Mexico City, September 28, 2006

We the undersigned participants in the Binational Congress of Campesinos, Indigenous Peoples, Family Farmers and Migrant Farm Workers declare our unity in defending our rights to continue working on the land.

We affirm that the principle of food sovereignty is the basis for an agricultural system that is healthy, sustainable and just. Food sovereignty is the right of the peoples and nations to define their own agricultural and trade policies, in which small family producers, campesinos and indigenous peoples play a fundamental role. We demand laws and domestic agricultural policies that do not impact on domestic markets of neighboring countries.

We demand a fair trade of agricultural products that respect the viability of neighboring national markets. That is why we oppose the free trade agreements that facilitate and legalize the invasion of products at prices below the cost of production and that prioritize transnational export and agribusiness corporations. In particular, we oppose the policies and agreements contained in the WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA-DR and other bilateral free-trade agreements. Given the profound crisis in the countryside, we demand that the WTO, NAFTA and all other trade agreements get out of agriculture, because they are an attack on peoples' well-being and democratic processes, and trump agricultural policies that support rural and family economies.

In 2008, the completion of the opening of the U.S., Canadian and Mexican markets under NAFTA is set occur, which would mean the deepening of the farm crisis in all three countries, and as a result, the displacement of thousands of campesino and indigenous peoples from their places of origin and, in the U.S., the near completion of the disappearance of family farms. For this reason, we demand that the agricultural chapter of NAFTA be eliminated, as a means of assuring the survival of producers from both sides of the border.

We think that among the principle causes of the high levels of migration is the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of large transnational corporations and the policies that favor them, especially in the agricultural sector. The massive exodus from the Mexican and Central American countryside is largely a result of the trade and agricultural policies already mentioned.

We support movement in favor of immigrant rights in the U.S., including a comprehensive immigration reform, with paths to legalization and citizenship for migrants. We demand humane and dignified treatment for farm workers who come to Mexico from Central America. They are our neighbors, our sisters and brothers. In the long term, the only solution to the problem of mass forced migration is a profound change in the economic model, in North America and worldwide. We demand the demilitarization of the border and the destruction of the walls that have caused so many tragic deaths in the border region. We have a vision of an economic model that does not force people to migrate because of precarious economic conditions.

We believe that a deep reform of the 2007 Farm Bill in the U.S. is a matter of great urgency. We want an agricultural law that makes it possible for farmers to receive a fair price, guaranteeing a minimum price above the costs of production. To achieve this there must be a reduction in overproduction, by means of supply management programs, conservation programs and through commodity reserves controlled by family farmers. We want anti-trust laws—which have been largely ignored in recent decades—to be enforced, in order to diminish the dangerous control by agribusiness of the agricultural markets.

We recognize that there is a crisis of land loss among African Americans, Indigenous, Asian Americans, Latinos and women and we demand an end to discrimination to assure full access to land, to credits and to all the necessary federal agricultural programs.

The economic policies directed to the Mexican countryside are generating rejection by the population, as is being manifested in Oaxaca. This Bi-National Congress of Small and Campesino farmers expresses our solidarity with the teacher and popular movement headed by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), whose principal demand is the departure of the current governor of the state, Mr. Ulises Ruiz. We will maintain our vigilance over the situation in Oaxaca and we emphatically reject any resolution of the conflict by force.

We support the worldview of the indigenous peoples who have shown us that the basic elements of life, such as land, water, air and seeds, must be accessible to everyone. The concentration of these elements in few privileged and powerful hands threatens the future of humanity. In particular, genetically modified seeds are a threat against biodiversity and the rights of farmers to conserve varieties of seeds, plants and animals that have nourished humanity for millennia. We support the right of indigenous peoples to collective control of their territories and of biodiversity.

The undersigned,

Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural, Washington DC and Mexico City; Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, Atlanta, GA; Friends of the Earth USA, Washington, DC;

National Family Farm Coalition, Washington, DC; Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, Washington DC; Via Campesina North American Region; Border Agricultural Workers Project, El Paso, TX; Family Farm Defenders , Madison, WI; Farmworker Association of Florida, Apopka, FL; Organización de Líderes Campesinas de California, Pomona, CA; Agriculture Missions, Inc., New York, NY; Hispanic Organizations Leadership Alliance, Takoma Park, MD; National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association, Takoma Park, MD; Texas-Mexico Border Coalition, Texas; Centro de Desarrollo Integral Campesino de la Mixteca CEDICAM, Oaxaca; Frente Democrático Campesino de Chihuahua; Servicios del Pueblo Mixe –Ser Mixe, Oaxaca; Unión de Organizaciones de la Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca UNOSJO; Organización de Agricultores Biológicos de Oaxaca, ORAB

Kie' Lui, Oaxaca; Promotores de Salud, PROSA, Oaxaca; Unión Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Autónomos, UNORCA, México DF; Asociación de Empresas Comercializadoras del Campo, ANEC, México DF; Grupo Vicente Guerrero, Tlaxcala; Servicios para una Educación Alternativa, EDUCA, Oaxaca; Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México DF;

Promotores Campesinos Conservacionistas; Centro de Estudios para el Cambio en el Campo, CECCAM, México DF; Organización Regional Nahuatl Independiente, ORNI, Puebla;

NETECO, Puebla; Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Rural, CESDER, Puebla.