Newsletters Nyéléni in English

The international Nyéléni newsletter is the voice of the international movement for Food Sovereignty. Its main goal is to strengthen the grassroots of the movement, by providing accessible material on key issues and creating a space – for individuals and organisations involved in the struggle – to exchange their experiences and share information.

Voices from the field

Newsletter no 21 - Rights to natural resources

Voices from the field 1

Dominion farm’s land grab in Nigeria

Farmers in Nigeria’s Taraba State are being forced off lands that they have farmed for generations to make way for U.S. company Dominion Farms to establish a 30,000 ha rice plantation. The project is backed by the Nigerian government and the G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa.

The lands being given to Dominion Farms are part of a public irrigation scheme that thousands of families depend on for their food needs and livelihoods. The local people were not consulted about the deal with Dominion Farms and, although the company has already started to occupy the lands, they are still completely in the dark about any plans for compensation or resettlement. Local people oppose the Dominion Farms project. They want their lands back so that they can continue to produce food for their families and the people of Nigeria (…). Quotes from local farmers speaking during meetings with ERA and CEED at Gassol community:

“We were happy when we heard of the coming of the Dominion Farms not knowing it was for the selfish interest of some few members of the State, Federal Government and the foreigner in charge of the Dominion Farms. Our land is very rich and good. (..)But since Dominion Farms people arrived with their machine and some of their working equipment we were asked to stop our farm work and even leave our lands as the land is completely given to the Dominion Farms project. (…)” – Mallam Danladi K Jallo

“We are speaking in one voice against Dominion Farms because we are opposing their activities. We have fish ponds that we inherited from our forefathers on that land, but Dominion Farm has said that they will sand fill all of them to give them more space to plant their crops. When they commenced work on the land they came with security personnel whom Dominion Farms mandated to evict all farmers who were working on their lands.”– Alhaji Mairiga Musa

“We do not subscribe to a foreign agricultural and farming system that we do not have knowledge. They came here to farm. The only story we hear is that our land is taken away and will be given out. We were not involved at any level. For the sake of the future and our children, we are requesting governmental authorities to ask Dominion Farms to stay away from our land” – Rebecca Sule (Mama Tina)

Environmental Rights Action (ERA), Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Center for Environmental Education and Development (CEED), full article and report here.

Voices from the field 2

Taking care of our traditional territories

Ninawá Inu Pareira Nunes – indigenous leader from the HuniKui people from the state of Acre from the North (Amazonas region) of Brazil

“God” created everything that exists and gave life. On our planet Earth, many human, animal and vegetal lives exist, with a lot of specificities and diverse interrelated relationships, however, God created something common between the living beings, the Territory and the Traditions.

We “Indigenous” peoples have a lot of customs, beliefs and traditions that are directly related to the forest, air, water, land and sun, in a single cosmological, spiritual relationship that is very profound and respectful. For us, the land has a meaning of spiritual sustainability through our customs that express our identity, which is vital and essential for the physical, spiritual and cultural reproduction of our future generations.

Since immemorial times, we, “Indigenous” Peoples, exercise fundamental and strategic roles in the protection of Mother Earth, in containing deforestation, conservation of forests and biodiversity, and other wealth of our territories that sustain our and other communities, who depend on these for livelihood, independent of our financial, academic and technological conditions. All this is possible because of our ancestral knowledge.

Nowadays technology is forcing changes in our tradition in order to guarantee a perverse and destructive development model. But for my HUNI KIU People, this is a big mistake by governments. We have real evidence that it is possible to live without destructive technology, it is possible to care for the environment of each living being in relation to its specificities, creating concrete sustainabilities, and we believe that other traditional communities believe this too.
Traditional territory for us, Huni Ku, is a 100% guarantee of our lives, through food security in traditional ways – with food coming from the rivers, lakes and streams, game from the forests, potatoes and other healthy vegetables, all of which differ from the technological ways of production where 70% of the food and feed contains agrotoxins. By way of our traditional rituals, it is possible to cure without scientific/technological intervention, differently from laboratory drugs, that say they will cure illnesses, but cause problems in other parts of our bodies. We have experienced this, generation after generation.

So we need to maintain our traditional territories as the milieu of our material and spiritual relations with the land and with our mother, because they produce everything to sustain us, in harmony with the forest and animals, maintaining the environmental equilibrium, like the air that is being breathed in the whole world. It is possible to live in a better world, without destroying Nature and our traditions. An indigenous person without territory has no tradition.

Boxes

Newsletter no 21 - Rights to natural resources

Box 1

Four Laws for the Poor in Thailand

Posting a picture of four fingers from the back of a hand on social media is a sign of solidarity with the Four Laws for the Poor campaign. The campaign began in 2008 in response to the continuing concentration of land in Thailand. According to 2014 data, 62% of private land in the country is owned by just 10% of the population. The largest land holding by a single individual is 631,263 rai (101,000 hectares).While nearly 750,000 rural families possess no land at all, 70% of privately owned land is idle land .

The Four Laws for the Poor campaign seeks to address disparities in land ownership and challenges faced by marginalized peoples regarding access to land. The key goals of the campaign are to have four bills proposed by social movements made into law and implemented, in order to address the long-standing land and justice issues. The campaign is mobilizing public support through social media and public events. According to the Thai constitution, citizens have the right to submit a bill for consideration by the parliament and enacted into law if backed at least 50,000 signatures.

The four bills proposed are:

1. Progressive land tax bill — the bill will impose different tax rates on land–particularly high taxes on idle land– to encourage efficient land use and avoid land concentration. Those who own a lot of land will be induced to use or sell excess land to avoid tax burden.

2. Public land bank bill — The public land bank will enable access to land to landless individuals and peasants through rent or purchase at low rates for livelihood and habitation. Portions of funds collected through progressive taxation and other financial supports from the state will be used to operate the public land bank. The land bank will also serve as a community fund for collective ownership and management of land and natural resources.

3. Community land and natural resource management rights bill — the bill will provide legal recognition of collective rights to land and natural resources in both management and ownership. The bill will also establish legal infrastructure for communities to file class action suits against state and non-state actors, and determine the roles-responsibilities of the state to support the collective rights of communities.

4. Justice fund bill — Since the Thai state has declared that lands originally occupied and inhabited by rural people are now “forest reserves”, the number of people charged with encroaching on these lands has been increasing. This bill will establish a fund for providing financial support to individuals and communities facing such criminal charges. The fund will cover the costs of legal battles/processes such as bail, court fees, etc.

The four bills are clearly interconnected: they will address land inequality and respond to both, urgent and longer-term needs of rural peoples. The Four laws for Poor campaign is one of the biggest campaigns on land issues in Thailand, led and supported by various social movements, community based organizations and landless networks from different regions of the country.

Box 2

Reclaim the Fields network in Europe

Reclaim the Fields (RtF) is a constellation of people and collective projects willing to reassume the control over food production. We are determined to create alternatives to capitalism through cooperative, collective, autonomous, real needs oriented, small scale production, thus putting theory into practice.

An important role of the RtF network is to link the local practical action of the various groups with global political struggles. One key topic we are working on is the question of getting access to land. Currently the network spreads across Europe and there is a variety of approaches included — collective farms, land occupations, protest camps, urban farming projects, anti-GMO activism, etc. Being connected in a European network allows these local initiatives to share ideas and experiences, gain more public attention in concerted actions and directly support each other.

Currently land grabbing processes–which are occurring in Europe, just as in other parts of the world–increasingly put land under control of the interests of capital accumulation. People and projects involved in RtF are putting up resistances against these land-grabbing practices in many different places and settings, and using different strategies. One well known example is the successful occupation and defence of agricultural land and forests in Notre-Dame de Landes. The planned construction of an Airport by the company Vinci could be prevented through determined resistance of local farmers and activists. Now many young people have moved to this area they call “La ZAD”, different collectives have started to revive the abandoned farms and are now growing food there.


The annual gathering of RtF, which was this year held in January in Nottingham, United Kingdom (UK) provided a platform for the activists to engage in theoretical debates and re-organise the thematic work in different working groups. For the coming year, plans were made to organise an RtF camp in the UK at the site of a newly planned mega-prison. RtF camps offer a program of workshops and are usually a place to spread the ideas to a wider audience and to support local struggles in the region. Additionally some RtF members are planning a trip to Greece to link up with different projects. These examples show that we consider it important to build alliances with other social movements, because in the attempt to (re-)gain control over our lives agriculture is just one–although very important–aspect among many.

You can find more information about the network and involved groups at www.reclaimedfields.org or get in touch by mailing to contact@reclaimthefields.org.

Box 3

The Bukittinggi Paradigm: towards an agrarian revolution*

Agrarian and aquatic reform in the 21th Century must be struggles for justice that democratize agrarian structures and build new social, economic and political relations. They incorporate space, territory, water and biodiversity. To counter the destruction of several decades of neoliberalism, the new agrarian-aquatic reforms must be revolutionary and transformative, end land and resource concentration, and resist counter-agrarian reform. Elements of the vision include:


Food sovereignty:agrarian and aquatic reform must be founded on the principles of food sovereignty and have as its central pillar, the concept of territory. Food sovereignty demands secure access to and control over farmlands, seeds, breeds, forests, pastoral lands, migratory routes, fishing areas, water bodies, seas, coasts and eco-systems by peasants, fisher-folk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and workers. It cannot be realized without land and resource sovereignty, and the rights of food producers to govern their territories-domains, including their customs, rules and agreements for protecting, using and sharing domains across geo-political boundaries.

Redistribution of power: expropriation and distribution of private lands that do not serve a social purpose to landless/land-poor families, the over-arching goal of redistribution is to redistribute power and alter power relations in favor of small-scale food producers, their organizations and movements. Such redistribution cannot be carried out through market mechanisms. Agrarian reform must balance the priorities of peasants, family farmers, fisher-folk, indigenous peoples, the landless, pastoralists and other rural communities, emphasizing the particular needs of women and youth.

The right to resources, territory and self-determination:agrarian and aquatic reforms must guarantee rural people secure access to and control over their lands and territories, restore pride of identity and the dignity of peasants, indigenous peoples, fisher-folk, pastoralists, workers and women. It must respect the rights of mother earth, the cosmovisions of different cultures, and local autonomy and governance with equal rights for women and men. Communities of food producers should be able to make decisions over the use, management and preservation of their lands, territories and resources, with priority to the rights of women, youth and historically marginalized groups.

Defense of land and territories: all possible measures–legal, regulatory and direct action–should be used to defend lands, water, territories, minerals and biodiversity from expropriations, capitalist enclosures, commodification and destruction. Land and territory must be defended as social/collective wealth, not simply as individual property while at the same time respecting and upholding the rights of mother earth. Land speculation must be prohibited, and state and private corporations must be prevented from acquiring large expanses of land. These include community/collective titles to prevent individual land parcels from entering the market, opposing market mechanisms in land governance, peoples’ counter-enclosures such as land occupations, and mobilizations in public spaces and fora to build popular support for our struggles.

Address poverty, unemployment, hunger and distress migration: agrarian reform must create enabling conditions for enhancing standards of living for the majorityand for reviving and rebuilding rural economies, including for example, public provision of good quality, affordable and accessible services in health, education, electricity, water and sanitation, transportation, recreation, credit, banks, markets, etc. It must reverse the distress migration of rural peoples, enable the reinsertion of peasants back on their lands and ensure futures for young people in the countryside.

Rural-urban land sovereignty: A new vision must address the reality of urban areas in relation to land, water, housing, food and essential services. The same forces of speculative capital that drive land grabbing in rural areas are behind the real estate speculation that cause mass evictions of the urban poor. A strong-rural-urban alliance to resist common enemies requires rebuilding inter-dependence between producers and consumers, and revisiting concepts of social, economic, political and environmental justice.

Models of production, distribution and consumption: should be non-exploitative, environmentally responsible and slow down climate change. Energy policy is especially important since land, forests, rivers, seas and sea-beds are being captured to feed high-energy industries and lifestyles. Production models should empower and enrich small-scale food producers, not force them into debt traps or value chains they have no control over. Production and distribution models should be based on food sovereignty and agro-ecology, and support the recovery of native seeds and breeds, water harvesting, locally generated renewable energy, revival of traditional foods and re-building local food systems.

Peace, justice and dignity: food sovereignty, agrarian reform and defense of land and territories are struggles for peace, justice, dignity and life. A new agrarian reform must mobilize forces to end state, military and corporate occupations of lands and territories, oppose war and militarization of our economic systems, and challenge the criminalization of our struggles.

The full Bukit Tinggi synthesis, including the steps to realize the “vision”, see Keeping Land Local, Chapter 9.

* The international meeting “Agrarian Reform and the Defense of Land and Territory in the 21st Century, the Challenge and Future” was organized by La Via Campesina and the Global Campaign on Agrarian Reform (GCAR) to discuss the global conjuncture and identify key elements of a common strategy for agrarian reform, food sovereignty and the defense of land and territories. Over 150 representatives from peasants, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, youth, workers, women, landless workers, human rights and research organizations participated in the meeting, which was held in Bukit Tinggi, West Sumatera, Indonesia from July 10th-13th 2012.

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 21 - Rights to natural resources

In the spotlight 1

Natural resources and food sovereignty

The defense of and the struggle for our rights to land, water, seeds, breeds, fisheries, forests, oceans, and all the natural resources that we need in order to be able to feed ourselves and our communities with dignity are at the core of Food Sovereignty.

But how can we defend and struggle for our rights to resources vis-à-vis powerful national and transnational investors, unfair investment and trade regimes, financialization of natural resources, blatant co-option of states by transnational capital, and militarization, violence and criminalization against those defending their rights to resources? What are the roles for policies and laws in these struggles?

There is no easy answer to these questions. Context matters a lot. What works in one place or situation does not necessarily work in others. Nevertheless, we have some insights that are useful to share, reflect and further develop.
Law is one of the means par excellence of exercising power. Any people’s movement trying to change power relationships cannot avoid dealing with legal issues in order to challenge unjust and illegitimate laws, policies and practices; and in order to build alternative normative and legal orders which are instrumental in creating/consolidating counter-powers. For social movements rallying for food sovereignty, the question is not whether to use legal strategies, but rather which legal strategies to use.

Here the human rights framework plays a prominent role, particularly when it comes to challenging international legal frameworks that work against the rural poor–such as trade, investment environmental and security regimes-or to defending local communities from abuses by international actors. A human right is a right inherent to all human beings without any discrimination based on sex, origin, race, place of residence, religion, or any other status. Human rights are universal, interdependent, indivisible and interrelated, and seek to protect human dignity. They are derived from the needs and aspirations of ordinary people, express universal ethical and moral values, and empower each human being, their communities and peoples with entitlements and enforceable claims vis-à-vis their own, as well as other governments. To resist oppression is at the very core of human rights. Human rights explicitly address power imbalances and question the legitimacy of the powerful.

Ways of using the human rights framework are highly diverse and depend on contextual factors. Some grassroots groups and social movements use human rights and national laws in defensive strategies to protect their members from major abuses such as persecution, harassment, arbitrary detention, violent forced evictions and destruction of crops, animals and agricultural infrastructure. In such situations,resorting to human rights and/or fundamental rights enshrined in national constitutions can save lives and provide avenues for action that are likely to gather the support of other sectors of society in the face of government repression.

Other groups and movements use human and constitutional rights, and national policies and laws upholding these rights, to raise awareness among their members about their rights, and in doing so to restore self-confidence, dignity and the conviction that resisting oppression is rightful. Raising awareness is crucial to mobilize and organize people to defend their rights. On other occasions, a legal strategy is part of a broader strategy which aims at changing the way conflicts over resources are framed and perceived by society. They combine direct actions and actions of legal disobedience – such as land occupations or hindering the construction of so called development projects – with filling cases before courts or administrative authorities.

Human rights can also be used to challenge illegitimate policies and laws such as the corporate-friendly legal frameworks in many countries and to uphold people’s alternatives proposals for policies and laws opening up spaces for policy dialogue centered on people’s lives.

For sure, human rights treaties, national constitutions, laws and policies upholding people’s rights are not self-executory. They always need to be claimed by people. So far, people’s mobilizations on the ground remain the paramount form of human rights accountability. International human rights soft-law instruments such as the Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests can become effective when social movements appropriate, claim, monitor and implement them on their own. Soft-law instruments can become powerful tools to transmit dissent and resistance to destructive legal regimes (such as trade and investment) and lay the foundations of alternative policy making.

In the spotlight 2

Initiatives for the respect and defense of water

On July 28, 2010 in an unexpected move , the UN Human Rights Council adopted by consensus the Resolution on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (UN Resolution 64/292). Co-sponsored by 74 states, this highlights the importance of the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. Pushed by the global water justice movements and civil society, its adoption was accelerated by the institutionalization of human right to water and sanitation by some Latin American countries in their constitutions, for e.g. Bolivia, Uruguay and El Salvador.

At least 165 States have signed on to various declarations recognising the right to water, including members of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Council of Europe. The creation of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water and Sanitation was another positive step towards the respect and defense of water. The first Special Rapporteur Catarina de Albuquerque developed various tools for the implementation of this right.
State actors, civil society and communities have also initiated actions to defend, protect and conserve water as a right, a public good and as commons. One example of this is public and community allocation and management of water services to counter commodification and privatization and promote viable, pro-poor and ecologically sustainable options for the world’s populations that lack access to water.

These include Public-Public Partnerships (PuPs), Public-Community Partnerships and Community-Community Partnerships, which are not-for-profit, mutually beneficial partnerships between public sector water operators, local communities, trade unions and other social-economic groups. These democratic partnerships aim “to link up public water operators and different groups on a non-profit basis to strengthen management and technical capacity.” As opposed to public-private partnerships (PPPs), PuPs offer an innovative and practical way of sharing the expertise of public water managers to spread good practices and ideas in water management, such as ensuring water delivery to urban poor communities, respecting workers’ rights, adopting core labour standards and allowing consumers to participate in the determination of water pricing. PuPs also call for providing the social and political support needed for such mutual cooperation.

Another innovative model is the upstream-downstream watershed protection. In the Philippines, civic organisations and public water utilities have allowed local communities to manage and maintain water sources for the cities. The public utilities directly invest in agro-ecological farming practices and in community livelihoods, with the idea that a “good environment will produce good water.” Such models of watershed protection and water service provision are diverse, as they depend on the specific conditions of a particular area. Importantly, these models promote a new vision for water management that re-establish water [For more examples, read Buenaventura Dargantes, Mary Ann Manahan, Daniel Moss and V. Suresh: Water, Commons, Water Citizenship and Water Security here or here.] as commons and make water governance an issue of social and ecological justice and democratization.

Water rights–i.e., how to use, allocate and manage water resources have implications on the realisation of the human right to water and sanitation, and a new vision for water management. Globally, water rights have been used as a political tool in stopping corporate water grabbing, and challenging mining, hydraulic fracking and destructive investments. Citizens’ groups, local governments and affected communities have organised and campaigned to protect their water for drinking, irrigation, agriculture and identity. These include for example: the 2000 Cochabamba Water Wars which expelled Aguas del Turnari (a joint venture involving Bechtel) from Bolivia; Dow Chemical vs Quebec and Lone Pine in Canada, which involves protecting water against pesticides and fracking; El Salvador against Pac Rim and the more recent case of Infinito Gold against Costa Rica; and communities in Plachimada (India) vs. Coca-Cola and Nestle that over-extract and deplete ground water.

Newsletter no 21 – Editorial

Newsletter no 21 - Rights to natural resources

Rights to natural resources

Illustration: leaf – An earth that nurishes @Anna and Elena Balbusso

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.

The attribution of rights to natural resources reflects these differences. Corporations, financial institutions and many governments promote marketable rights through land titles, water trading rights, emissions trading, etc.
Most governments recognize those who can pay most as rights holders to land, water, minerals and forests. For peasants, fisher-folk, workers, indigenous peoples and rural and urban poor, their rights to resources are legitimate claims to lands and eco-systems that are rooted in respect for nature, as well as their rights to self determination. The realization of these rights is a necessary precondition for building democratic and just governance systems, and ensuring peace and harmony with nature.

The articles in this edition show how peoples across the world are fighting to secure and defend their rights to natural resources and the rights of nature. Spotlights 1 and 2 provide valuable information about tools that can be used to strengthen our struggles, which must include defending and reclaiming the notions of rights themselves from market cooptation.

Shalmali Guttal, Focus on the Global South

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Rights to natural resources, no 21

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Box

Newsletter no 20 - Agroecology and climate

Box 1

Climate-Smart Agriculture: a major driver of the Green Economy

[See the Nyéléni Newsletter no 10]

An original initiative of the FAO and supported by the World Bank, Climate-Smart Agriculture claims that “achieving food security and responding to the challenges of climate change are two goals that must be achieved together” and “that’s why agriculture, fisheries and forestry in developing countries must undergo a significant transformation.”

At a superficial level C-S Agriculture seems like a positive initiative. But when we look at the details of what is included, we realize it is essentially a project to rebrand industrial agriculture as climate smart. C-S Agriculture deliberately tries to blur the boundaries between agroecological peasant controlled Food Sovereignty and corporate controlled agriculture. For example it doesn’t recognize that it is the corporate food system that creates climate emissions or the urgent need to completely move away from this system towards peasant based agro-ecology to help solve the climate crisis.


Climate-Smart Agriculture puts the agribusinesses in charge of agriculture and even rewards them. Several major agribusinesses like Monsanto (GMOs) Yara (fertilizer) and Walmart (retail giant) are all backing Climate-Smart Agriculture. Monsanto is claiming that GM agriculture is climate smart because it helps no-till farming and drought tolerance. Yet as we know from decades of experience, GMOs increase the use of agrotoxics, promote corporate agriculture and, in addition, have not produced a single useful trait to adapt to climate change.

Moreover, Climate-Smart Agriculture promotes agriculture to become a part of carbon offset schemes that will create one more driver of land dispossession of small-scale food producers, particularly in the Global South, and unfairly place the burden of mitigation on those who are most vulnerable to, but have least contributed to, the climate crisis [Civil Society Organizations letter (September 2014) Corporate-Smart Greenwash: why we reject the Global Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture] also expanding the carbon market and its use for financial speculation [Via Campesina (September 2014) UN-masking Climate Smart Agriculture].

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 because of grabs by corporations [Via Campesina (September 2014) UN-masking Climate Smart Agriculture]”. Many Governments find Climate-Smart Agriculture attractive and are taking part in its initiatives.

Let’s mobilize to stop them.

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 20 - Agroecology and climate

In the spotlight 1

Agroecology – from historical identity to illegal appropriation

In a world which aims to privatise and patent everything, agroecology has been placed on the agenda of international agriculture and food governance where science, multilateral agencies and even the private sector compete for space on the playing field to have their role in the design of sustainable agricultural systems recognised. In a world which assumes to recognise the importance of small-scale food producers, agroecology seems to be becoming appropriated by others and alienated from its historical protagonists.

Eduardo Sevilla Guzman says “One of the characteristics of industrialised capitalist societies is constituted by the role played by science, the institutions through which social control of change is exerted, anticipating the future with the aim of planning it. Processes of privatization, commoditisation and “scientification” of communal ecological goods (air, land, water and biodiversity) developed through the dynamic of modernization have assumed an intensification through the application of artificial physical, chemical and biological processes to cycles of nature in order to obtain foodstuffs”.[Eduardo Sevilla Guzmán, Agroecología y agricultura ecológica: hacia una “re” construcción de la soberanía alimentaria, Revista Agroecológica, University of Murcia, Volume 1, 2006.]

For this, it is more urgent than ever to know how agroecology was born in order to conceive public policies through the right lens. Since the origins of humanity, knowledge has been essential to life, and for this agroecology has been developed from traditional knowledge accumulated historically by peasant farmers, to which has been added the scientific knowledge of the last few centuries.

It has been peasant farmers and indigenous peoples who have identified, adapted and incorporated new elements to improve production of food, maintaining their cultural identities without damaging nature. This is the only form we should use when developing creative designs for the production and circulation of foodstuffs.

Peasant knowledge and experience, surrounded by capitalism in its distinct forms, becomes reborn from its origins and is refreshed, demonstrating real results with creativity and legitimacy and showing definitively that it is possible to have a dignified life in the countryside, maintaining a peasant and indigenous identity.

Agroecology is the social, economic, organisational, productive and political model for living in the countryside of small-scale food producers which returns the social role of food – in contrast to the capitalist system which reduces food to a commodity. It has the unique particularity of not being a homogenous model, but one which accommodates all the local agri and hydro-cultures represented by men and women farmers and peasants, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, small-scale fisheries and woodland and forest dwellers who defend their territories and the land, seeds and all natural resources, food sovereignty and buen vivir.

However, agroecology also implies a change in the paradigm of social, political and economic relations, as well as the relations between nature and society – transforming the patterns of production and consumption to build food sovereignty from the peoples of the country and the city. We know that agroecology is the only model capable of feeding the peoples of the world, but only through its protagonists – peasant farmers and indigenous peoples.

Agroecology is on the agenda and is quickly becoming the key issue in many spaces which have forgotten the real protagonists of this agricultural revolution. For this reason, government recommendations should ensure it is small-scale food producers who implement political, economic and agri-food changes of and from their territories.

In the spotlight 2

Agroecology as a solution to climate change

The climate change issue has been in our minds for a long time now. Research studies, conferences and debates galore, the environment sector comes alive altogether at a different level when it is time for a convention or protocols to take place. Before and after the events- reports are tabled, resistances and disagreements are recorded and reports of emission reduction targets start pouring in. It is very critical to have countries join international treaties to come together and cooperatively consider what one can do to limit the emissions to manage the global temperature and its effects on the planet that we inhabit. It is critical because by strengthening a global commitment, we need to reverse the inevitable effects of the changing climate. And it is not only feasible, it is also economically viable and profitable as well.

Climate change is a complex problem, which, although environmental in nature, touches and has consequences for all spheres of existence of our people. It impacts on and is impacted by global issues, including food, trade, poverty, economic development, population growth, sustainable development and resource management. Stabilizing the climate is a definitely a huge challenge that requires planning and steps in the right directions. However, the bigger questions lie in understanding not just the ‘how much’ but also the ‘how to’- how to reduce these emissions, how to produce enough healthy food and how to have clean energy?

Solutions for mitigating climate change come from all arenas in the form of creating new technologies, renewable clean energies and even changing management practices. Agroecology is one such practice that deals with the ‘how to’ of mitigation as well as adaptation to climate change. The uncertainty of raising temperatures, erratic rainfall patterns, droughts and the emergence of unfamiliar pests and diseases, demands a form of agriculture that is resilient, and a system of food production that supports local knowledge transfer and on farm experimentation through building adaptive capacity of farmers. Majority of climate change mitigation activities are foundations of organic practices. Organic production systems serve as the best widespread examples of low emissions agriculture. Organic systems are more resilient than industrial systems in terms of withstanding environmental shocks and stresses including droughts and flooding.

Conventional agriculture releases high carbon emissions due to the over use of fossil fuels and destroys biodiversity. For agriculture, the idea is for a shift towards agroecological models of production that allow drastic reductions in the use of fossil fuels, present great mitigation potential through soil, wildlife and plant rejuvenation, and have the flexibility as well as diversity required to allow adaptation to changing conditions. In practice, agriculture can contribute to cooling the planet in three ways: by reducing the use of fossil fuel (through reducing and/or completely removing chemical and synthetic fertilizers and pesticide production) and of fossil fuel powered transport and machinery; by positively effecting biodiversity and by slowing the release of biotic carbon.

Agroecology can significantly impact climate change positively as it builds:
Agro-ecosystem resilience that would look at consistency and sustainability of yield even and especially so, with the changing climate;
Livelihood resilience that would help in achieving diversification of livelihood options through poultry, cattle, fish breeding etc…
This also helps in separating agricultural practice from instability and changes in other markets, while holding assets on the farm and also reduced or completely stops dependency on external inputs.

Smallholder agroecology is not only an effective solution to complex agricultural challenges, but also an affordable way to increase yields without external inputs outside the farm. Further, it offers low inputs, low emissions and local control over production decisions, offering Food Sovereignty alternative to the unsustainable agro-monocultures currently being pushed to address the food crisis. Several characteristics that are found in local or indigenous breeds will become increasingly important as climate change alters the environment and affects the produce. Local seeds and crops have a much better chance of survival in their local environment with the changing climate conditions. Their protection, along with the local knowledge is critical to their management and breeding, is extremely crucial to feed us in the future.

In the spotlight 3

Transformation made possible: Agroecology, a popular, solidarity-based economic model

Is it possible to think about another way of doing economics, a way which goes beyond the hegemonic model of production-distribution-exchange-consumption of foodstuffs at a global level, characterized supply chains controlled by a few large transnational corporations which exclude other actors and retain the majority of the profits?

Can this model, this agro-mining-export model cohabit with an economy based on principles of cooperation, reciprocity, autonomy, justice and solidarity – an economy which progressively redistributes means of production which have been concentrated in the hands of a few: land, capital, technology and access to knowledge?

Can openings be made in this dominant economic model to build another economy based on exchange and restitution — in place of extraction — between society and nature, on collective responsibility and on forms of collective, community, mixed, public and other types of property different from private property, which remains the basic principle of the rights system in capitalist societies?

It is only possible to think of building “another economy” if we obtain People’s Food Sovereignty — and to achieve this there is no other route but Agroecology. Family farmers, peasants and indigenous peoples have developed another way of thinking and living which make Agroecology possible — from the production to the system of values and social relations which exist behind the food we eat. We need agriculture and food policies which distribute equitably and build politically from the level of local markets — there is no Food Security for People unless there is Sovereignty and respect for their cultures.

The peasant farmers and practitioners of Agroecology of MAELA (Agroecological Movement of Latin America and the Caribbean) and its organisations have developed, in the last two decades, diverse forms of socio-economic and productive organisation based on the right to life which is permanently violated by the existing dominant economic system. This process has made us aware that the production, sales, distribution and access to foodstuffs are part of a political process of interactions, a cause for individual and collective rights which can bring dignity to life in the field as well as in the city.

From the local to the global and in that order of priority, actions are conceived and developed to open breaches in this commodifying system for food:
– Creating local agroecological markets with identities which build direct links between producers and consumers at the same time as providing a space of political and social exchange and information and which generate labels or alternative guarantee systems;
– Fortifying traditional peasant markets through the defence of their cultural identity and the restitution of the productive agroecological peasant identity;
– Generating agreements with urban actors for the development of healthy and equitable peasant agrifood systems;
– Creatively building methods of regional and international exchange with an agroecological identity, through solidarity channels north-south, south-south, or peasant to peasant;
– Implementing diverse strategies for avoiding the entry of peasants into traditional value chains which are controlled by and at the service of national elites and transnational corporations.
These systems and processes have allowed us to live an agroecological revolution, based on social, economic, cultural and organisational pillars to reach people’s Food Sovereignty.

Newsletter no 20 – Editorial

Newsletter no 20 - Agroecology and climate

Agroecology and climate

Peasant Agroecology, the key for humankind and the planet

Illustration: Erin Dunn, www.cargocollective.com/erndnn

Agroecology has existed for many years, and much has been written about it already. It is a multidimensional approach, founded on knowledge, know-how and peasants’ ways of life, grounded in their respective natural, social and cultural environment. For many years it was considered as archaic and not really adapted to “modern progress”. Agroecology was banished, but is now making a big comeback. But who will reap the benefits?

Agroecological farming ensures soil, peasant seeds and farmers’ knowledge is valued and sustained. It is the symbol of the diversity of production and practice that exists, of the diversity of food and its cultural identities adapted to their social and natural environment. Yet today it is being taken over by industrial agriculture. Industrial agriculture is the opposite of agroecology, as it is based on profit, uniformity, specialisation, and concentration, with all the deadly consequences that this implies.

Industrial agriculture needs to clean up its image, so will yet again try to pull the wool over people’s eyes, talking about sustainable “green agriculture that respects nature and people”, but using the name of agro-ecology [Agroecology : peasant agroecology. Agro-ecology: agroecology taken over and promoted by industrial agriculture.]. It sounds good; but it is just another way of capturing knowledge and patenting living organisms.
This is the way governments and companies around the world are talking. Everyone wants to get in onto the bandwagon. Monsanto, together with Arvalis has trained their advisors in agro-ecology. For them, agro-ecology means boasting about cutting back on chemical inputs in terms of volume but not concentration, continuing to promote hybrid seeds, GMOs and other transgenic plants and animals; monoculture, battery breeding and soil-less gardening, land- water- and natural resource-grabbing etc.

Apart from these practices that are the opposite of what agroecology is about, all this is based on technical dimensions, setting aside the essential social, societal, environmental and spiritual aspects.

This is why it is so urgent for peasant communities and peasant organisations to organise and promote peasant agroecology, linked to the Earth, and implement multiple, diverse forms of family agriculture that are adapted to their environment, their means, biodiversity and knowledge, to ensure healthy, nutritious food and the respect of agri-systems and biodiversity as well as the socio-economic development or territories, including harmonious social cohesion, the respect for community identity, supporting the autonomy of peasants as the corollary of increased income and well-being.

In the framework of Food Sovereignty, peasant agroecology as practised by millions of people and communities is the main key for the preservation of our planet, both today and tomorrow.

IPC working group on Agroecology

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Agroecology and climate, no 20

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Voices from the field

Newsletter no 19 - Territorial defence

Voices from the field 1

Resistance in Cambodia

Ms Oum Sophy, one of the leaders of the Lor Peang land struggle, Cambodia.

Since 2006, residents of Lor Peang village in Kampong Tralach District, Kampong Chhnang province in Cambodia have been embroiled in a land dispute with KDC International, a powerful private company owned by Ms Chea Kheng, the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Mr Suy Sem. Since mid July 2014, the village has been occupied by military police and KDC International is building a wall around the lands seized from the villagers.

My name is Oum Sophy. My husband and two other villagers were arrested after we left our village to march to Phnom Penh this morning (12th August 2014). We decided to go to Phnom Penh to ask the government to help us and find a fair solution to the land dispute in our village. On the way, our food, water, bags and documents were thrown and messed up along the road by military police, who tried to stop us from going on. Most of the villagers marching together were beaten by the police and injured, and our children were crying. I could not help my husband when I saw the police carry him into the police truck.

Most of us who marched today are elderly and many are children. I did not want to take my four children with me but I have no choice. My youngest child is only four months old.

We want justice for our people. Five of our representatives have been arrested and we want them to be released. We want the government to stop the company [KDC International] from building walls around our lands, urgently withdraw the military police from our village and stop threatening our freedom, and let us have a safe environment so that our children can go to school. I will not return to my village till there is a proper solution to our problem.

Voices from the field 2

No to the Pacto-Junín megamingin project!

Julián Morente, The Organisations of Neighbours in Resistance of Ingapi, Ecuador.

Pacto is a rural parish in Ingapi, Ecuador. The villagers have managed to live for centuries growing sugar cane interspersed with banana, cassava and other subsistence crops. Our crops do not contain chemicals. We have always worked the land by traditional means, feeding the soil so that the soil can feed us. We produce raw sugar from own sugarcane mills, with homemade equipment and wooden stoves for decanting the sugar.

In the lowlands, have organic grazing livestock and produce milk and meat, without the need of large processors, as we distribute locally and regionally. Here in the foothills of the Andes, the mining companiesa want to come. They have already started in some mountain areas.

President Correa calls int the Pacto-Junin Megamining Project: more than four thousand hectares only in Pacto; in Junin destruction is well underway. Where are we going to go? We want food, not stones or gold. Here you will leave a desert for future generations. Technicians say that it is a mile deep, that’s an monstrosity because almost six months of rain, then lifting, opening the mountain form here to the river they will lose the reserve which serves the municipality of Quito. I say that water is more important than gold.

The so-called environmental impact studies have been a disaster – they have all been in favour of mining. Mining here will use harsh chemicals like cyanide -apart from completely collapsing hills, affecting forests, pastures, water flow and composition will be brutally contaminated.

They say there is uranium further down. The government wants to give us compensation – three hundred dollars per acre. We do not agree.

Voices from the field 3

We will stop the Enbridge Pipelines

Winona La Duke, Honor the Earth, Minnesota.

Native environmental organization Honor the Earth is organising a tour in northern Minnesota aimed at engaging communities along one of many tar sands and fracked oil pipelines proposed to cross the North Country: the Enbridge proposed Sandpiper pipeline. The tour is not only about preventing the threat of pipelines, but it is also an act of solidarity to stop the extraction of tar sands and Bakken oil at their sources.

It’s the morning mist. I’m looking at the horses in the mist. Then we ride to the lake. It’s Rice lake, in the midst of the Rice Lake refuge. The place is Minisinoo, a traditional village of Anishinaabeg*, who have lived here for thousands of years.

“I can’t fathom how they would put the pipeline here …. It’s a glacial lake bed bottom, with vast amounts of manoomin **…making the quantities and qualities of life rich. We feel threatened.” The land is full of lakes, medicine plants and marshes. (…) There is no need for an oil pipeline here. The biodiversity and stunning beauty of the ecosystem is maamaakaajizhichige. It is amazing.

The traditional and ceremonial leadership of the village of East Lake welcomes us, prays for us and feeds us, feeding our spirits, pasturing our horses, and feeding our bodies. We explain the logistics of the pipeline, talking about the 20,000 gallons a minute which would come from a breach in the pipeline, and we all know it would go directly into the water. (…) The water table is only a foot below the surface. The pipeline is a threat. And it is joined by another extreme extraction project lurking in the area- a Rio Tinto Zinc/Kennecott Copper set of mining explorations: Traces of copper, zinc, magnesium diamonds and gold, deep beneath the glacier bed that made this land. The company, we are told, had leased a building in the town north, and keeps looking and digging around.

There is no safe place to hide, to rice, to be Anishinaabeg. So we protect our territory, as we have for centuries. It is still beautiful and full of clean water, and medicines. It is worth everything. Our water is more important than their oil. Our mino bimaatisiiwin*** will see us through. Love water not oil.

*It is the autonym often used by the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Algonquin peoples.
**Ojibwe wild rice, the historic Staple in their diet.
***Ojibway philosophy, capturing the concept of balancing the four elements of health: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Voices from the field 4

Shell to Sea: Rossport in struggle

Gerry Bourke, farmer in County Mayo, Ireland.

I’m a farmer in the northwest of Ireland, near Erris in County Mayo. For thirteen years we have been struggling against Shell to protect our land, our environment and our community here. Shell wanted to bring their pipeline of unprocessed, highly volatile and pollutant gas through the fields of our communities – fields our families have cared for and nurtured for generations. It’s all bog around here – we make the fields fertile by bringing in seaweed from the sea. For us, the land is everything.

We have resisted Shell and been violently oppressed. People have been beaten, abused, subjected to martial law. Almost a hundred complaints went in about the police behaviour here. Not one was answered. People give off about Shell, but Shell was only allowed to do what they have done. They have their own private police, security services. They were facilitated by the Irish state. The government drew a line around our villages and said “The rule of law, of the Irish state, no longer applies here”. Like it was a testing ground for oppressing their own people. The state thought they could smash us, but instead they educated us.

We met people with ideas, knowledge who came to help us in our struggle. We have learned a huge amount about how the world works, about how the Irish government can treat its people, about alternatives. We hope now that our knowledge can help other communities – enough people together can change anything. We have to remember that everything on this island – from the last blade of grass to the moonlight – belongs to the Irish people, to all of us. We have to decide together. We have a duty to ourselves and each other to have our opinions heard, to be responsible for what happens. The government will never do it for us.

Voices from the field 5

We will not let ProSavana to invade our land and colonize us!

Ana Paula Taucale, peasant in Nampula Province and member of UNAC (União Nacional de Camponeses), Mozambique.

The government of my country has granted large portions of land for large-scale agriculture for exports, in the Nacala Corridor, involving Brazil and Japan. We, peasants of the area oppose this project and see it as an invasion that will drive to large land grabs.

There is already evidence of the effects of land grabbing in that area (Northern Mozambique) on the peasants communities, and particularly on women. In Nampula province, were I live and have my plot, women are being prevented from passing in the areas where the foreign companies operate. We cannot access firewood, gather wild foods or harvest roots to use as medicines for our families. In itself this is a clear violation of the Mozambique Law of the Land. The Law requires that community be consulted to grant lands to companies, thus giving communities the right to refuse, as in cases where such land granting implies the abuse of their rights.

We reject this land-grabbing and we reject the model of agriculture the ProSavana program represents. We will do everything we can to stop it.

We as UNAC, together with other organizations in the country, have launched in June the National Campaign STOP ProSavana. We want to bring this campaign at international level – civil society organisations in Brazil and Japan have already joined us – and we want to activate legal mechanisms at national and United Nations level, to give greater responsibility to those operating the ProSavana program, for the damage they might cause to the peasants communities in Mozambique.

More info on the campaign here.

Voices from the field 6

We are ready to fight

Parvati*,Muttagi, India.

I don’t have land, but I do have a house. I’m an agricultural labor on others’ land. I make bread at home and sell it for income. Actually my land was acquired for a dam long back, and I would never wish that to anyone. That’s why I’ve joined this movement against the NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation Limited) power plant being built in my village. If the local farmers’ fields are lost, what will we eat? During the protest, the men told us to go in front so the police would not use violence. But when we reached the front of the NTPC thermal plant the police beat us with lathis (long sticks) — even I got beaten. We were so scared. It was my first time in an agitation. The police chased us into hotels, the police station, even the train station! But the farmers’ movement told us not to be scared. One of my relatives is in jail. He’s a college student, and they just carried him off! I am committed to fight against NTPC. When we women work together, you will see what we do!

We don’t want the NTPC power plant. Whether they give us money, we don’t want the power plant. We don’t want diseases like TB, asthma etc. We don’t want the baby in the womb to be affected. Now we have learned the water surrounding the thermal plant is poisonous. We aren’t saying anything wrong. Let them shoot us if they want. Ultimately we don’t want to lose our land. We don’t want any loss of lives on their side or our side. They should have had a meeting with us farmers about the impacts of the power plant before starting work.

Why did the government acquire this land? Sure, they will get rich, but what will the poor do? What will the future hold for us? We are ready to fight.

*Name changed to protect identity

Voices from the field 7

The Yaqui defend its water from government and industry

Mario Luna, spokesman for the Vícam tribe, Sonora, Mexico.

In 2010 the state government announced the construction of an aqueduct which will remove millions of m3 of water from the Yaqui River. Water is part of the Yaqui ancestral territory, partly ratified in 1940 by presidential decree.

Although we have won in court, the government does not stop the project and promotes hatred against us.
When the mobilization began they began prosecutions against many involved, and many families had their supports from government programs suspended. They have also suffered harassment, audits, direct death threats, and kidnapping.

In its 74 years, the territory granted by the decree has never been met. Hydroelectric dams built in the 50s targeted only water for energy, and through the National Water Commission we were assigned only 250 million m3 per year from 800 million m3 capacity of the dam.

We were the last to know – through press releases – of the aqueduct project. The authorities did not consult us even if they are obliged to by various international regulations.

Only 8% of the Sonora River, is for citizen consumption; the rest supplies agriculture and livestock. Industry is growing in the region. Ford expanded to almost double its capacity; Holcim cement installed the second largest cement plant in Latin America; Heineken arrived and built the largest brewery in the world; Coca-Cola and Pepsico will expand their facilities for processed foods. The state government repeatedly violates the suspensions handed down by the federal judiciary. On July 15, the Federal Court of Hermasillo overturned the decision of a judge who authorized the suspension – for this reason we returned to blockade the federal highway as far as Vícam until further notice. We resist peacefully, but we are in the eye of the hurricane.

Boxes

Newsletter no 19 - Territorial defence

Box 1

The Permanent People’s Tribunal in Mexico

“Free trade, violence, impunity and the rights of peoples”

The Permanent People’s Tribunal (TPP from its Spanish name) was born as the Russel Tribunal, established to judge the crimes of the United States in Vietnam. In subsequently judged the dictatorships of the CONO SUR and was converted into the “permanent tribunal” where peoples could express in their own terms the aggressions they had suffered, be recognised as active subjects in the trial and denounce those responsible for their chaos and suffering.
The TPP was established in Mexico in 2011 at the request of hundreds of peasant, workers, and civil society organisations which accused the Mexican state of the crime of diverting power: systematically favouring businesses while impeding people from achieving justice with all its juridical and economic powers.

This diversion of power was articulated through seven processes derived from the regime established under free trade: violence against workers, violence against migrants, censorship and violence against the media, environmental destruction, violence against the maize and autonomy of the people, gender violence, and dirty wars and impunity.
On the autonomy of peoples, the claim is the removal of potential for livelihood, at the heart of which is maize, as a vital food and integral part of territory. It may have been the first time that an international jury has addressed the interrelated nature and complex relationships between dispossession, food sovereignty, migration rates and grabbing territories and commons. The TPP recommended that the government of Mexico withdraw form the Free Trade Agreement with North America; failure to do so makes national sovereignty and autonomy impossible; and to ban GM maize as it constituted an attack on future civilizations. It found that Mexico violated the Rome Statute on genocide, and made government abuses against the people visible internationally.

The TPP opened spaces for dialogue and making links, where those who have been aggrieved systemize their experiences and regain centrality as subjects. It encourages and promotes struggles, and gives a sense of achievement – making room for the expression of grievances in an environment of trust, in people’s own words, with their own references and on their own terms.

Box 2

Atlas of Environmental Justice

The Atlas of Environmental Justice comprises an atlas of thematic and regional maps covering socio-environmental conflicts around the world. Most of the cases covered in the atlas focus on situations where communities are mobilized and struggle for environmental justice.

Key highlights from the Mapping process reveal that:
1. Ecological conflicts are increasing around the world, driven by material demands fed primarily by the richest subsection of the global population. The most impacted are poor and marginalized communities (…).
2. Both old and new forms (fracking, eco-system services) of extraction are expanding. Much of this resource drive is focused on the last pristine ecosystems on the planet, which are often occupied by indigenous and subsistence communities.
3. The current wave of enclosures is leading to reckless and irreparable environmental destruction including water contamination and depletion, land degradation, and the release of dangerous toxic materials, as well as the loss of community control over resources necessary for their livelihoods. (…)
4. These environmental injustices involve a variegated web of actors, including corporate actors already operating in large-scale capital resource investment, as well as new financial actors. (…)Peoples’ resistance is emerging. Communities are fighting to regain control of their resources and assert their right to a healthy environment. Forms of action include formal means, such as court cases, lobbying government and referenda as well as informal mobilization including street protest, blockades and land occupation.
5. Companies continue to enjoy widespread corporate impunity for environmental and human rights abuses. Companies continue activities amidst strong citizens’ protests, sometimes relying on private security forces and sympathetic governments to suppress resistance. This increased persecution and violent targeting of environmental activists is undermining human rights (Nyéléni newsletter no 14: Rights and repression).
6. Increased corporate accountability, as opposed to voluntary corporate responsibility, and reduction of consumption are the only way to stop the spread of ecological conflicts worldwide. Continued monitoring and mobilisation by citizens’ groups is essential.
7. Amidst the stories of environmental devastation and pollution, there are many cases of environmental justice victories(…). The grassroots resistance of impacted communities is key to moving to a more equal and sustainable economy.

In the spotlight

Newsletter no 19 - Territorial defence

We, the common people

It has never been as clear that peoples and communities, the common people, continue to exist — at the same time as the “dominant” systems of the world become more and more desperate to control them.

We are speaking of the people who protect, save and guard their native seeds and who in the widest sense grow food for their own communities across the world. The people who live in resistance and demand with increasing strength their own autonomous governments in order to defend their ancestral lands. They are communities which have always placed their lives at the service of the world — exercising a care and balance between plants, animals, water sources and between “natural and spiritual beings” – and cultivating a memory and presence in the environment around us of both our living and our dead.

How many we are and what we do

A new report from GRAIN offers a deep analysis of the data available on agricultural systems and food production internationally, and makes six central conclusions.

The first conclusion is that the peasantry continue to be those who , on small areas of land, producer the majority of the world’s food needs – above all in terms of feeding families, communities and local markets.

The second conclusion is that the majority of farms internationally are small farms, which continue to be reduzed in number due to a myriad of eradicating forces. If this tendency is not reversed through resistance which includes a process of genuine agrarian reform, the existing process of expulsion of people, including children, will be even more brutal.
Thirdly, the the entirety of these small scale farms are squeezed into less than a quarter of the world’s agricultural land — and this proportion is decreasing.

A fourth certitude is that while farms, lands and peasants are being lost there is a corresponding increase in the number of large industrial agriculture projects. In the last 50 years around 140 million hectares of land — significantly more than the entire agricultural land area of China — has been appropriated to plant monocultures of soya beans, palm oil, canola, sugar cane and corn — all by industrial means.

The fifth conclusion is that technically — using data extrapolated from national census records from almost every country in the world — small farms are more productive that enormous industrial agriculture operations — in spite of the enormous power and resources held by internaitonal agricultural companies.

The sixth and last conclusion is that the majority of peasants are women. In spite of their contributions that continue to be marginalised, are not recognised in official statistics and as so continue to be discriminated against in terms of the control of land.

Who is attacking us

Today we must recognize that the life of peoples — and the very future of peasant communities – is in radical confrontation with systems which aim only to control the greatest amount of riches, relations, people, common goods and any profitable activities through the development of laws, dispositions, policies, programs, projects and cash payments. Agroindustry is a representation of this — the production of crops (not just foodstuffs) through increasingly sophisticated (not necessarily more efficient) methods on large land areas aimed at harvesting large volumes and maximum profit at any cost.

This industrial logic perpetrates extreme violence against natural scale processes and vital cycles and promotes so called “vertical integration” – the crazed race to add economic value to foodstuffs through the addition of more and more processing and privatisations systems (landgrabbing, certified seeds, the sterilization and fertilisation of soils by agrochemicals, agricultural mechanisation, transport, cleaning, processing, packaging, storage, and again transport) before food is finally made available to the public through supermarkets and restaurant chains.

As we already know, this sum of processes contributes to the extreme warming which is part of the climate crisis (around 50% greenhouse gases come from the combined process of “vertical integration”). This system also contributes to the subjugation of people trapped – through one form or another — in this transnational and globalized food system. A system which does not feed communities or neighbourhoods but instead looks for their labour to do the most damaging aspects of the chain — while the futures of farmers are robbed by industrial agricultural systems which reduces their creative, dignified and enormously careful stewardship of the land to semi-slavery. For these reasons, to produce our own food independently of the so-called global food system is something profoundly political and subversive.

Landgrabbing, memory and resistance

It is undeniable that there is direct relationship between the loss of lands on one hand and the advance of megamining projects, oil and natural gas extraction, and monoculture agriculture on the other. As outlined in the editorial, an enormous amount of research remains to be done in order to uncover the true extent of the extractivist projects and the fragmentation, dismantling and loss of indigenous and peasant held territories and lands. As a minimum we can say that in Mexico alone 26% of the national territory is in the hands of mining concessions, and in Colombia the figure is 40%. Mining in Colombia goes hand in hand with rights abuses; “80% of the violations of human rights which have occurred over the last 10 years occured in mining-energy regions, and 87% of all displaced peoples from this period originated in these areas”. If we run through country by country — a study which should be undertaken in a systematic way — we would encounter similar situations, including the extreme case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where percentages of lands handed over no longer serve as a measure, but the number of dead in conflicts over minerals, diamonds, coltan and gold: more than 7 million have died violently in the last 15 years.

Conflicts over water are also recurrent. “In Africa for example, one in three people suffer from scarcity of water and climate change is worsening the situation”. The development in Africa of highly sophisticated indigenous water management systems could help to alleviate this crisis, but these same systems are those being destroyed by land grabbing — in the midst of claims that water in Africa is abundant, underused and is ready to be utilised for agro-export agriculture” as we affirm in one of GRAIN‘s reports. Of course, this is not only a phenomenton in Africa.

Beyond the causes, which go from the monoculture fields of the industrial agricultural system to the most severe and polluting forms of extractivism, passing oil wells, electricity generation centres, biosphere reserves, REDD projects, megatourism, real estate developments, motorway routes, mega-dams, multi-modal corridors, narcotraffiking and cultivations, the reality is that there is a real attack underway — against our territorial memory, our memory of place — the lands which are our vital surroundings, our common environment we need to recreate and transform our existence: the spaces we give meaning to with our shared wisdom and knowledge, with our common history.

To provoke scarcity and economic dependence, the international and multilateral transnational systems have promoted the disabling of the capacity of communities to feed themselves, or provide healthcare education and other needs. The effect of this imposed precarity is the expulsion of populations and the jeopardising of their futures.
For these reasons Food Sovereignty remains deeply pertinent and a source of profound hope as a tool to rebuild autonomy and the defence of our territories, as it represents a living manifestation of our memories. The production of food from the smallest community level upwards is a vital proposal — and examples exist that show it is possible to reverse the damage that has been done.