(Rome, May 10th, 2012) This week, the United Nations Committee on World Food Security is convening for a special session to formally adopt the recently concluded Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the context of National Food Security. These new guidelines could prove to be one small but important step towards reforming the policies at the root cause of the food crisis.
La Via Campesina reminds governments that the guidelines have been built on a foundation of agreed upon human rights principles that cannot be negotiated. It is therefore the responsibility of states to support the implementation of these guidelines and to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of their citizens.
In this regard, La Via Campesina urgently requests all governments to condemn the practise of land grabbing that is currently displacing millions of peasants and small-scale producers around the world. Land grabbing is causing massive violations of human rights, whilst destroying land, society, environment and food sovereignty.
Even in the past few weeks, farmers have been violently evicted from their land in countries such as Mali, Honduras and Spain. Every week bears witness to new cases of evictions and violence against rural communities due to the rising value of agricultural land.
“Now it is urgent for governments to use the guidelines to adopt some compulsory legislation to protect small farmers from this blatant violation of their rights” - said Angel Strapazzon in Rome.
Small-scale producers play a critical role in feeding the world’s population and it is imperative that national policies prioritize their secure access to and control over productive resources. The Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests should be used first and foremost as a tool for protecting the tenure rights of small-scale food producer groups.
Today, over 400 million small-scale food producers are suffering from hunger and malnutrition caused by over half a century of ill-conceived land and rural development policies. La Via Campesina, the global movement that brings together millions of peasants, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people and agricultural workers from around the world, calls upon states to reform current land policies that are exacerbating hunger, and opening the door to land grabbing around the world.
The land belongs to those who cultivate it
Press release, Rome, 25th of April 2012
European Coordination Via Campesina
We, farmers, gathered in General Assembly in Rome this 24th and 25th of April, express our support and solidarity to all people struggling for the preservation of land, the access to land and to the profession. We are opposing the vague of privatisation of public land:
in Mali, where farmers were arrested for working the land of which they were expelled after land-grabbing;
in Honduras, where, since the 17th of April, 1200 ha were occupied;
in Andalusia, where, since the 4th of March, landless farmers are occupying
in Somonte a public farm of 400 ha, which was put on speculative sale;
in France, where 2 farmers and a political representative are on hunger strike to refuse the expulsions started for the construction of an airport in Notre-Dame des Landes;
In Italy, in the Souza valley, where farmers are resisting the expropriation caused by the construction of a high –speed train line Lyon-Turin.
These struggles reinforce other ones taking place since many years in Rumania, in Austria and in many other places. These farmers, landless-people who want to become farmers, are executing exemplary actions to win food sovereignty. These actions represent a platform for the struggle against the commodification and privatization of natural resources.
Everywhere in Europe access to land is an obstacle to food sovereignty. Land is a common good that belongs to the men and women who cultivate it, and no one should be able to appropriate it for their own benefit.
These actions should signal the beginning of land reform, which is so sorely missed in these times of unemployment, shortages and neoliberal fraud. Today, any alternative for a dignified survival should occur through the struggle for land, for sustainable family farming and for food sovereignty.
Globalise struggle,
Globalise hope!
La Via Campesina