714003943

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PEASANTS SPEAK - The VaCampesina: Consolidating anInternational Peasant and FarmMovementA-A. DesmaraisPublished online: 14 Sep 2010.

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Peasants Speak

The Va Campesina: Consolidating anInternational Peasant and Farm Movement

ANNETTE-AURLIE DESMARAIS

Concerted attempts to exclude farming people from policydevelopment and decision-making have been accompanied by theformation of an international peasant and farm movement, the VaCampesina, which emerged in 1993. This article examines theresponse of peasant and farm organizations to the increasedglobalization of an industrialized and liberalized model ofagriculture by analyzing the formation, consolidation andfunctioning of the Va Campesina. The Va Campesina is usingthree traditional weapons of the weak organization, cooperationand community to redefine rural development and to build analternative model, one that is based on social justice, gender andethnic equality, economic equity and environmental sustainability.

INTRODUCTION

With the implementation of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs),regional trade agreements and the World Trade Organization (WTO)Agreement on Agriculture, rural landscapes are undergoing rapid andprofound change as national governments redefine agricultural policies andlegislation to facilitate integration into an international market-driveneconomy. Existing agricultural and marketing structures are beingdismantled while new agrarian laws aimed at restructuring land tenure, land

Annette-Aurlie Desmarais, Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada formerly Technical Support to the Va Campesina movement. The author wishes to thank theSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the International DevelopmentResearch Council of Canada, the Va Campesina, and peasant and farm leaders who participatedin this research. Thanks are also due to Tom Brass, Marc Edelman and Jim Handy for commentsand suggestions.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol.29, No.2, January 2002, pp.91124PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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use and marketing systems are being promulgated to increase production forexport, industrialize and further liberalize the agricultural sector.1 Theselaws emphasize the modernization and the creation of a more marketresponsive and dynamic agricultural sector.

As the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) drew to a close in 1994, some scholars wondered how peasants andsmall farmers would respond to the dramatic changes taking place in thecountryside. As Bonanno, Busch, Friedland, Gouveia and Mingione [1994:8] ask:

Where should agriculture turn in crisis? can one envision acoalition of Belgian, Dutch, French, Italian, US, Uruguayan, Brazilianand New Zealand farmers marching on a GATT meeting in Punta delEste? And what could they demand to benefit them all, since they areall in competition with one another?

The authors went on to argue that farmers and peasants did not have theorganizational capacity to pressure effectively the WTO, the Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the institutions that wereincreasingly responsible for determining agricultural and food policies[Bonanno, Busch, Friedland, Gouveia and Mingione, 1994: 8]. Rather,farmers only recourse was to continue to negotiate with increasinglyweakened national governments since these were the only political spacesavailable to farmers.

Perhaps even more disturbing, some researchers in assessing the formand status of collective action in Latin America based primarily onresearch in urban areas went so far as to suggest that there was littleevidence of any capacity for even effective national organization andactivism. As Chalmers, Martin and Piester [1997: 543] argue:

In contrast to the early decades of this century, however, a rising andseemingly inexorable tide of popular mobilization is not evident.Strikingly, revolutionary proposals are nowhere to be found, eventhough democratization, guided by an ascendant neo-liberalism, thusfar has dashed the widespread expectations for social justice that itraised. Occasional, sometimes large-scale street demonstrationsagainst particular anti-popular reforms or corrupt public officialscontinue to dot the regions political landscape, to be sure, as popularfrustration bubbles up spasmodically. Yet, there are few signs of asustained, broad-based popular movement against neo-liberalism, andmuch less around an alternative project.

92 THE JOURNAL OF PEASANT STUDIES

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Yet, in January 2001, I was in Guatemala watching television coverageof the World Social Forum held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and observed thatmany of the protesters marching in the streets were sporting the green farmcaps and panuelos of the Va Campesina. Here was a visual record of theextent of transnational peasant activism. An exploration of rural socialmovements in Latin America in the 1990s provides clear evidence thatpeasant activism against the neo-liberal model of agricultural developmentwas, and is, alive and strong. One has only to look at the regional peasantorganizations that emerged in the early 1990s for example theCoordinadora Latinomericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC) andthe Asociacin de Organizaciones Campesinas Centroamericanas para laCooperacin y el Desarrollo (ASOCODE) and examine closely their linksto and work with peasant organizations in other parts of the world to realizethat new structures of collective action were emerging and an alternativeproject was, and is, in the works. Economic liberalization in the agriculturalsector has spurred farm and peasant leaders in the North and South tomobilize far beyond national borders and reach across continents. Indeed,progressive farm and peasant organizations have transnationalized and arecarving new spaces for negotiation and collective action.

Maybe it was difficult to imagine farmers from diverse countriesmarching together on a GATT meeting in Punta del Este in 1986 at thebeginning of the Uruguay Round. However, a few years later one did notneed to imagine it. In May 1993, farm leaders from around the worldgathered together in Mons, Belgium, under the banner of a newly emergingglobal peasant and farm movement, the Va Campesina. Seven months laterduring the final stages of negotiations over 5,000 farmers includingEuropean, Canadian, American, Japanese, Indian and Latin Americanpeasants did march on the GATT in Geneva [Wiebe, 1998]. The veryexistence of the Va Campesina is evidence of new structures of collectiveaction in the countryside; their strategies defy traditional patterns oforganizing in the rural sector, and the sheer magnitude of their internationalpresence speaks to their transformatory potential. Yet, how is it we know solittle about what peasants and farmers are up to in the countryside?

This article seeks to help fill this void by examining, in the context of anincreasingly globalized agricultural economy, the formation andconsolidation of a new international peasant and farm movement, the VaCampesina. I begin by exploring why and how the movement first emerged.This is followed by a discussion of some of the major issues around whichthe Va Campesina has mobilized and the strategies they have adopted.Much of the information contained in this article is drawn from my work as

93CONSOLIDATING THE VA CAMPESINA MOVEMENT

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the coordinator of the Global Agricultural Project, a project gearedspecifically to facilitating the development of organizational links betweenthe National Farmers Union (NFU) in Canada with farmers organizationsin developing countries. In this capacity I also worked as technical supportto the Va Campesina since its inception and participated in most meetingsof the International Coordinating Commission (ICC) and the threeinternational conferences of the Va Campesina. This work experience wassupplemented by eight months of fieldwork in Mexico, India and Hondurasduring which I had the opportunity to interview many Va Campesinaleaders.

PEASANT ORGANIZATIONS GO GLOBAL

The Va Campesina is a global movement that brings together organizationsof peasants, small and medium-scale farmers, rural women, farm workersand indigenous agrarian communities in Asia, the Americas, WesternEurope and Eastern Europe. Africa is in the process of integration.2 The VaCampesina is unique; it is autonomous, pluralist and independent of anypolitical, economic or other type of affiliation. An InternationalCoordinating Commission (ICC) of 14, with two representatives (one manand one woman) of peasant and farm organizations from each of the sevenregions (South Asia, South East and North East Asia, Europe, NorthAmerica, Central America, the Caribbean and South America) is the mostimportant link among the various peasant organizations.3

Much of the literature on new social movements (NSMs)4 has focusedon the emergence of a great variety of mostly urban-based new socialactors while virtually ignoring agrarian activism [Starn, 1992: 90; Edelman,1999: 17].5 It is almost as if researchers now consider peasants to beremnants of a distant past with little to contribute to current analysis ofcollective action. It is not as if peasants have been completely ignored.However, often, it is not their productive function or status as peasants thatis emphasized. Rather, contemporary studies have accentuated the processesleading to new subjectivities such as ethnicity, gender or caste [Selverston,1997; Omvedt, 1993; Kearney, 1996]. On the other hand, social theoristswho see themselves on the very cutting edge of rural studies prefer in truepostmodern fashion to study the hidden others that inhabit thecountryside [Cloke and Little, 1997]. By focusing on processes leading tootherness rather than on what rural dwellers do for a living and how theyrelate to markets and community, these authors are inadvertentlymarginalizing farmers even further. Some scholars such as Kearney [1996]


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even go as far as to suggest that peasants no longer exist.6 This, perhaps, isthe ultimate in marginalization, and reflects a very real distortion of ruralrealities and agrarian social actors.

In the context of the significant shifts taking place in the countrysidethrough the restructuring of the agriculture and food sector, decisions madeat the World Food Summit (1996), the WTO agreement on agriculture andthe current round of WTO discussions on intellectual property rights (IPRs) all of which will certainly have an impact on urban populations as well we need to understand better the dynamics of organizing in the countryside.Just as NSMs are critical to effecting social change in urban areas,traditional actors such as peasant organizations continue to play a criticalrole in advocating change in the countryside. Indeed, partially in responseto these, a number of studies demonstrate that in some countries peasantorganizations are often at the forefront of struggles against neo-liberalism intheir efforts to gain greater access to and control over productive resources[Edelman, 1999; Petras and Veltmeyer, 2001; Petras, 1997a, 1997b, 1998;Veltmeyer, 1997, 2000; Collier, 2000; Navarro, 2000; Collins, 2000;Abelmann, 1997]. As important as these national struggles are, in thecontext of an increasingly international agricultural economy, it isnecessary, I believe, to explore the ways in which agrarian activism hasreached across national borders doing exactly what some analystssuggested peasants and farmers were incapable of doing.7

The immediate roots of the Va Campesina are most easily traced todiscussions among representatives of eight farm organizations from CentralAmerica, the Caribbean, Europe, Canada and the USA, who had gathered toparticipate in the second congress of the Unin Nacional de Agricultores yGanaderos (UNAG) held in Managua, Nicaragua, in April 1992. Here, farmleaders vowed to strengthen ties among their organizations and to forgeinternational links with farm organizations from around the world. Thisdesire to engage in a collective endeavour is clearly captured in theManagua Declaration; it was a clear and forceful call for peasants andfarmers everywhere to work together: [it is only] through our unity [that]we will find the means to have our voice and our propositions heard bythose who would usurp our right to cultivate the land and assure ourfamilies dignity [Managua Declaration, 1992].

Just one year after the Managua meeting, 46 farm leaders (25 per cent ofthem women) from around the world gathered in Mons, Belgium, toformally constitute the Va Campesina. The farmers had been broughttogether under the auspices of a non-governmental organization (NGO)primarily to establish a farmer-driven research project on alternative


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agricultural policy. Farm leaders, however, had a much broader and morepressing agenda.8 Most important, they sought to forge progressiveorganizations into a newly emerging international peasant and farmmovement.

The Va Campesina emerged in explicit rejection of neo-liberalagricultural policies and as a direct response to the fact that the concerns,needs and interests of people who actually work the land and produce theworlds food were completely excluded in the GATT negotiations onagriculture. Peasants and small-scale farmers in the North and South weredetermined to work together on the urgent task of developing alternatives toneo-liberalism and to make their voices heard in future deliberations onagriculture and food. As Paul Nicholson [Va Campesina, 1996a: 1011], aVa Campesina leader from the Basque Country explained at the SecondInternational Conference of the Va Campesina in 1996:

To date, in all the global debates on agrarian policy, the peasantmovement has been absent; we have not had a voice. The main reasonfor the very existence of the Va Campesina is to be that voice and tospeak out for the creation of a more just society. What is involvedhere is [a threat to] our regional identity and our traditions aroundfood and our own regional economy. As those responsible fortaking care of nature and life, we have a fundamental role to play. The Va Campesina must defend the peasant way of rural peoples. We must defend a peasant model and present it to internationalbodies. We had our first conference three years ago. There were lessthan half of us at that conference, and we did not know exactly whatwe were undertaking. But we followed our intuition, we knew we hadcommon interests, and we knew the only way to confront the currentpolitical process was to join forces and express a unified voice.

Certainly, arriving at this collective we was not easy. Many of theorganizations who participated in the Managua and Mons meetings mostof whom are the founding members of the Va Campesina had engagedover a number of years in exchanges and dialogue with counterparts in theNorth and South. This had enabled farm leaders to jointly contemplate theirplace in an increasingly globalized economic, social and political setting;develop a collective analysis of the changes taking place in the countrysideworldwide; share experiences and strategies of organizing in thecountryside; and discuss possible responses and collective actions. Forexample among many others by the mid-1980s the National FarmersUnion (NFU) in Canada had already established a youth exchange


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programme with the Windward Islands Farmers Association (WINFA)involving six-week leadership capacity-building and agricultural workstints between Canadian and Caribbean farm youth linked to bothorganizations. The NFU also participated in a number of study tours to, forexample, Nicaragua, China and Mozambique and developed a successfulNFU-UNAG womens linkage project involving biannual delegation visitsbetween Canada and Nicaragua. During the same period, in France theConfdration Nationale des Syndicats de Travailleurs Paysans (CNSTP)9established bilateral relations with organizations in the Americas such as theNational Family Farm Coalition (NFFC) in the United States, theConfederacin Campesina del Peru (CCP), the Unin Nacional deAgricultores y Ganaderos (UNAG) in Nicaragua and the Unin Nacional deOrganizaciones Regionales Campesinas Autonomas (UNORCA) in Mexico[Choplin, 2000]. These links enabled the CNSTP to further explore thedetrimental effects that the CAP was having on farming communitieselsewhere; in response they formed a commission called Solidarit et LuttesPaysannes Internationales (SLPI) to consolidate solidarity ties with peasantorganizations from other countries [Choplin, 2000]. Also, exchangesfocused on sharing knowledge of sustainable practices, such as theCampesino a Campesino project, were key to strengthening ties betweenCentral American and Mexican peasant organizations [Holt-Gimenez, 1997;Edelman, 1998: 567].10 Clearly, the fact that these farm organizations hadsome prior knowledge of, experience of and personal contact with eachothers work and realities contributed significantly to their success inreaching the high level of agreement reflected in the Managua and Monsdeclarations.

Thus, the roots of the Va Campesina reflect a long history of agrarianmovements actively engaged in the struggle for social change. The majorityof these organizations initially existed at the local and/or provincial levelsand subsequently converged into national organizations as agricultural andrural policies fell increasingly under national jurisdiction. In some caseswhere farm policy was being defined more at a regional level, peasantorganizations united under regional umbrella entities such as theCoordination Paysanne Europenne (CPE) and ASOCODE. Now, thesesame farm organizations were pushing boundaries and actively forgingbroader international links as decision-making on food and agriculture wasincreasingly transferred to global institutions linked to the globalmarketplace.

To date the Va Campesina has organized three international congresses,a number of regional meetings and womens workshops in different parts of


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the world. Also, the Va Campesina delegations represented a significantpresence and force at the World Food Summit in Rome (1996), eventssurrounding the WTO ministerial meetings in Geneva (1998) and Seattle(1999) and the World Social Summit in Porto Alegre (2001). All of theseare important gatherings that enable the Va Campesina to pursue one of itsmain objectives, that is, to build unity within the diversity of organizations[Va Campesina, n.d.]. Here, peasant and farm leaders acknowledgedifferences, move on to establish some common ground, solidify acollective identity and arrive at consensus on strategies and actions, thuseffectively building a collective will. As, Nettie Wiebe [Rural WomensWorkshop Highlights, 1996: 10], a Va Campesina leader from the NFU ofCanada, claimed:

And that is what the Va Campesina is. Its a movement of people ofthe land who share a progressive agenda. Which means we share theview that people small farmers, peasants, people of the land havea right to be there. That its our job to look after the earth and ourpeople. We must defend it and we have to defend it in the globalcontext.

For the Va Campesina, agrarian protest is driven by a strong peasantidentity and a vision of an evolving and vibrant peasant culture involvinginnovative practices and new ways of thinking about and doing politics.Most important are the ways peasant and farm organizations are workingtogether to protect the interests of peasant and farm families, to ensure thewell-being of rural communities, and in negotiating for an alternative modelof agricultural development in which those who work the land have greateraccess to and control over productive resources. Around the world VaCampesina organizations engage in a variety of non-violent collectiveactions ranging from participation and collaboration to non-participation,negotiation accompanied by mobilization, and direct action [VaCampesina, 2000d].

VA CAMPESINA AND ALTERNATIVE MODERNITIESMuch of the Va Campesinas success is due to the fact that it is balancing with great care and effort the diverse interests of its membership as itopenly deals with issues such as gender, race, class, culture and North/Southrelations, which could potentially cause divisions. According to the VaCampesina the conflict is not between farmers of the North and peasants inthe South. Rather, the struggle is over two competing and in many ways


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diametrically opposed models of social and economic development. On theone hand, a globalized, neo-liberal, corporate-driven model where agricultureis seen exclusively as a profit-making venture and productive resources areincreasingly concentrated into the hands of agro-industry. The Va Campesina[Managua Declaration, 1992], on the other hand, envisions a very different,more humane, rural world; one based on a rediscovered ethic ofdevelopment stemming from the productive culture and productivevocation of farming families. Here, agriculture is farmer-driven, based onpeasant production, and it plays an important social function while at the sametime being economically viable and ecologically sustainable. According toRafael Alegria, operational secretariat of the Va Campesina:

I think that what really unites us is a fundamental commitment tohumanism because the antithesis of this is individualism andmaterialism. For us in the Va Campesina the human aspect is afundamental principle so we see the person, man and woman, as thecentre of our reason for being and this is what we struggle for forthis family that is at the centre of all. Common problems unite us. Thecommon problems of land, production, technology, markets,ideological formation, training, poverty all of these we have incommon. But what also unites us are great aspirations. We are allconvinced that the current structures of economic, political and socialpower are unjust and exclusionary. What unites us is a spirit oftransformation and struggle to change these structures all over theworld. We aspire to a better world, a more just world, a more humaneworld, a world where real equality and social justice exist. Theseaspirations and solidarity in rural struggles keep us united in the VaCampesina. [Alegria, 2000]

The Va Campesina claims that the globalization of an industrial modelof agriculture, together with increased liberalization of the food trade, isleading to the destruction of biodiversity and subsequent loss of culturaldiversity, further degradation of the environment, increased disparity andgreater impoverishment in the countryside.11 It argues that neo-liberalpolicies are sustained by human rights abuses and increased violence in thecountryside geared specifically to intimidate peasants while economicliberalization endangers national food security and threatens the livelihoodand very survival of peasant families. As a result peasant and farm familieseverywhere, in the North and the South, are disappeared and ruralcommunities are decimated [Va Campesina, 1993, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c,1998a, 1999, 2000c].


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But, as the Va Campesina so defiantly stated during its secondinternational conference held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, in 1996, we will not beintimidated nor disappeared. Armed with a strong collective identity aspeople of the land, together with an uncompromising drive to continue tomake a living in the countryside by growing food, the Va Campesinaorganizations are fighting for the right to exist. However, this is not just astruggle for survival; it is a struggle for the right to build community andculture, and the right to produce food in culturally appropriate ways fordomestic consumption. As the Bangalore Declaration of the Va Campesina[2000c] states:

The forced liberalization of trade in agricultural products acrossregions and around the world is resulting in disastrously low prices formany of the foods we produce. As cheap food imports flood localmarkets, peasant and farm families can no longer produce food fortheir own families and communities and are driven from the land.These unfair trade arrangements are destroying rural communities andcultures by imposing new eating patterns everywhere in the world.Local and traditional foods are being replaced by low priced, oftenpoorer quality, imported foodstuffs. Food is a key part of culture, andthe neo-liberal agenda is destroying the very basis of our lives andcultures. We do not accept the hunger and displacement. We demandfood sovereignty, which means the right to produce our own food.

This idea of food sovereignty [Va Campesina, 1996b], defined as theright to produce food on our own territory, is at the heart of the alternativemodel of agricultural development that the Va Campesina is working toestablish. As the Va Campesina position to the World Food Summit [VaCampesina, 1996b] states, food is a basic need, it is first and foremost asource of nutrition and only secondarily an item of trade. As such, the VaCampesina is arguing for a fundamental shift in who defines and determinesthe purpose and terms of knowledge, research, technology, science,production and trade related to food. What the Va Campesina is talkingabout [Va Campesina, 1996c] is the need to build peasant cultures andeconomies based on principles which have not yet completely disappearedsuch as moral imperatives and obligations, fairness, social justice and socialresponsibility. This, according to the Va Campesina, is what building ruralcommunity and culture is all about.

Is the Va Campesina in danger of reifying community engaging in aromanticized notion of its roots at the cost of proposing real socialalternatives?12 I do not think so. Communities should be seen as sites of


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diversity, differences, conflicts and divisions most often expressed alonggender, class and ethnic lines and characterized by competing claims andinterests.13 Here, Sabeans notion of community as discourse isilluminating:

What makes community possible is the fact that it involves a series ofmediated relationships. By emphasizing relationships, it can beseen that community includes both negative and positive elements,both sharing and conflict.. Community exists where not just lovebut also frustration and anger exist. What is common in communityis not shared values or common understanding so much as the fact thatmembers of a community are engaged in the same argument, the sameraisonnement the same discourse, in which alternative strategies,misunderstandings, conflicting goals and values are threshed out. What makes community is the discourse [Sabean, 1984: 2830].

Culture, as Sabean [Ibid: 95] argues, then becomes a series of argumentsamong people about the common things in their everyday lives. Thiscaptures the process that the Va Campesina is involved in as it struggles todefine the nature and substance of its alternative peasant model. As RafaelAlegria explains:

We cannot have, nor aspire to have, only one way of thinking becausewe are so many, we are too big. What is important is to discuss,engage in debate and agree on some ways forward, not to detainourselves. If there are contradictions or differences this is normal.What we need to do in the Va Campesina is to ensure that we alwayshave the capacity to listen to each other and always act with deeprespect for the way of thinking of each of the organizations and toalways discuss in an open and transparent way and then moveforward. The day that the Va Campesina attempts to impose ways ofthinking or vertical lines, then we will have ceased to be a distinctsocial movement truly committed to building an alternative model[Alegria, 2000].

It is important to stress that the peasant model advocated by the VaCampesina does not entail a complete rejection of modernity, technologyand trade accompanied by a romanticized return to an archaic past steepedin rustic traditions. Rather, the Va Campesina insists that an alternativemodel must be based on certain ethics and values where culture and justicecount for something and concrete mechanisms are put in place to ensure afuture without hunger. The Va Campesinas alternative model entails


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recapturing aspects of traditional or local knowledge and combining itwith new technology when and where it is appropriate to do so.14 The VaCampesina rejects a modernity in which local knowledge has no place. Ifwe accept Watts idea that social change is not about a complete rejection ofmodernity instead, it involves a process in which all societies create theirown modernities and that popular culture entails reworking modernity[Watts, 1995: 57] then the work of social movements is to createalternative modernities [Escobar, 1992: 82].

And this is precisely what the Va Campesina is doing. By combiningsome of the old with some of the new, peasants and small-scale farmerseverywhere are taking back pieces of land and reshaping the rural landscapeto benefit those who work the land as they collectively redefine what foodis produced, how it is produced, where and for whom. One has only to lookat, for example, the practices of Mexican farm organizations which ensurefood for self-sufficiency through the peasant tradition of the traspatio15combined with the government-sponsored milpa mejorada (which involvesusing hybrid seeds and some chemical inputs) while at the same timeseeking to establish direct farmer-to-farmer trade links with Canadian andEuropean farm organizations.

In the political context, the Va Campesina also has a very clearunderstanding of the strategic place peasants and farmers hold asproducers of food. According to the Va Campesina:

Farm communities represent the majority in most regions of the worldand it is our work that ensures the food base and life of all societies. We farmers are protagonists of production and sustainability. We draw your attention to the lack of respect which has been shownto our productive culture. It is essential that we pay due attention andstrengthen our lives as generators of agriculture as the fundamentaland strategic base for the survival of all people [ManaguaDeclaration, 1992].

This empowering sense of place was further elaborated during the thirdconference of the Va Campesina in Bangalore:

The imposition of the WTO and regional trade agreements isdestroying our livelihoods, our cultures and the natural environment.We cannot, and we will not, tolerate the injustice and destruction thesepolicies are causing. Our struggle is historic, dynamic anduncompromising. This is a peasant struggle for all of humankind.The Va Campesina is committed to changing the unjust,


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unsustainable models of production and trade. Peasants and farmersare suffering a financial, social and cultural crisis everywhere, northand south. And we are everywhere committed to working in solidarityto build more just, sustainable peasant societies. We, the peasant andsmall-scale farming societies are not defeated. We are strong anddetermined and we are the majority in the world. We are proud of ourwork, which is to produce safe foods for our families and humankind.We cherish our diversity, both biological and cultural. The futurebelongs to us [Va Campesina, 2000c].

The social and political significance of the Va Campesina cannot beunderestimated. Since its formation the Va Campesina has experiencedrapid expansion; now, it is perhaps the largest and most significantagricultural social movement in the world. In eight short years between theManagua meeting in 1992 and the Bangalore congress of 2000 the VaCampesina has grown to embrace hundreds of farm organizationsrepresenting millions of peasant and farm families from the North, South,East and West. But it is not size that matters. More important, the VaCampesina offers a whole range of rural social actors and progressiveorganizations the opportunity for full engagement in analysis, policydevelopment, advocacy and in some cases direct action on key issuesrelated to food sovereignty and food security. In so doing, the VaCampesina is demanding fundamental changes to the terrain, the players,what issues are brought to the table and the terms and conditions ofparticipation and negotiation.

VA CAMPESINA: PEASANT EMPOWERMENT AND FOODSOVEREIGNTY

In the Global Assembly on Food Security, held in Quebec City in 1995 tocelebrate the 50th anniversary of the FAO, the Va Campesina made its firstreal appearance in the international arena. As a member of the steeringcommittee of the global assembly, the NFU worked hard to ensure that VaCampesina representatives were invited as facilitators and panellists ingroup discussions and plenaries to present the perspective and experience offood producers. This was not an easy task, as the NFU had first to convinceurban-based and urban-biased NGO organizers that peasant leaders were infact capable and articulate enough to provide an analysis of the impact ofneo-liberalism in the countryside [Wiebe, 1998]. Peasant and farm voicescame through loud and clear in the Quebec events as one farm leader after


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another eagerly raced to the microphones to explain how things really werein the countryside. Most began their interventions by proudly declaring theirallegiance to the Va Campesina. One year later the Va Campesina was anactive and visible political actor at the World Food Summit (WFS), whereit challenged the FAO to recognize its legitimacy as the representative of agrowing international farm movement that defends the interests of peasantsand small farmers and requested to be given official delegate status at theWFS.16

In Rome, the Va Campesina also challenged non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs). It would not sign on to the NGO declaration becauseit felt that it did not address sufficiently the concerns and interests of peasantfamilies. The Va Campesinas forceful rejection of the NGO statementwas, in many ways, a turning point for relations between the emergingpeasant movement and NGOs. NGOs have dominated the civil societyspace in the international arena where discussions of agriculture and foodsecurity have occurred. The Va Campesina was sending a clear and directmessage to the NGOs. Through the Va Campesina farm leaders had carveda space and were filling it with peasant and farm voices that werearticulating a peasant agenda. NGOs could no longer speak on behalf ofor be representatives of peasants and farmers. In this prescient move the VaCampesina was challenging NGOs to acknowledge the existing unequaldistribution of resources and skewed power relations between NGOs andpeoples organizations (POs).17

The Va Campesina not only challenged who would speak and onwhose behalf in Rome and in future deliberations on food and agriculture;it also challenged what would be said. Here, two concrete examples willsuffice. At the WFS, while government officials and NGOs limited theirdiscussions to food security, the Va Campesina argued for a much broaderand holistic concept, that of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty moreclearly places peasants and small-scale farmers interests and role at thecentre. For the Va Campesina:

Food is a basic human right. This right can only be realized in a systemwhere food sovereignty is guaranteed. Food sovereignty is the right ofeach nation to maintain and develop its own capacity to produce itsbasic foods respecting cultural and productive diversity. We have theright to produce our own food in our own territory. Food sovereignty isa precondition to genuine food security [Va Campesina, 1996b]

According to the Va Campesina, food sovereignty is distinguished fromfood security because it requires the accompaniment of the Va


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Campesinas broadly conceived agrarian reform. For the Va Campesina itis not only a question of ensuring that a sufficient amount of food isproduced nationally and made accessible to everyone. Equally important isthe issue of what food is produced, how it is produced and at what scale.

The Va Campesina [2000e] is not opposed to agricultural trade; rather, itargues that agricultural production must be geared primarily to ensuring foodsovereignty. As such the Va Campesina explicitly rejects what is perhaps themost significant principle of the WTO Agreement of Agriculture, the rightto export.18 Instead, the Va Campesina argues that each country has theright and obligation to develop national agricultural and food policies thatensure the health and well-being of its populations, cultures andenvironments. Interestingly, the concept of food sovereignty is spreading,and is increasingly found in documents on different aspects of food security.19For example, European NGOs have formed a Food Sovereignty Platformspecifically for advocacy around the issue of food sovereignty; the conceptwas at the heart of discussions at the Social Summit held in Porto Alegre,Brazil, in January 2001; and it will frame discussions at the upcoming NGOForum on Food Sovereignty to be held concurrently with the World FoodSummit: Five Years Later (Verhagen, 2001).

Another example is the Va Campesinas position on the WTOnegotiations on agriculture and the food trade. The Va Campesina [1998a]claims that international trade must serve society and that the current rulesand structure of global food trade are designed primarily to shift controlover a basic human right [such as food] out of the hands of people and theirgovernments to better serve the interests and bottom line of agro-industry.Consequently, the WTOs lack of transparency and accountability,accompanied by blatant undemocratic practices and links to agro-industry,make it completely unsuitable as an international structure responsible foroverseeing the food trade. Rather than restricting its efforts at reforming theWTO by negotiating what can be placed in the green or amber box, ormaking slight adjustments with the creation of a development or foodsecurity box,20 the Va Campesina argues that agriculture and food shouldsimply be taken out of the WTO. This was clearly stated as follows in theposition the Va Campesina [1999] delivered at events surrounding theministerial meeting of the WTO in Seattle in November 1999:

A profound reform of the WTO in order to make it respond to therights and needs of people would mean the abolition of the WTOitself! We do not believe that the WTO will allow such a profoundreform. Therefore, the Via Campesina, as an international movement


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responsible for the agricultural sector, demands that agricultureshould be taken out of the WTO. Perhaps more appropriately, letstake the WTO out of agriculture.

While demonstrating in the streets of Geneva and Seattle and inmeetings with the WTO, the Va Campesina may well have been the onlysocial actor to stress the need to reclaim agriculture in this way. This, Ithink, reflects the significantly different place and hence uniqueperspective of food producers; for unlike many other social movements,their very survival and livelihoods depend on fundamental changes in theproduction, marketing and trade of food. In assessing the possible andpotential impact of the Va Campesinas positions and actions, NicoVerhagen, technical support to the Va Campesina, explains:

I think our major influence is that our clear concepts have a stronginfluence on the contents of the debate with the result that neo-liberalpolicies lose their legitimacy. It is no longer considered backward totalk about market regulation, to criticize TNCs, to defend the right todefine your own agricultural policies in order to favour foodproduction. These orientations are gaining ground and the concept offood sovereignty contributes to this [Verhagen, 2001].

The growing presence and visibility of the Va Campesina has attractedthe attention of an increasing number of international institutions theWorld Bank, the FAO and the Commission for Sustainable Development,among others who seek to legitimize their policies and programmesthrough the participation of this growing international peasant movement.However, an examination of the dynamics of the Va Campesinasparticipation in the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)conference demonstrates just how relative the term participation is.

The GFAR, formed in 1996, seeks to establish a global system fordevelopment-oriented agricultural research by building partnerships andstrategic alliances in efforts to reduce poverty, build food security and bettermanage natural and genetic resources. In a conference recently held inDresden, Germany, the GFAR brought together all key stakeholders withthe goal of reaching consensus on the future direction of agriculturalresearch. Obviously, consensus building is a difficult and sometimesimpossible process especially when participants have diametrically opposedinterests. The GFAR resolved this challenge by simply fabricating consent.

Among the participants at the GFAR conference were representatives ofgovernment departments of agriculture, national and international


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agricultural research institutions, NGOs, Monsanto and Novartis, the VaCampesina and the International Federation of Agricultural Producers(IFAP). Most stakeholders, with the exception of the Va Campesina and theNGOs, agreed with the GFAR Dresden Declaration which reiterated a blindfaith in science, biotechnology and genetic engineering as solutions topoverty, food insecurity, loss of biodiversity and environmentaldegradation. The Va Campesina rejected the Dresden Declaration whileclaiming that research should be farmer-driven and designed to meet theneeds and interests of small farmers and peasants rather than remaining inthe hands of agribusiness [Va Campesina, 2000a, 2000b]. It stressed thatwe must first come to terms with fundamental issues such as: What countsas agricultural research? Whose knowledge counts? What is the purpose ofresearch? Whose interests should agricultural research serve? Who definesthe research agenda? And, how should research be conducted? Yet, in thefinal hour of the conference, organizers congratulated participants forhaving reached agreement on the Dresden Declaration!

For the Va Campesina, participation is charged with political andeconomic consequences. Consequently, it adamantly defends its rights todefine the terms and conditions under which it will participate. Followingthe GFAR conference, the Va Campesina held a press conference tohighlight its objections to the numerous ways that peasants and smallfarmers had been excluded from participating in the debate: they were notinvited to speak in the plenaries, there was no translation in the small groupsessions, critical themes were marginalized and in a zealous attempt to reachconsensus the Va Campesinas very public opposition had beenconveniently ignored or purposely omitted. But, perhaps the ultimate inexclusion was the conference organizers insistence that in futureassemblies Va Campesina representatives were welcome to participate asfarmers but not as representatives of the Va Campesina. At this point theVia Campesina [2000a] opted for non-participation since as they explainedthis condition denies and eliminates all necessary aspects of our vision,accountability and representation which are central to the Va Campesinasorganizational activities.21

LOCAL REALITIES AND GLOBAL ACTIONS

The transformational potential of the Va Campesina rests in the fact that itdirects its actions at all levels the local, national, regional andinternational. But as its organizations engage in collective action withintheir national boundaries they do so with the knowledge that they are


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connected to the actions of organizations of men and women half a worldaway. As Nettie Wiebe, Regional Coordinator for North America,explained:

The difficulty for us, as farming people, is that we are rooted in theplaces where we live and grow our food. The other side, the corporateworld, is globally mobile. This is a big difficulty for us. But our wayof approaching it is not to become globally mobile ourselves, whichis impossible. We cant move our gardens around the world. Nor dowe want to. The way in which weve approached this is to recognizethere are people like us everywhere in the world who are farmingpeople, who are rooted, culturally rooted, in their places. And what weneed to do is build bridges of solidarity with each other which respectthat unique place each of us has in our own community, in our owncountry. These bridges will unite us on those issues or in those placeswhere we have to meet at a global level [Rural Womens WorkshopHighlights, 1996: 10].

Historically, peasant and farm organizations have been most successfulin effecting change when they made community-oriented issues a nationalconcern. Perhaps the most important of these issues has been agrarianreform. Indeed, for most existing peasant and farm organizations it is theissue of access to land and security of tenure that has fuelled peasantactivism at the community and national levels and led the cry for socialjustice in the countryside. This focus remains. However, in view of thedramatic globalization of the agricultural economy, peasant organizationshave recognized the need to make community-oriented issues, for exampleagrarian reform and access to other productive resources such as seeds,credit, technology, markets and water, not only national but internationalconcerns.

Just how is the Va Campesina doing this? On 12 October 1999, togetherwith an international human rights organization, the Food and InformationAction Network (FIAN), the Va Campesina launched the Global Campaignfor Agrarian Reform. Under the campaign banner food, land and freedom,peasants joined human rights activists in 12 countries in Asia, the Americasand Europe in mobilizations, land occupations and other public events todemand the right to land and security of land tenure as a prerequisite to thehuman right to food stipulated in Article 11 of the International Covenanton Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [Va Campesina, 1999]. TheGlobal Campaign for Agrarian Reform involves work on a number ofdifferent fronts: support to organizations involved in national struggles for


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agrarian reform, exchanges between peasant organizations to examine theparticular nature of struggle over land in various countries, lobbyinggovernments and international institutions, and establishing an emergencynetwork to facilitate international intervention in cases of human rightsabuses in conflicts over land.

For the Va Campesina [2000e] agrarian reform goes far beyond theredistribution of land22 and involves comprehensive reform of agriculturalsystems to favour small-farm production and marketing. It means takingland, and other productive resources, off the market and practising theprinciple of social ownership of land, whereby families who work the landhave usufruct rights. Agrarian reform also entails supply-management andregulated markets to ensure fair prices to those who produce food.

Following numerous discussions within and among the seven regions ofthe Va Campesina, the international peasant movement, in addition to itsstruggle for agrarian reform, is now focusing its work on the followingissues that resonate at the local, national and global levels: food sovereigntyand global trade; genetic resources and biodiversity; human rights, genderand rural development; developing a sustainable peasant agricultural model;migration (urban/rural and international); and farm-workers rights [VaCampesina, 1998b, 2001].

Although the Va Campesina has a global structure, it is acutely awareof the importance of the regions and the base. When it approaches the WTO,the UN Commission for Sustainable Development or the FAO, it does sowhile remaining deeply rooted in local issues and realities, and active inlocal struggles. Indeed, the international work of farm organizations ispossible only if and when the organizations are strong and consolidated atthe local and national levels. The base, articulated through the national andthe regions, is the heart and driving force of the Va Campesina; local issuesand local activism drive the Va Campesinas global interventions. Theability of the Va Campesina to remain firmly grounded in the local whilebeing propelled into the global is perhaps one of the most significantcontributions to our understanding of the nature, extent, and complexity ofcurrent agrarian activism.

In some ways this strength could also be one of its weaknesses. The VaCampesina depends on strong local and national peasant organizations. Yetsome of these organizations suffer from numerous problems lack ofresources, weak leadership, regional and personal jealousies, ideologicalsplits, a declining or inactive membership base and cooptation fromgovernments and NGOs which are well documented in the literature. Themaintenance of strong, coherent, national peasant organizations is a


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continuous struggle. Another ongoing struggle is the necessity of balancingrespect for the autonomy of each organization with the need forinternational coordination and collective action.

The Va Campesinas increasing effectiveness at transnationalcoordination is perhaps best reflected in the mobilizations that it organizesaround the world on 17 April every year. On the eve of the secondinternational conference of the Va Campesina held in Tlaxcala, Mexico, 19peasants (members of the Movimiento Sem Terra, or MST) were killed inthe small city of Eldorado do Carajas in the northern state of Para, Brazil,on 17 April 1996. The Va Campesina representatives of over 69 farmorganizations from 37 different countries who had gathered in Mexico werequick to respond. They marched on the Brazilian Embassy in Mexico City,denouncing this brutal and repressive act, and demanded that thegovernment of Brazil conduct a full investigation to ensure that theperpetrators be brought to trial. Subsequently, Va Campesina leaders metwith the Brazilian ambassador who agreed to a future meeting with thepresident of Brazil. Several months later the Va Campesina sent adelegation to meet with government officials and the Brazilian president todiscuss the status of the investigation.23 To commemorate the massacre ofthese 19 Brazilian peasants, the Va Campesina declared 17 April aninternational day of peasant struggle against all forms of oppression ofrural peoples.

Over the years there has been a substantial increase in the number oforganizations participating in demonstrations, press conferences and publicmeetings all geared to highlight human rights abuses in the countryside andto focus the worlds attention on the demands of farming families around theglobe. Last year, hundreds of thousands of European, Central American,Mexican, Brazilian, Thai and Indian peasants and farmers joined in thiscollective effort by participating in some form of public action within theirnational borders. Yet, in some ways, 17 April actions remained a limitedcollective endeavour; each region was encouraged to mobilize, each wasfree to choose what the focus of the collective action would be and the VaCampesina operational secretariat would then simply report on thesedifferent actions.

However, the year 2001 was a turning point for the Va Campesinas 17April actions. First, the it engaged in a concerted effort to organize aroundthe world while focusing on one key issue, that of building food sovereigntyby mounting a campaign against low-priced food imports (dumping) andthe introduction and imposition of genetically modified or transgenic seeds.The ICC prepared a succinct list of Va Campesina demands and


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encouraged all participating organizations to write to their nationalgovernments urging them to develop food and agricultural policies based onthe principle of food sovereignty which encompasses sustainable farmer-based food production practices together with equitable marketing and tradestructures. In February 2001 the Va Campesina installed an electronicplatform at [email protected] to promote 17 April as a dayof worldwide mobilization and to facilitate discussion on strategies andactions. In the first half-day of being installed the site received over 65 hitsrequesting subscriptions. The e-group not only provides a forum for ViaCampesina organizations to share information about initiatives they areorganizing for 17 April but also has clearly demonstrated to the VaCampesina the kind of broad support the movement is garnering.

Second, it broadened participation in the 17 April 2001 activities beyondVa Campesina organizations to include other sectors at the internationallevel. This international call to join forces occurred at the World SocialForum in Porto Alegre, Brazil (held from 26 to 29 January 2001), where theVa Campesina worked as part of the organizing committee of the forumand also organized workshops on three themes: struggle against geneticallymodified organisms (GMOs) in favour of farmer seeds; the WTO and foodsovereignty; and the articulation of farmers struggles. By the end of theWorld Social Forum there was a signed commitment by over 184organizations to support the Va Campesinas international day of struggleand to organize actions against the importation of cheap agriculturalproducts and to stop the entry and use of GMOs.24

Since the Tlaxcala conference, the Va Campesina had consistentlystated its desire to work in coalition with other movements to build a globalmovement aimed at transformation of the neo-liberal agenda. However, inthese earlier years it showed little signs of moving forward in this area. Itremained, in many ways, in a self-limiting phase while focusing on creatingand defining a space for itself a distinct, unique space that could be filledwith peasant voices and building from within. It was a time of institutionalbuilding and strengthening. That the Va Campesina is now reaching out towork with other sectors demonstrates, I believe, a more confident andmature movement.

The Va Campesinas more focused organizing and reaching out to alliesaround 17 April events certainly led to more collective action around theworld. In some cases Va Campesina organizations worked together amongdifferent regions. For example, the National Family Farm Coalition and theCoordination Paysanne Europenne sent a joint press release condemningthe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Freedom to Farm Bill as


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anti-farmer while urging their governments to adopt the concept of foodsovereignty. And, the NFU-Canada worked together with the CLOC inorganizing a farmers forum in Quebec City to voice peasant and farmleaders promotion of food sovereignty and rejection of the Free TradeAgreement of the Americas (FTAA) as a way to improve the well-being ofrural peoples throughout the Americas. However, in most cases VaCampesina organizations mobilized at the local and national levels withpeasants engaging in various forms of collective action ranging fromdemonstrations, media work, workshops and conferences to meetings withpolicy-makers to discuss alternative proposals for agricultural development in Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile,Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Indonesia, the Philippines and India.In France alone la CONF (Confederation Paysanne) and allies organizedover 50 demonstrations; some included entering supermarkets and puttingstickers on foods known to contain GMOs.

For the Va Campesina, some issues are so critical that farm leaders arealso prepared to cross national borders to engage in direct action on foreignsoil. The struggle over the ownership and control of seeds is one such issue.For peasant farmers recent advances in genetic engineering and agro-biotechnology are perceived to be perhaps the most threateningdevelopments affecting agriculture since they offer greater opportunity forindustrial capital to gain more control of the food system. Seeds are theprimary means of production and until recently have remained to a largeextent in the hands of farmers. The introduction and imposition ofgenetically-modified, transgenic seeds together with new internationalintellectual property rights alters this completely. Genetically modifiedseeds are designed specifically to fit into technological packages that linkfarmers more directly to industrial capital from the seed to the final product.As the old adage goes, whoever controls the seed, controls the farmer.

The Va Campesina believes that this new technology is a direct attackon peasant farmers, for it means the effective expropriation of the essentialmeans of production from millions of farmers. The struggle over seed, isintensifying: from the burning down by the Karnataka State FarmersAssociation (KRRS) of Monsanto Bt-cotton fields in India,25 the MST attackon Argentinean ships carrying genetically modified seed last June, to laCONFs denaturation of Novartis seed in France, peasants and farmers areclearly refusing to give transnationals control over seed. But, in January ofthis year the Va Campesina went one step further as farm and peasantorganizations converged in Brazil to participate in the Global SocialSummit in Porto Alegre. Here, Va Campesina leaders joined the MST and


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other Brazilian social movements in direct action; they uprooted threehectares of Monsanto genetically modified soya and occupied the stores andlaboratories where seeds are distributed. In doing so, the Va Campesinabroke new ground as peasant farmers engaged in their first transnational (orcross-border) direct action. Perhaps equally important is the fact that the VaCampesina did not restrict its actions to a national government; instead, ittargeted a multinational company.

Interestingly, the government of Brazil retaliated by attempting to expelthe internationally well-known spokesperson of la CONF, Jose Bove.26Surprisingly, no MST leaders were attacked nor were they arrested. Howcan we explain this reaction since it is such a far cry from the repressiveactions formerly condoned by the government of Brazil against the MST?

Part of the explanation, I think, can be traced to Va Campesinascollective actions following the massacre of 19 peasants that occurred on 17April 1996. The international pressure that the Va Campesina and otherorganizations were able to exert on the Brazilian government together withthe strength and support that the MST has within its own borders may wellhave played a significant part in the governments decision to restrictactions against the MST while focusing retaliation on a foreigner.

CONCLUSION

There is growing evidence that the industrial model of agriculture is in a deepcrisis that has environmental, social, ethical, economic and politicaldimensions [Crompton and Hardstaff, 2001; Goodman and Watts, 1997,Whatmore, 1995]. As national governments find themselves increasinglyunable to define national agricultural and food policies there is now growingdoubt about the legitimacy of the model. This was clearly demonstrated by thefailure of the WTO negotiations held in Seattle and the persistent lack ofconsensus in the current review of the Agreement on Agriculture. This,together with publics growing distrust of the current food system andincreased concerns over issues of food safety and food quality perhaps bestexemplified by the outbreak of mad cow disease (BSE) in Europe and foot-and-mouth disease in the UK represents an important political moment forprogressive farm organizations.27 In this context, I believe that the VaCampesina is strategically well positioned to assist farm and peasantorganizations to adopt and/or challenge different aspects of this globalagricultural change and to spearhead peasant activism at the international level.

Of course, all of this is not to suggest that the path leading to theformation and consolidation of the Va Campesina has always been smooth.


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Country roads are seldom paved. Although the Va Campesina dreams ofautonomy, it is greatly affected by external factors, for it moves in the veryreal world of social movements where political and economic constraintshelp shape collective identities, strategies and actions. Internal struggles arepart and parcel of the Va Campesinas path as differences, debates andconflicts flare up now and then.28 What is important to acknowledge at thispoint, I think, is that the expanding nature of the Va Campesina, along withthe wide geographical spread and the diverse social actors that it embraces,make it truly a remarkable accomplishment. The Va Campesina coalescedin the North and South around common objectives: an explicit rejection ofthe neo-liberal model of rural development, an outright refusal to beexcluded from agricultural policy development and a firm determination towork together to empower a peasant voice and to establish an alternativemodel of agriculture.

The formation and consolidation of the Va Campesina is living proofthat peasant and farm families have not been compliant accomplices duringthis process of economic restructuring, nor have they been passive victimsin the face of increasing poverty and marginalization. Indeed, they are usingthree traditional weapons of the weak organization, cooperation andcommunity to redefine development and to build an alternative model ofagriculture; one that is based on the principles of gender and ethnic equality,social justice and respect for peasant cultures and peasant economies. Thesolidarity and unity experienced with the Va Campesina yield perhaps themost precious gift of all, hope. This was clearly captured in the VaCampesinas slogan for its Third International Conference held inBangalore in October 2000: Globalizing the Struggle Globalizing Hope.Indeed, the Va Campesina enables us to imagine that change is possibleand that an alternative project is being created. As Va Campesina leadersdeclared in the streets of Geneva, Seattle, Bangalore and Porto Alegre:

Alerta alerta la Va Campesina esta presente!Viva la Va Campesina!

ACRONYMS

ANEC Asociacin Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras deProductores del Campo

ASOCODE Asociacin de Organizaciones Campesinas Centroamericanaspara la Cooperacin y el Desarrollo

CAP Common Agriculture Policy


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CLOC Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo CCP Confederacin Campesina del PeruCNSTP Confdration Nationale des Syndicats de Travailleurs

PaysansCPE Coordination Paysanne EuropenneFAO Food and Agriculture OrganizationFTAA Free Trade Agreement of the AmericasGATT General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeGFAR Global Forum on Agricultural ResearchGMOs Genetically modified organismsICC International Coordinating Commission (of the Va

Campesina)IFAP International Federation of Agricultural ProducersIPRs Intellectual Property RightsKRRS Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (the Karnataka farmers

movement)la CONF Confdration PaysanneNAFTA North American Free Trade AgreementNFFC National Family Farm CoalitionNFU National Farmers Union of CanadaNGOs Non-governmental organizationsNSMs New Social MovementsOECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentPOs Peoples organizationsSAPS Structural Adjustment ProgrammesUNAG Unin Nacional de Agricultores y GanaderosUNORCA Unin Nacional de Organizaciones Regionales Campesinas

AutonomasWFS World Food SummitWFS: FYL World Food Summit: Five Years LaterWINFA Windward Islands Farmers AssociationWTO World Trade Organization

NOTES

1. Examples of such laws in Latin America are as follows: the Law of Modernization andDevelopment of the Agriculture Sector (LMA) in Honduras [Desmarais, 1994]; changes toArticle 27 of the Mexican Constitution approved in 1992 and designed primarily to privatizethe ejido [Desmarais and Handy, 1992; Dewalt, Rees and Murphy, 1994; Randall, 1999];and Ecuadors Agrarian Development Law of 1994 [Selverston, 1997]. Examples in Indiainclude at the national level the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill passed in 1998 which


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facilitates access to land for the corporate sector (domestic and foreign) for investment anddevelopment [Fernandes, 1998: 2703]. At the state level, the Land Amendment Actpromulgated in 1995 in Karnataka moves land use away from agriculture to industry, raisesthe land ceiling and allows the ownership and rental of land by non-farmers [Pinto, 1996].

2. A number of African rural organizations are interested in joining the Via Campesina andthere have been a number of exchanges among participating organizations and their Africancounterparts. African representatives participated in both international Va Campesinaconferences held in Tlaxcala and Bangalore. However, African organizations have not yetjoined the Va Campesina. In November 1998 the ICC of the Va Campesina was invited toan All-African Farmers Conference held in Dakar where the African representatives decidedthat rather than joining as individual organizations they aim to organize and consolidatethemselves first at the regional level and subsequently join the Va Campesina as a unitedregion [Wiebe, 1998].

3. Following deliberations at the Womens Assembly and the Third International Conference ofthe Va Campesina held in Bangalore, India, in October 2001, the ICC was increased to 14members specifically to ensure gender parity. Prior to this the ICC consisted of eightmembers (one from each region) only one of whom was a woman.

4. The idea of NSMs has triggered a considerable debate concerning the validity of the conceptand a questioning of exactly what, if anything, is new in NSMs theory [Knight, 1990:7882; Hellman, 1995: 1714; Melucci, 1995; Gledhill, 1994: 18094; Veltmeyer, 1997;Edelman, 1999: 15-21]. For example, Knight [1990] suggests that in the case of Mexico anexamination of the history of social protest reveals that most of the current struggles aredeeply rooted in the past the social actors, issues and forms of resistance are notsignificantly different. Gledhill [1994: 18] is sceptical about many of the claims made byresearch on new social movements and points to a number of eurocentricisms in the theoryand believes that the concept should be considered as both a political construction and afiction. Others [Edelman, 1999: 20; Veltmeyer, 1997; Veltmeyer and Petras, 2001] reject theNSMs claim to the classlessness of social actors. See Buechler [2000] for an overview ofthe debates.

5. There are, of course, some important exceptions worth noting. For example, see Sinha,Gururani and Greenberg [1997] and Brass [1995; 2000a] for discussions of agrarian newsocial movements in Latin America and Asia.

6. See Edelman [1999: 18992] for a critique of Kearney. Araghi [1995] provides an interestingdiscussion of global depeasantization while Bryceson, Kay and Mooij [2000] examinechanges in peasant survival strategies over time, provide evidence of the persistence of thepeasantry and stress the need for rethinking peasantries.

7. See, for example, Edelmans [1998] in-depth study on the formation and consolidation ofASOCODE for an excellent discussion of transnational peasant activism in Central America.Petras [1998] provides a brief overview of the CLOC while Welch [2000] provides a morein-depth discussion of the historical factors leading to the formation of the CLOC.

8. The dynamics involved in this constitutive meeting of the Va Campesina deserve fulldiscussion and will be the subject of another article. At this point it is important to mentionthat the farm leaders gathered together in Mons wanted complete control over the contentand process of the conference. A struggle for power and position ensued between a key groupof farm leaders and the NGO responsible for convening the conference; tension and conflictescalated to the point where the NGO representative walked out of the meeting. Farm leadersessentially took over the meeting, proceeded to discuss what they felt were the most criticalissues and collectively defined the purpose, structure and ways of working of the newlyformed international peasant and farm movement, the Va Campesina. The conflict with theNGO also forced peasant leaders to contemplate their future work and relations with NGOs.

9. The CNSTP joined together with the Fderation Nationale des Syndicats Paysans (FNSP) toform what is known today as the Confdration Paysanne (la CONF).

10. There are, of course, many other factors that contributed to broadening peasantsperspectives beyond the national. For example, peasant and farm organizations initiatives invalue-adding and vertical integration together with the growth of the fair trade movement


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provided new opportunities for engagement at an international level. Thanks to MarcEdelman for pointing this out.

11. There is ample evidence to support these claims. For example, a study [Jazairy, Alamgir andPanuccio, 1992: 23] of 113 countries conducted by the International Fund for AgriculturalDevelopment (IFAD) clearly demonstrates that between 1965 and 1988 a time when manycountries initiated SAPs and pushed for modernization in agriculture the level of ruralpoverty (in terms of both a share of population, and absolute population size) has increasedsignificantly. The study found that 97 per cent of the rural population of Bolivia lives inextreme poverty while in Honduras it was 93.4 per cent [Ibid: 17]. And, during a period ofintense modernization in the Brazilian countryside (196080), 29 million people migrated tothe cities [Ibid: 72]. IFADs more recent Rural Poverty Report [IFAD, 2001a, 2001b] claimsthat during the 1990s aid to agriculture fell by two-thirds while in a number of LatinAmerican countries rural poverty increased by 10 to 20 per cent in the past three years[Gonzlez, 2000] and 75 per cent of the worlds poor live and work in rural areas [IFAD,2000a].

Mexico is perhaps one of the best examples of agricultural economic liberalization; itnow boasts eight free trade agreements encompassing 24 countries in three continents [ElFinanciero, 2000]. In the early 1980s Mexico was self-sufficient in basic grains [Barry,1995: 41] but over the past 20 years the country has experienced sharp rises in food imports.By 1999 imports accounted for 25 per cent of national consumption of corn, 43.5 per cent ofsorghum, 47 per cent of wheat, 12 per cent of beans and 97 per cent of soya [Comisin deAgricultura, 2000: 181]. Evidence suggests that the rise of food imports in Mexico has beenaccompanied by higher prices for food together with lower prices for farmers and hence adecline in food consumption. For example, corn imports have led to a 45 per cent drop inprice while the cost of tortillas has increased by 179 per cent [Nadal, 2000: 36]. As VictorSuarez, coordinator of the Asociacin Nacional de Empresas Comercializadoras deProductores del Campo (ANEC) in Mexico and member of the Va Campesina claims:Eating more cheaply on imports is not eating at all for the poor in Mexico. One out ofevery two peasants is not getting enough to eat. In the 18 months since NAFTA, the intakeof food has dropped by 29 per cent [Third World Resurgence, 1996b: 30]. See Comisin deAgricultura [2000], Nadal [2000], Barry [1995] and Barkin [1990] for discussions of theimpact of the liberalization of agriculture in Mexico.

See Rigg [1997] for a similar discussion on South East Asia and Gupta [1998] andSharma [2000] on India. For broader discussions of the relationship between economicliberalization in agriculture and increasing food insecurity, environmental degradation andrural decline see the following publications: Development Journal of the Society forInternational Development [1996], Third World Resurgence [1996a and 1996b], andCanadian Journal of Development Studies [1998], Madeley [2000], Murphy [1999],Einarsson [2000], and Crompton and Hardstaff [2001].

12. See Brass [2000b] for a discussion of how the lack of class analysis reflected in much of thepostmodernist literature on peasant communities leads to a romanticization of thecountryside and its inhabitants.

13. See Leach, Mearns and Scoones [1997] for elaboration of these points.14. At the risk of simplification in this article, the term local knowledge refers to practical

knowledge or savoir-faire or just plain common sense that is arrived at through practicalexperience and an intimate understanding of the environment. By definition local knowledgeand practice are place- and culture-specific. In the literature it is often called peoplesknowledge, rural peoples knowledge, traditional knowledge, folk wisdom or mtis.For elaborations of peasant farmers role in propagating local knowledge and the politics oflocal knowledge in agriculture see Long [1992], Long and Long [1992], Long and Villarreal[1993], Long and van der Ploeg [1994], Paul Richards [1985] Marglin and Marglin [1996],Scott [1998: 309-349], Esteva [1996], Parajuli [1997], Scoones and Thompson [1994],Bebbington [1996] and Thrupp [1989].

15. Traspatio is best translated as a backyard garden and involves growing fruit, vegetables andmedicinal plants as well as raising a small number of animals for domestic consumption.


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16. The Va Campesina was denied official delegate status in the WFS held in 1996 on thegrounds that it was not a registered international organization. Interestingly, although the VaCampesina still has no official status with the FAO, the Va Campesina was invited to be amember of the planning group that functions as an intermediary between civil societyorganizations and the planners of the official WFS: Five Years Later scheduled to take placein June November 2002.

17. See Tadem [1996] for an enlightening discussion of the relationship between NGOs and POsin the specific case of the Philippines.

18. See Einarsson [2000] for an analysis of how fundamental the right to export is to the WTOAgreement on Agriculture. This right to export, of course, is congruent with the WTOsview of food security which is perhaps best defined as having access to an adequate amountof imported food [Stevens et al., 2000: 3, my emphasis].

19. See for example among others the Food Sovereignty Platform [1999], van der Steen,Anau and Poznanski [1999], and ERA Consumer [1999].

20. The idea of establishing a development box or a food security box in the WTO Agreementon Agriculture is aimed specifically at promoting developing countries interests in thecontext of an increased deregulation of agricultural trade. These are best seen as targetedderogations of the Agreement on Agriculture that would allow developing countries the rightto develop some measures to protect some aspects of domestic food production and internalmarkets. Creation of a development box was proposed to the Special Session of the WTOCommittee on Agriculture in June 2000 by a group of countries including Cuba, DominicanRepublic, Honduras, Pakistan, Haiti, Nicaragua, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka andEl Salvador [WTO Committee on Agriculture, 2000]. According to Einarsson [2000] thefood security box suggestion came from the following NGOs: UK Food Group [1999],CLONG [1999] and ActionAid [1999].

21. The GFAR responded to the Va Campesinas declaration by extending invitations tomeetings in Washington and Durban, and by drafting a cooperation agreement between theGFAR and the Va Campesina. Negotiations on the Va Campesinas future participation areongoing.

22. The issue of what exactly land redistribution entails, whether land would be expropriated,what compensation would be offered, who would get land and under what tenure are allissues of major concern to many of the peasant and farm organizations involved in the VaCampesina. The Va Campesina, as an international movement, seeks to support the effortsof their local and national constituencies rather than impose a centralized vision of an idealland redistribution programme.

23. According to the MST, the military police opened fire on a group of 1,500 people who wereon a march to Belem (the capital of Para) 650 km away to demand that there be legalresolution to the land occupation that over 4,000 people had carried out on the FazendaMacaxeira (in the territory of Curionopolis). Under the pretext of ensuring that the marcherswould not disrupt traffic, the Governor of Para (Almir Gabriel) sent in a battalion of 2000well-armed soldiers. When the demonstrators refused to get off the road, the police openedfire, killing 19 and wounding 30 peasants. The case has yet to be solved and there seems tobe little interest on the part of the government of Brazil to bring the perpetrators to trial. Butthe MST, through its presence and actions at the national level together with its stronginternational connections, has persistently demanded that justice be administered. Thispressure has meant that the Brazilian authorities cannot simply brush the issue aside. Legalprocedures did begin in early 1997 but questionable methods and decisions by the authoritieshave meant that no one yet has been brought to trial. The MST has taken the case to the UNCommission for Human Rights for review. Although the review is not yet completed inFebruary 2000 the UN Commission for Human Rights has notified the Chief Justice of Brazilthat certain aspects of the legal procedures to date are unacceptable. The Commission forHuman Rights is encouraging the Organization of American States to examine the case.

24. It is no accident that the Via Campesinas opening up to work with other sectors occurred inBrazil. Certainly, the influence and leadership of the MST contributed much in this respect.One of the MSTs most successful strategy is to work with other sectors in efforts to effect


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social change in Brazil (on which see Robles [2001]). As MST leader Joao Pedro Stedilestated in his address to the IV Congress of the MST (711 Aug. 2000), social change can beaccomplished not by a vanguard group or party but only through the unity of forces and thehard work of organizing at the local level. As Stedile [ALAI-Amlatina, 2000] argued, it is along road that will be built by uniting forces among all people, not by one group ofintellectuals insisting that it is the work of millions. It is not the MST, nor a single politicalparty, rather it is the people organized into a large popular force that will effect change. The work entails returning to work at the base, prioritizing political formation of ourmilitants, implementing the pedagogy of example in daily practice and consolidating popularconsultation with the aim of transforming existing forces to introduce political, social andeconomic change.

25. Bt-cotton are cotton seeds that have been genetically modified to contain pesticide genesfrom the natural bacterium Bacillus thurigiensis (Bt) with the aim of making them resistantto the bollworm.

26. The Confdration Paysanne (la CONF) is a member of the Coordination PaysanneEuropenne (CPE), the regional coordinator of the Va Campesina for Europe. Jose Bov hasbecome internationally known for his struggle to protect the interests of peasants and smallfarmers in France(see Bov and Dufour [2001]). Bov first gained notoriety when he and hiscolleagues from la CONF engaged in direct action by destroying a McDonalds outlet inFrance and his subsequent involvement in the denaturation of Novartis transgenic seed. Heis a visible and well-known protagonist of the Va Campesina.

27. An examination of the actions taken by the British government shortly after the outbreak ofBSE clearly illustrates just how pernicious (and dangerous) the food trade has become.Reporting on the release of a BSE inquiry report, The Observer claimed that between 1988and 1996 the British government dumped huge quantities of animal feed in different thirdworld countries in Africa and Asia while fully knowing that it was suspected of beinginfected with BSE [Suroor, 2000]. Perhaps most disturbing, the report claims that there wassome debate within the different ministries involved about whether or not it was morallywrong to export the possibly infected feed. One senior veterinarian apparently stated thatthere was nothing morally indefensible in exporting the feed after it had been banned inBritain and for export to European nations while others argued that the importing countriesshould at least be notified of the danger. That the British government went ahead clearlydemonstrates that the right to export appears to be beyond ethical consideration.

28. Again, here the Va Campesinas greatest strength is also one potential source of conflict.The Va Campesina relies on national and local organizations which seldom exist in a spacewithout conflict and opposition. Many of the peasant organizations of the Va Campesina areconfronted by alternative national peasant and farm organizations, some of whom are not asopposed to the industrialization and liberalization of agriculture. In addition, while manyparticipating organizations of the Va Campesina successfully integrate farmers, peasantsand rural workers, others have yet to develop strategies to represent successfully ruralworkers along with peasan

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