Summary Description

La Via Campesina (website: English Francais Espanol ) is the international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers.

La Via Campesina has 148 members from 69 countries from Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. The members are listed at: http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=71
including UNAC in Mozambique, …

Aim & Objectives

The principal objective of La Via Campesina is to develop solidarity and unity among small farmer organizations in order to promote gender parity and social justice in fair economic relations; the preservation of land, water, seeds and other natural resources; food sovereignty; sustainable agricultural production based on small and medium-sized producers.

Claims & Core Values

  • Peasant, family farm-based production: La Via Campesina promotes a model of peasant or family-farm agriculture based on sustainable production with local resources and in harmony with local culture and traditions. Peasants and farmers rely on a long experience with their locally available resources. They are capable of producing the optimal quantity and quality of food with few external inputs. Production is mainly for family consumption and domestic markets.
  • People's food sovereignty: Food sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, countries, and state unions to define their agricultural and food policy without the “dumping” of agricultural commodities into foreign countries. Food sovereignty organizes food production and consumption according to the needs of local communities, giving priority to production for local consumption. Food sovereignty includes the right to protect and regulate the national agricultural and livestock production and to shield the domestic market from the dumping of agricultural surpluses and low-price imports from other countries. Landless people, peasants, and small farmers must get access to land, water, and seed as well as productive resources and adequate public services. Food sovereignty and sustainability are a higher priority than trade policies.
  • Decentralized food production and supply chains: The current industrialized agribusiness model has been deliberately planned for the complete vertical integration and to dominate all agriculture activities. This model exploits workers and concentrates economic and political power. La Via Campesina advocates a decentralized model where production, processing, distribution and consumption are controlled by the people the communities themselves and not by transnational corporations.

Source: http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=27&Itemid=44

Activities

In which interactions and processes do these actors interact?

See: La Via Campesina Policy Documents (2010)

Actions, events (conferences), analysis

Participation as a civil society organisation in various consultations and international conferences.
What role does the organisation play in interactions (preferably as identified and listed in the interaction dictionary: www.interaction-dictionary.info )

Resources