Without land, water and seeds people cannot grow food or eat.  Food for the majority or money for the minority, that is the question.  Via Campesina, the biggest international movement for small agricultural producers, day labourers and landless people proclaim this every day.   And on the international day of campesino struggle – April 17 – we look at its history.

 

 

Food globalization, designed by and for agribusiness and supermarkets, privatizes common goods, eliminates those who care for and work the land and makes food a matter of business. The liberalization of agriculture is nothing less than a war on campesinos (small-scale farmers).  It is a question of policies that are supported by international institutions and treaties, eliminating small and medium agriculturalists and rural communities.

 

In the face of this offensive Via Campesina emerged in 1993, as the greatest expression of those who in the countryside resist and combat neoliberal globalization and the impositions made by such international organizations as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).  The roots of the Via are found in the mid-1980s, when, in the face of the Uruguay Round of GATT, a number of campesino organizations joined forces to internationalize their movement.

 

At the beginning of the 1990s, Via Campesina was established, in part, as a more radical alternative to the only existing international farmers’ organization, the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), which had been created in 1946.  This was an organization that on the whole represented the interests of big agriculture, situated in general in the countries of the North, and favourable to dialogue with international institutions.

 

Thus Via Campesina was born at the dawn of the other-world movement, coordinating endeavors with many other organizations, from feminists to groups opposed to external debt, along with those who demanded taxation on international financial transactions, indigenous peoples, collectives of international solidarity... all united in the struggle against globalization at the service of capital.   Via became the “campesino component” of this “movement of movements.”

 

From the end of the 1990s and the beginnings of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Via Campesina promoted and took an active part in the mass protests against the WTO and other international institutions.  In marches against the WTO summit in Cancún (2003) and Hong Kong (2005) the campesinos were one of the most relevant and visible actors.  Particular mention should go to Korean campesino Lee Kyung Hae, president of the South Korean Federation of Campesinos and Fishermen, who took his own life in protest against the WTO in Cancún, mounted on the fence that surrounded the security perimeter, as a denunciation of how agribusiness was killing so many farmers.

 

Behind the Via Campesina policy of alliances was the conviction that the struggle against agribusiness formed an intrinsic part of a wider struggle against neoliberal globalization, and that another model for agriculture and food supply would only be possible in the framework of a global systemic change.  Because of this, the creation of wide coalitions between diverse social sectors was seen as fundamental.  This involved joint action, from unity forged from diversity.

 

In this way Via Campesina was able to construct a global “campesino” identity, politicized and tied to the land and to food production.  Its members represented the sectors that were most threatened by food globalization, that is, small and medium campesinos, rural labourers, landless people, women from the countryside and indigenous agricultural communities. This alliance broke the barrier between North and South and integrated organizations from the whole planet, 150 groups from 56 countries.  In the words of Walden Bello, this was a new “campesino internationalism.”

 

 

The emergence of Via Campesina also brought a new look at agricultural and food policy. In 1996, in the framework of the World Food Summit of the FAO in Rome, Via launched a new political concept, that of food sovereignty.  Up to that point, world hunger had been considered from the perspective of food security, that is, of access to food for all, but without questioning what is eaten, how it is produced and where it comes from. The notion forged by Via “revolutionized” the debate by posing these questions.

 

It was no longer simply a question of being able to eat, but of being “sovereign”, and of being able to decide.  Food sovereignty represents a step beyond food security and not only defends the notion that everyone should have access to food, but also, to the means of production, to the common goods (water, land, seeds).  This means a preference for agriculture that is local or not very distant, and ecologically sound campesino production, in opposition to agriculture in the hands of agribusiness, of food that must be transported over thousands of kilometres before reaching our tables, food that puts paid to food diversity and is a threat to our health.

 

This is not a romantic notion, nor a return to an archaic past, but rather a recovery of traditional campesino knowledge in combination with new technologies and knowledge, to recover the dignity of those who work on the land, so that it belongs to them, to establish solidarity between the rural and the urban world, and above all, to democratize the production, distribution and consumption of food.  This is not a notion that can be interpreted in an autarchic sense, but rather one based on solidarity and international relations, a commitment to local and campesino agriculture in every corner of the planet.

 

 

Food sovereignty has to be feminist, if there is to be real change in the model.  Today women, in spite of being the principal providers of food in the countries of the South – from 60 to 80 per cent of food production is done by women –, are those most afflicted by hunger.  Women suffer some 60 per cent of chronic global hunger according to data from the FAO.  Women work the land, grow food, but do not have access to property, to machinery, to agricultural credit.  If food sovereignty does not allow for equality between men and women, it will not be a real alternative.

 

Via Campesina, over time, has incorporated a feminist perspective, working to establish gender equality in its organizations and establishing alliances with feminist groups such as the international network of the World March of Women.  In Via Campesina, women have organized autonomously to claim their rights, whether in their own collectives or on a general level.

 

The Women’s Commission of Via Campesina has completed a fundamental task by promoting exchanges between campesina women from different countries, organizing special encounters of women to coincide with summits and international meetings and promoting the participation of women at all levels and activities of the organization.  In October of 2006 the World Congress of Via Campesina women was held in Santiago de Compostela.  This meeting emphasized the need to further strengthen the articulation of women and approved the creation of mechanisms for a greater interchange of experiences and specific plans for the ongoing struggle. Among the proposals approved was the launching of a world campaign against sexist violence and work to recognize the rights of campesina women, demanding real equality of access to land, credit, markets and administrative rights.

 

In spite of formal equality in Via Campesina, women have greater difficulties in being able to travel and attend encounters and meetings.  As Annette Aurélie Desmarais, in her book La Via Campesina (2007) wrote “There are many reasons why women do not take part at this level. Perhaps the most important is the persistence of ideologies and cultural practices that perpetuate unequal and unjust gender relations.  For example, the gender division of labour makes it much more difficult for rural women to have access to the most important resource, that of time, to enable them to participate in agricultural organizations as leaders.  Given that women are mainly responsible for the care of children and the elderly (...), the triple working day of women – involving reproductive, productive and community tasks – make it much less probable that they have time for training and apprenticeship sessions leading to their formation as leaders.” Beyond these objective difficulties, working for equality is a priority for Via Campesina, thanks to its women.

 

Via Campesina has worked for over twenty years articulating resistance in the countryside and establishing networks and alliances at an international level.  Eating is necessary for all, both in the countryside and in the cities, in the North or the South of the planet.  And to eat, today, as Via Campesina reminds us, has become a political act.

 

*Article published in Spanish in Público.es, 17/04/2014 -