Another model of production in the countryside is possible. This was the affirmation that was present in several speeches by representatives of more than 180 peasant organizations from different regions of the world during the opening acts of the 8th International Conference of La Via Campesina, which took place this Sunday in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.
The Conference which began in the Colombian capital on December 1 will go until December 8, with the participation of more than 500 representatives of rural and peasant movements from more than 82 countries. The aim is to discuss experiences in building food sovereignty, fighting hunger, and creating alternative projects to agribusiness.
Founded in 1993, La Via Campesina brings together the main peasant organizations from all continents and seeks to establish international consensus and practices for agroecological production that can combat food insecurity.
According to the platform’s general coordinator, Morgan Ody, La Via Campesina today represents more than 200 million rural workers and “is stronger than ever.”
“A unique element of La Via Campesina is that we are very diverse and at the same time we have managed to maintain unity. The conference must be a space for making decisions to confront the global crises of capitalism, because without food sovereignty there is no future for humanity,” she said.
Ody also stressed the importance of making “peasant feminism visible and creating allies with other organizations.” The general coordinator also mentioned the choice of Colombia to host this edition of the conference, saying that the country “is going through a period of transformation” with the government of President Gustavo Petro.
“To see a country where social mobilizations are so strong and where this is transformed into public policies that recognize the social function of land, that recognize peasants as political subjects of law, that’s very important,” she said.
“Agrarian reform in Colombia has many enemies”
Representing the Colombian government, the country’s Minister of Agriculture, Jhenifer Mojica, was present at the opening of the conference and assured that Petro’s administration “is committed to the peasant struggle.”
“As far as the government is concerned, we have taken all the decisions we can, we have reactivated the agrarian reform system and our most important political goal is to achieve agrarian reform to guarantee full access to our territories,” she said.
The minister, however, said that the Executive has been facing problems implementing these policies in the countryside and encouraged popular mobilizations so that they can put pressure on other sectors of Colombian society.
“The will of the government alone is not enough, we have enormous difficulties, we have opponents, forces of power that resist change and often these forces are in different bodies of the state,” she said.
The Colombian situation in the countryside was addressed by economist Héctor Mondragón Báez, who led a specific conference on the reality of peasant struggles in the country. An activist and peasant, Báez trained as an economist but had to leave Colombia after he and his family suffered death threats from paramilitary groups.
“The most important thing this Petro government can do is empower peasants, because we need to unite and express ourselves programmatically. It will be the peasants who make the changes, not a government,” he said.
Like Báez, millions of rural workers have also had to leave their territories because of threats from armed groups, a side effect of the Colombian conflict between the state and the guerrillas.
“The forced removal of the population has allowed agribusiness to take over the land, they buy the land from those who carry out the massacres. So it’s not just a struggle for land, but against agribusiness,” he said.
“Palestine will be free”
Another issue that was highlighted at the opening of the conference was Israel’s attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7. The movements expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemned the Israeli attacks that have killed more than 15,000 people, including more than 6,000 children and 4,000 women.
A panel discussion made up of representatives from five continents featured Yasmeen El-Hasan, from the Union of Palestinian Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), who classified Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and accused the country of “using hunger as a weapon of war” because of the blockade it has imposed on the region.
“We need to guarantee an end to the bombing of Gaza right now. We will keep up the pressure, because it’s working and in Palestine we feel the effects of solidarity. So we can’t stop,” he said.
Yasmeen also spoke about the organization’s work to stop the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, saying “we are not going to ask for liberation, we are going to liberate ourselves with the solidarity of you all.”
The activist’s presence marked the creation of a special Via Campesina committee for the Arab and North African region, which includes movements from Palestine, Tunisia and Morocco.
Unity in the Global South
African and Asian movements are also present at the conference and highlighted the common agendas that the countries of the Global South must face on the agrarian issue, such as the fight against the monoculture export model and the struggle to pressure governments to draw up land distribution and restitution policies.
The problem of the monoproducer model was also highlighted by Luis Muchanga, a member of Mozambique’s National Peasant Union. According to him, “when the issue of agricultural productivity is discussed in the African country, only the production of tobacco and cotton is put on the scale, which are not products that feed the people, but instead satisfy capital on the international stock exchanges.”
“These are commodities, and here we are not discussing commodities, we are discussing human lives, the human right to food, to dignity and, therefore, we are certain that our model is the most viable, the correct alternative,” he says.
This article was first published in Portuguese at Brasil de Fato.
