12. Positions of Via Campesina

Photo:
Maria Luisa Mendonça
Via
Campesina is an international movement that groups together
organizations of family farmers, peasants, farm workers, rural
women, indigenous people, and afro-descendent people in the
Americas, (North, South, Central and Caribbean) Asia, Europe
and Africa.
Food
Sovereignty
One
the principal positions of Via Campesina is the defense of
Food Sovereignty. We can define food sovereignty as the right
of all peoples to define their own food and agricultures policies.
This includes:
Giving priority to production of healthy, safe and nutritious
food - that is culturally appropriate - for the domestic market.
This production should come from diversified family farms
that conserve biodiversity, take care of the soil, maintain
cultural values, and exercise good stewardship of natural
resources.
Farmers
must receive fair prices, which means that domestic markets
must be protected against the effects of cheap, dumped imports.
Supply management system are needed in those countries that
over-produce and dump their surplus abroad at cheap prices,
driving farmers out of business in the countries where these
products are dumped. Real, genuine agrarian reform must be
carried out to create a sustainable small farmer production
model. All direct and indirect export subsidies must be eliminated.
Food
sovereignty requires equitable access to land and public sector
credit so that farmers can produce, as well as fair prices
for the products they sell. Via Campesina does not oppose
trade, especially of products that can only be grown in certain
climates - as long as the conditions enumerated above are
respected.
The
domestic food and farm policy of nations cannot be defined
and imposed by financial institutions like the World Bank
and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which represent the
interests of multinational corporations. It must be the society
and governments in each country that determine national policies,
whether for agriculture or anything else, and not the agents
of the market. These decisions must respect human rights and
international treaties and conventions, and be subject to
independent international jurisdiction in case of disputes.
In a true democracy, the active participation of farmer and
peasant movements in the formulation of food and farm policies
is indispensable, just as are transparency, freedom of expression
and the right to organize.
In
today's world, issues that affect everyday life, especially
but not only of farmers, and our health, the economy, and
the environment, are being discussed and negotiated at international
forums and summits. These issues include the regulation and
use of biodiversity, the use and conservation of genetic resources,
the liberation of genetically-engineered organisms, and the
economics of farming. The international bodies that are responsible
for these topics confront a great dilemma, between choosing
a path that helps us to construct a respectful relationship
between nature and society, or the path of free trade marked
by the imposition of international finance capital and the
abandonment of food sovereignty.
For
Via Campesina, conserving biodiversity begins with respect
for the diversity of human cultures, accepting that we are
different, and that each person and each people has the right
and the freedom to think, to be and to decide for themselves.
Seen this way, biodiversity is not just flora and fauna, soil
life, water and ecosystems, but carries with it cultural traditions,
production systems, human and economic relationships, even
forms of government. In essence, freedom and equality.
Diversity
is our way of life. Plant diversity provides us with food,
medicine and fiber, while human diversity gives us a variety
of lifestyles, religions, ideologies and cultural richness.
If this tells us anything it is that we should avoid at all
costs rigid formulas that impose a single recipe, a single
way of life, or a single model of development.
Via
Campesina opposes privatization and patents on life, which
restrict the ability of peasants and indigenous people to
make a living. Our genes belong to life itself. Peasant communities
have protected and conserved genetic resources and their accompanying
knowledge from generation to generation, with profound respect
for nature. For millennia is has been peasant communities
that selected, crossed and improved crop genetic resources,
domesticating and improving every important species. Peasants,
women and men, small farmers, together with fisherfolk and
artisans, indigenous peoples and descended-communities, are
the ones who conserve, take care of, and improve the agricultural
biodiversity which is what makes agriculture itself possible.
Agrarian
Reform
In
every country which has not yet had a thorough agrarian reform,
inequality remains a principal obstacle to development, with
a small of number of large landowners concentrating the majority
of farmland in their hands. This is the underlying cause of
high levels of poverty, enormous social inequalities, terrible
living conditions, chronic underdevelopment, economic dependence,
political domination and the absence of hope for the poor
majorities.
Things
have only gotten worse in the last decade, as the majority
of our governments have acceded to neoliberal policies. These
policy prescriptions, supported by the World Bank, subordinate
farm economies to the interests of the largest landowners,
the wealthy and foreign capital. These are the policies that
open markets to multinational corporations, raise interest
rates and dismantle public sector institutions that provide
services to farmers (research, extension, price supports,
credit, marketing and crop insurance).
The
result has been ever more landless families, and the desperation
of small and medium sized farmers who now find it impossible
to make a living from farming. In the past few years we have
seen an accelerated destruction of family farms, provoking
a new rural exodus, especially of young people.
Faced
with the historical legacy of exploitation of peripheral,
rural-based economies, of deepening social and regional inequalities
driven by the neoliberal model, the tightening squeeze on
family farmers, in both the Third and First Worlds, farmer
organizations defend, more than ever, the need for broad based
policies of agrarian reform. These are the instruments that
can eliminate poverty and social inequality, and promote the
true development of our societies.
Agrarian
reform cannot be seen as a simple process of distributing
land. Rather it must be accompanied by profound changes in
the economic, social and political model of development.
Access
to land for the poor must be understood as a guarantee that
their culture is valued, that communities have the right to
autonomy, and that we have a new vision of how to conserve
natural resources, for the good of humanity and for future
generations. The land is given to us by nature and must be
at the service of all. Land is not, and should never be, a
mere commodity.
It
is the responsibility of governments to enact policies that
stimulate family farm economies and farmer cooperatives, via
prices, credit, and crop insurance. Monopolies over the processing
of farm products must be broken up, democratizing control
over and access to agroindustrial processes. Agrarian reform
must be seen within a larger policy of food sovereignty, and
must be accompanied by universal access to formal education
- at all levels - for peasant families. Knowledge is a common
heritage of humanity, and must be placed at the disposition
of the entire population, especially working people.
Principles
and Commitments of Farmers and Peasants
All
families that want to live and work on the land have the right
to love and conserve the land and nature for the benefit of
all.
Preserve forests and reforest degraded areas.
Conserve
water, springs, rivers, aquifers and lakes, and struggle against
the privatization of water.
Avoid
predatory monoculture and the use of farm chemicals and toxics.
Adequately treat wastes and fight against contamination of
the environment.
Fight
against overly large landholdings and reject the land reform
policies implemented by the World Bank and the transnational
corporations.
Struggle
against the companies that monopolize technology, that exploit
us, and the international agencies (like the IMF, WTO and
G-7) that only articulate the interests of large capital.
We
can always further perfect our knowledge of nature and agriculture,
and transmit that knowledge to young people, motivating them
to remain in rural areas.
Practice
solidarity and express indignation against all forms of injustice,
aggression, and exploitation of any person, community or of
nature, anywhere in the world.
Fight
for and defend equality among men and women. Fight all kinds
racial and sexual discrimination. Create real opportunities
so that nobody is ever discriminated against or excluded because
of their gender or race.
Beautify
our rural communities, caring for and planting trees, flowers,
medicinal plants and vegetables.
Never
sell the land we have won. The land is a greater good that
guarantees the survival of future generations.
Speak
out against the payment of the foreign debt, so that critical
resources can de redirected to cover the unpayable debts that
family farmers and peasants have with the banking sector.
13.
Bibliography
14.
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