World Farmers Mobilise Against Free Trade Agreements

 

 

Today thousands of women and men farmers of the international peasant movement La Via Campesina mobilize worldwide against Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which affect peasant and small-scale agriculture and national food sovereignty. Since April 17, 1996[1] La Via Campesina celebrates this day as a global day of action with allies and friends.

Free Trade Agreements promote TNCs and a capitalist industrialised mode of production heavily reliant on agrochemicals. These have increased the displacement, expulsion, and disappearance of peasants. Free Trade Agreements put profit over all other rights and concerns. Currently, the most significant FTAs in history are being negotiated by the European Union, the United States, and Canada. These agreements, if finalised, will liberalize trade and investment markets in favour of transnational companies. 

With hundreds of actions at local and global level (see our regularly updated MAP) in all continents, La Via Campesina reasserts the importance of local struggles and at the same time underlines the need of a global resistance and organization between the cities and the rural areas. Actions such as land occupations, seed exchanges, street demonstrations, food sovereignty fairs, cultural events, lobby tours and debates will be carried out until the end of the month as part of these global days of action. 

This year in Europe, various actions are being organised against Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA), Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium; in Asia, a mass rally to reject the negotiation of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) by Japanese government is being organised in Japan and South Korea; in South America, a big march (over 1,500 people from all continents) is being organised in Argentina during the CLOC-Via Campesina (Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations) congress in Buenos Aires.

La Via Campesina denounces laws and interests that affect the peasant way of life, an important heritage of the people at the service of humanity. The movement promotes food sovereignty to end hunger in the world and promote social justice.
Instead of a gloomy future based on free trade and big business, La Via Campesina believes the time has come for an economy based on equity that will restore the balance between humanity and nature. Agrarian reform and sustainable agriculture are at the heart of this way of living based on peoples' Food Sovereignty.

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[1]On April 17, 1996 in Brazil, military police forces assassinated 19 peasants in Eldorado dos Carajás (Pará). The farmers were members of the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST). On that day, 1500 men and women occupied and blocked the highway BR-150 in Eldorado dos Carajás with the goal of putting pressure on the state and federal government to carry out agrarian reform. Around 4PM 155 military police forces of the state surrounded the MST demonstrators, throwing tear gas and they fired guns at them. Therefore, in addition to the 19 massacred, three more died later and 69 were injured. State authorities, police, the army and landowners were responsible in the planning and execution of this massacre.

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Land Deals In Africa: Senegal

The Ndiaël Collective, CNCR, ENDA Pronat, ActionAid Senegal, ActionAid Italy, Peuples Solidaires, Re:Common, GRAIN and The Oakland Institute

Senegalese farmers and herders demand shady transnational corporation Senhuile SA get off their land

Farmers and herders from northwestern Senegal have travelled to Europe to demand the scrapping of a land deal that threatens the lives and livelihoods of some 9,000 people. A murky international conglomerate, Senhuile SA, has leased 20,000 hectares of land in the Ndiaël Reserve, land which has been used for decades by residents of some 40 villages in the area. The villagers want the project stopped, saying it will cut off their access to grazing land, water, food and firewood – ultimately forcing them off their homes and land.

Senhuile SA is a joint venture controlled by Italy's Tampieri Financial Group, Senegalese investors, and Agro Bioethanol International, a shell company registered in New York. The herders, along with representatives of the Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux (CNCR) and the Senegalese non-governmental organisations ENDA Pronat and ActionAid, are in Europe from today to 6 March 2014 to mobilise citizens to call on Tampieri, Senhuile's majority shareholder, to close down the project. The project was initially established in another location, Fanaye, where violence resulting from local opposition led to the death of two villagers and dozens more injured in 2011.

A new report released today by the Oakland Institute exposes the numerous flaws with this project, including the lack of consultation with and consent from local communities, the opaque nature of Senhuile's operations, as well as the devastating impact of the project on people's livelihoods. Some 6,000 hectares have already been cleared and planted with different crops. The company has built irrigation canals and fences that restrict locals' access to grazing land, water and firewood. "Villagers complain of harassment, intimidation and physical assault by the police and private guards hired by the firm," said Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute.

According to Ardo Sow, spokesperson for Ndiaël Collective of villages resisting the Senhuile project: "The disdain for local communities is far too obvious. An Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was only conducted months after the start of the project, and was never made available to the public. Moreover, the map produced by state technicians before the start of the project identified the existence of only 6 of the 40 villages and hamlets using the land to be leased to Senhuile."

The Ndiaël Collective, CNCR, ENDA Pronat, ActionAid Senegal, ActionAid Italy, Peuples Solidaires - ActionAid France, Re:Common, GRAIN, and The Oakland Institute are launching today an Urgent Appeal to get Tampieri to withdraw from the Senhuile project. "As concerned international organizations, we support the call of the communities for the project to be stopped and the land to be returned to the people," said Katia Roux, of Peuples Solidaires in France. "Local farmers and pastoralists need recognition and support to develop their own sustainable, small-scale food systems."

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