnational control, so we need to identify ourselves with SOCIALISM as the only system capable of reaching the sovereignty or our countries, highlighting the values of solidarity, internationalism and cooperation among our peoples.

Against capitalism and in favor of the sovereignty of our peoples: the Americas united continue struggling!

. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .

Hernán Viudes, America Latina en Movimento (translated and abridged)

20/04/2015: With the denunciation of the offense of “capital and imperialism in its policy of plundering the assets of our countries, hoarding and extractivism” expelling the peasants and indigenous people from their land, imposing monoculture, mining and imposing genetically modified products, the Sixth Congress of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations-Via Campesina (CLOC-VC) closed in Buenos Aires.

The organizations agreed to defend “Food Sovereignty supported by the realization of a Comprehensive and Popular Agrarian Reform (which) gives us back the joy of taking care of Mother Earth and producing the food that our people and humanity needs to ensure its development.”

After a week of debates in workshops and assemblies, more than a thousand delegates from across Latin America and the Caribbean, together with delegates from Africa, Asia and Europe, conducted a historical characterization of this “unprecedented and complex moment, determined by a new correlation of forces between capital and governments and popular forces. Imperialist capital is now under the financial control of transnational corporations, and therefore socialism is the only system able to achieve the sovereignty of our nations and promote the values ​​of solidarity, internationalism and cooperation between our peoples. ”

They rejected “the industrial food system and national and transnational agribusiness corporations, responsible for climate change and biodiversity loss that affects us all”, and they highlighted “peasant and indigenous agriculture as the only way to feed the world while maintaining and increasing biodiversity and halting global warming. ” That is why we promote “the good life” and a close link with “Mother Earth”, and we fight for an agroecological production system, “not only for technical and scientific issues, but as a political tool for fighting capital.” Since agroecology does not develop in isolation, “we have to build regional strategies to fight and advance public policies that promote” this model.

Discussion, peasant political education and training of leaders is part of the struggle, while identification of problems and public manifestations is the other, they said. They decided to continue “developing the global campaign for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform and People for the defense of land and territory”; developing actions of solidarity against criminal massacres like that of the 43 students of the Normal Rural School of Ayotzinapa in Mexico, and repression.

They also decided to plan an international meeting for Agrarian Reformin in Brazil next year 20 years after the slaughter of Eldorado dos Carajas. Also, they found it necessary to become involved in “the international arena with CELAC, UNASUR and Pope Francis, for their support and support for the statement of peasant rights.”

Each April 17, thousands of men and women of the international peasant movement mobilize worldwide to show their disagreement with transnational corporations and free trade agreements that affect the rural and smallholder agriculture as well as national food sovereignty. Since 1996, it is the International Day of global action by Peasant Struggle.

The free trade agreements encourage transnational corporations and industrialized capitalist mode of production which depends heavily on agrochemicals, while increasing the eviction, expulsion and disappearance of peasants. The most important agreements in free trade history are now being negotiated between the European Union, the United States and Canada which, if they materialize, will liberalize trade and markets for transnational corporations.

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What is the relation between movements for food sovereignty and the global movement for a culture of peace?

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Therefore, on Friday April 17 thousands of Latin American peasants took to the streets marching past the US Embassy in Buenos Aires with their claims against extraction and their proposals for agrarian reform, alliances around topics of socialism and peasant feminism, and a declaration of rights of farmers and others who live in the country.

“We are fighting for a deep structural change in our society, against all forms of exploitation, discrimination and exclusion, and for peasant and indigenous agriculture to ensure good living of the people of the country, to continue to feed humanity and caring for Mother Earth.” That is the agreement reached by the 400 delegates from organizations of peasant men and women, native peoples, afro-descendants and rural workers from 18 countries, who met in the V Assembly of Women of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations-Via Campesina (CLOC-VC ) held this week in Buenos Aires.

They convened under the slogans “no socialism without feminism,” “rural women who sow the fields with struggles and hopes” and they agreed to struggle for “feminism and food sovereignty.” As part of the Sixth Congress of the CLOC-VC held in the complex of the Argentine Ministry of Social Development in Ezeiza, the women characterized the present system as “capitalist-patriarchal oppression, which maintains and reinforces power relations and exploitation and which puts the interests of the market and the accumulation over the rights and welfare of people, nature and Mother Earth. ”

The system often forgets that “it was our knowledge that started agriculture, that throughout history has fed humanity. It is we who create and transmit the knowledge of traditional medicine, and now it is we who produce most of the food. ”

Opposing the processes of usurpation of land and water that multinational companies carry out in Latin America and the Caribbean, the women demanded recognition of their contribution to production, and they reaffirmed “the importance of peasant and indigenous agriculture for the welfare of all mankind, and economic and environmental sustainability on the planet. Without family farming there is no food, and the people cannot survive.”

Deolinda Reed, leader of the Argentine National Peasant Indigenous Movement (MNCI), made it clear that the current agribusiness model imposed by transnational corporations is responsible for the food and environmental crisis in Latin America. “Their logic is to monopolize as much food as possible, with the exploitation of large tracts of land and the use of chemicals, to meet foreign consumption, based on market speculation. We will propose an alternative model of peasant family farming, which produces in an organic, communal way and which gives priority to local consumption, “he said. . . .

“The three key points discussed at the Fourth Assembly of Youth of CLOC Via Campesina were unity around a common enemy – imperialism, violence of capital on youth with the growth of militarism and the extermination of the youth; the exploitation of capital which has created 300 million poor and illiterate in the region; and the need for an alliance of town and country “to deal with these problems” . . .

João Pedro Stedile, from the national coordination of the Movement of Brazilian Landless Workers (MST) and a Via Campesina member, assessed the stakes in the dispute between two opposing agricultural models: agribusiness, which is characterized by private ownership of natural resources with no space for farmers; and agroecological production by peasants who reconcile healthy food production in harmony with the environment.

“Ideas alone do not change the world, to change the world we need mass struggles. We need to take a leap in the mass struggle and organize international struggle against a common enemy that includes Bayer, Monsanto and Syngenta, “he said.