Valencia, Spain.- Agrarian reform via trade is not a solution: we need to start processes of agrarian reform that allow farmers access to land, water and seeds. With a delegation of approximately a hundred people from all over the world, the international movement of farmers ´Via Campesina´ is participating in the World Forum for Agrarian Reform, inaugurated on 5th December in Valencia, Spain, continuing until the 8th of the month.

´Via Campesina´ hopes to give a strong message to international opinion as well as to the participants in the Forum: agrarian reform via trade is not a solution; we need to start processes of agrarian reform that allow farmers access to land, water and seeds.

 According to the Basque farmers´ representative, Paul Nicholson, the World Forum for Agrarian Reform should develop ideas and strategies, plus a plan of common action against the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation, together with clear statements of criticism of current export/ import policy, against violence, and the criminalisation of the protests of farmers (which is extended not only throughout Latin America but also in Asia).

“The policies of the World Bank are destroying the culture of farming, and the possibility of accessing fundamental resources like water, land and seeds. For this multilateral organisation, the earth is a market place like everything else, and for this reason it argues that it should be trade which redistributes land; there is, therefore, a process of land becoming concentrated in the hands of multinational companies.

 These multinationals are now beginning to capture land, water and seeds. Land now has a speculative and commercial worth not related to agricultural value. There may be sectors which argue that negotiations with the World Bank should be possible, but we think not, because the World Bank is the principal instrument of liberalisation, and its objective is not a fair and equal distribution, but to privatise and concentrate land. Thinking that the World Bank will change because we lobby it is not true; it is impossible,” stated Nicholson.

Land, for ´Via Campesina,´ is much more than a factor of production, it is a social posessión that should be preserved for future generations. “Land is our identity as a group. Our farming culture is based on the concept of a more autonomous economy, that depends on natural resources and not on exportation, that looks at the needs of society and not those of trade or of the great commerce of agriculture. We are defending a model of agriculture connected to our alimentary needs and to our environment; it is not the defence of an agrarian corporation, but the defence of the role of agriculture in our society,” emphasised Nicholson.

The farming ´mistica´ As is the normal practice, the delegates of ´Via Campesina´ opened the Forum with the ´mistica,´ a symbolic act that puts ´soul, life and sentiments into this struggle¨ and reinforces ¨our decision and sentiments to continue fighting for the land and for agrarian reform,´ as manifested by the Chilean Francisca Rodriguez. Exhibiting their flags, seeds and fruits of the earth, the indigenous people and representatives of farming paid homage to ´Pacha Mama´ (Mother Earth), because, ´in her we are born, we grow and we disappear.´ Those attending the Forum applauded this public demonstration, and many chanted the placards of the farmers, such as ´occupy, resist, produce,´ ´agrarian reform now,´ ´globalise the struggle, globalise the hope.´ Meeting with the Minister Miguel Rosseto. At midday on Sunday 5 December, a delegation of ´Via Campesina´ met with the Brasilian Minister for Agricultural Development, Miguel Rosseto, who was attending the Forum.

The delegates had the objective of putting several problems to him, connected with the lack of completion of the goals of agrarian reform, the issue of genetically modified crops, the violence against farmers, and the position of Brasil in relation to the agreements of free trade and the World Trade Organisation.

 Alter this meeting, Miguel Rosseto told the press that, in relation to the World Trade Organisation, there could be points of contact with the social movements. ´We have an open agenda,´ he added. ´Cancun paralised a process, which was being consolidated, of a liberalising agenda that loses legitimacy. We are in a period of transition; we now need to avoid the consolidation of these processes of liberalisation, and at the same time create a movement in poor countries. ´We are working on the second plan of agrarian reform.

We have established goals, directives and agreements, so that agrarian reform will be more than access to land, so that it will be a space of citizenship, equality of life, equality of production, equality of environment. We are talking about technical assistance, and an agenda that will ensure 400,000 families access to land, legalisation of ´quilombos´ (communities of Afro-Brasilians working land which does not legally belong to them), and support for the process of demarcation of indigenous areas´, emphasised the minister.

 The director of ´Via Campesina,´ the Honduran Rafael Alegria, made the following evaluation of the meeting with Rosseto: ´The minister was quite frank in the sense that ´latifundio´ (the ownership of huge tracts of land by one person or company) is very extended, there are enormous international interests, and there has been a general strike for three consecutive months in the very Institute of Agrarian Reform, which has delayed processes.¨ Alegria added that, ´According to the minister, expectations for 2005 are that there will be improvements. We are very attentive of what is happening in Brasil, and we expect that agrarian reform there will advance; we are all watching Brasil, and what happens in that country impacts on and resounds in the rest of Latin America and the rest of the world.´