“Mistica is One of the Principles Uniting La Via Campesina”

Resilience Our colleagues, Priscilla Claeys and Jasber Singh, are launching a new series as part of the Agroecology in Motion column to shed light on an underexplored aspect of food system transformation: the role of spirituality and religion in social movement struggles for food sovereignty. In order to deepen their inquiry, they will speak with various food…

Honduran Campesino Leader Explains the ZEDEs

Kawsachan News A wide range of sectors in Honduras are continuing to mobilize against the Economic Development and Employment Zones (ZEDEs) with the general election now one month away. Campesino, indigenous and Afro-descendant movements and communities say the large scale territorial concessions amount to a flagrant violation of national sovereignty and will result in mass displacement. Frequent protests against…

Food Sovereignty: A Manifesto for the Future of Our Planet

“Our historic task is to ensure that no human being goes hungry” Food Sovereignty is a philosophy of life. It offers a vision for our collective future, and defines the principles around which we organize our daily living and co-exist with Mother Earth. It is a celebration of life and all the diversity around us….

People Who Produce Most of the World’s Food Continue to Fight against Agribusiness-led UN Food Summit

La Via Campesina Following the counter-mobilizations to oppose the UN Food Systems Pre-Summit in July, which gathered more than 9,000 participants from all over the world, civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ groups continue to mobilize this week against the Summit itself, happening on 23 September in New York. The People’s Autonomous Response to the UN Food Systems Summit (UN…

How Big Corporations and Bill Gates Took Over the UN food Summit

Large corporations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation took over the United Nations Food Systems Summit, abandoning small farmers on behalf of Big Ag companies, endangering food sovereignty. Video by La Vía Campesina North America: https://viacampesina.org and Camila Escalante: https://twitter.com/PrensaCamila The UN system is being put into the hands of corporations as Antonio Guterres…

Unreading Colonial Food Systems

Maya Burke Like many people who went through U.S. public school systems, I am intimately familiar with institutional food; canned vegetables, square cut pizza, frozen & highly processed mystery meats, syrupy fruit cups, all of that. Institutional food is low-cost, low in nutritional value, and arguably pretty gross. I remember asking our school superintendent why…

La Via Campesina: Food Sovereignty – 25 Years in the Making

Jaime AmorimThe concept of food sovereignty, in its 25 years of construction, raises the debate of not only bringing food to people, but it emphasizes the process of production of that food. Photo: Felipe Betim Jaime Amorim of La Via Campesina discusses the importance of food sovereignty as the pandemic induced global economic crisis has…

MST: Anti-Imperialist Day for the Environment

Fernanda Alcântara Photo: Eduardo Moura In a year when deforestation in the Amazon and the release of agrotoxins are the highest in the last ten years, there wasn’t much to celebrate on the Environment Day, last Saturday (June 5th). However, several popular movements and organizations took advantage of the date to denounce the policies of…

Letter to World Leaders on the Occasion of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate

International People’s Assembly It is common knowledge that we are at a decisive moment for human survival and for the biodiversity of our planet. There is a serious environmental and public health crisis, caused by crimes committed continuously by the greed for profit. The research and scientific data are more and more evident, which you…

Literacy and Agroecology Campaign: Solidarity and Hope Among African Peoples

Phillyp Mikell Photo: Brigada Samora Machel The MST Internationalist Brigade Samora Machel, located in Zambia, has been active in Africa since 2008. To bring solidarity to the peoples of the mother continent, the Brigade has worked on three central axes: education, agroecology and women’s organization. More recently, as of November 2020, the literacy efforts of…

Forest Voices Brazil: ‘A New Relationship with Forests Will Cool Down the Planet

Molly Millar An MST member holds up a seedling – one of 100 million trees it aims to plant in 10 years. Photo: Dowglas Silva / MST. ‘We need the trees.’ ‘We need clean water and clean air.’ ‘We need biodiversity.’ ‘We need a good place to live.’ Silvio Netto is helping to coordinate the…

Historic Farmers’ Parade Takes Center Stage on India’s Republic Day

Peoples Dispatch Photo: Newsclick On January 26, which is celebrated as India’s Republic Day, tens of thousands of farmers rode into the capital New Delhi. Their demand: the withdrawal of three laws that were pushed through parliament in an undemocratic manner January 26, the day India became a Republic, is traditionally celebrated at Rajpath —…