peasantsforclimatejustice.org viacampesinaseaf.org

KEY CONCEPTS

Agribusiness

Agribusiness is a type of corporation that produces food or agricultural products (agrofuels, textiles, etc.) for profit, mostly aimed at international markets. In the context of this primer, we refer to those whose products are primarily produced through the use of modern, mechanized, industrial agriculture on large plantations, with a high reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and are processed industrially and distributed globally.

Climate Change

Climate Change is long term changes in the Earth’s climate caused by human activity, which generally leads to warmer global average temperatures and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

Climate COP

COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and the summit is be attended by the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Climate Justice

Climate Justice demands that the fight against climate change become much more than just a technical and scientific effort. Climate change is a result as well as a symptom of the dysfunction of the current system, and consequently can only be truly addressed by changing the system.
Climate Justice is a fight to transform the global economic system and for the just redistribution of resources. It is a fight against power structures that give authority to a corporate elite who, despite having caused the climate crisis, are also given the mandate to solve it.

CARBON OFFSETTING

The action or process of compensating for carbon dioxide emissions arising from industrial or other human activity, by participating in schemes designed to make equivalent reductions of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

COMMODIFICATION

Commodification is the transformation of goods, services, ideas and even people into objects of trade (to buy and sell) called “commodities”. Many current false solutions are founded on the commodification of our common goods like water, forests, and air.

Extractivism

Extractivism is a mode of production and a way of thinking about Mother Earth, not as a living organism, but a mere (albeit valuable) resource to be dominated and exploited for profit. Its history is marked with gross violations of human rights of local communities and of countries as a whole, and it is the main cause for the degradation of ecosystems and nature more generally, because these are seen as less important than the value that they can make for private (and public) capital in the market.

False Solutions

False Solutions are programs and policies that are promoted by corporations, agribusinesses, and governments as solutions to climate change. However, these solutions use the same capitalist practices and logic as those that caused climate change in the first place. These include commodification, extractivism, GMOs, and greenhouse gas intensive agriculture, among others. Such solutions promoted by corporate elites are based on market, trade and consequently on exploitation.

Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty is a conception of a food system that respects the rights of food producers to produce and commercialize culturally appropriate food, as well as the right of consumers to decide what they consume, and how and by whom it is produced. It denies the influence of corporations who seek to profit from the production of food. Food Sovereignty is about systemic change – about human beings having direct, democratic control over the most important elements of their society – how we feed and nourish ourselves, how we use and maintain the land, water and other natural resources around us for the benefit of current and future generations, and how we interact with other groups, peoples and culture .

Genetically Modified Organisms

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are an organism in which the genetic material has been altered to give it a desired trait. In agriculture this is primarily used to give the plant resistance to pesticides and herbicides. International Intellectual Property laws allow companies to own the genetic material of the plant as intellectual property, and control the supply of that seed.

Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gases (GHG)/emissions are the primary driver of climate change. They are gases emitted to the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels in industry and transport, degradation of soil, and land use change which alter the atmosphere to retain more heat and change the climate.

IPCC

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a UN body that evaluates climate science. They analyze options to mitigate the damage and adapt to a changing world. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are at the heart of the Paris Agreement. NDCs embody efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. Parties shall pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions. Up to date only 40% of signatories have submitted their NDC commitments, and so far if fulfilled, they will at best reach GHG emission reduction in 2030 of 0.5 per cent below the 2010 level – far below the 45% reduction needed to keep global average temperature rise under the 1.5ºC threshold set by the IPCC.

Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015.

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a system that oppresses, exploits and commodifies women (their bodies, lives and sexuality), and women’s work (formal and informal, overwork as well as the type of work and working conditions); and deprives them of access to common goods (resources, water, land, environmental protection, and food sovereignty). Patriarchy is also engrained in many traditions and norms, which are often used to maintain this hierarchy and power.

Peasant Agroecology

Peasant Agroecology is a way of life that treats the Earth with respect and care, not as a resource to be exploited. It understands that the intimate relationship that humans have with their local ecologies cannot be reduced to a single value in money, and that understands that doing so leads to disastrous consequences for people and planet. Its culture is built upon the exchange of seeds, the exchange of knowledge, the planting of varieties of crops and recycling of nutrients to keep the health and vitality of the soil.
Its culture is built upon the exchange of seeds, the exchange of knowledge, the planting of varieties of crops and recycling of nutrients to keep the health and vitality of the soil.

TRANSATIONAL Corporations

Corporations are organisation that seeks to maximise their profits in terms of money (or substitutes), usually by selling a product without regard to the consequences of their profit seeking on nature and on people. In the con- text of this primer, this mostly refers to transnational corporations (TNCs).

UNFCCC

Stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ultimate objective of the Convention is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous human induced (anthropogenic) interference with the climate system.” It states that “such a level should be achieved within a timeframe sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.” The idea is that, as they are the source of most past and current greenhouse gas emissions, industrialized countries are expected to do the most to cut emissions on home ground. They are called Annex I countries and they include 12 countries with “economies in transition” from Central and Eastern Europe.

KEY CONCEPTS
WHY DO WE NEED CLIMATE JUSTICE?
THE INDUSTRIAL FOOD SYSTEM
WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE
PEASANT AE AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST PATRIARCHY
FALSE SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE JUSTICE WILL NOT BE HANDED FROM ABOVE BUT MUST BE TAKEN FROM BELOW
WHY PEASANT AGROECOLOGY?
PEASANT AE ACHIEVES CLIMATE JUSTICE
CALL TO ACTION
ABOUT LVC SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICA REGION (LVC SEAF)
The Peasant AE achieves CJ Initiative

PEASANT AGROECOLOGY

HARMONY WITH NATURE

Observation and understanding of the relationship and interactions of organisms with each other and with their environment.

LOCAL ECOLOGY AND BIODIVERSITY

Intercropping with a variety of crops with different characteristics. Different root sytems binding soil structure and protecting against soil erosion.

Diversity

Proctects biodiversity and the resilience of ecosystems. Subsistence farming. high nutritional availability, food sovereignty.

Production for local Community

Small and medium scale.

Taking Care of the soil

Organic fertilizers – Builds life into the soil, nutrients derived from farm by products. Indigenous pest control – preserves life of
soil. Maintains soil future generations.

Seed Sovereignty

Peasant rights over seeds.
Exchange and saving of seeds.

Low input costs

On-farm nutrient recycling. Independence of corporate products.
Energy efficient.
Labour intensive – requires close contact with the land.

Local markets

Focuses on producing culturally appropriate foods. Relies in strong local market networks and shortens distance between procucers and consumers, reducing food miles.

INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE

Domination of Nature

Intense exploration of natural resources for corporate profit.

Monocultures

Intensification, concentration of one single crop.
High risk for pest outbreaks.
Soil erosion. Requires intensive irrigation.

Uniformity

Loss of agrobiodiversity and destruction of ecosystems. Market oriented farming. Reduced nutrional availability, high risk of mainutrition.

Globalized Supply Chains

Large scale.

Exploting the soil

Chemical fertilizers – destroys the ability of soil to hold nutrients. Toxic pesticides – Kills beneficial microorganisms and insects as well. Harmful for human health. High risk of flooding, soil erosion, and landslides. Degrades soil, copromises future generations.

Seed Dependency

Seeds owned by big agribusiness.
Laws that criminalize peasant practices

High inputs costs

Corporations making profits.
Energy intensive – peasants displaced. requires intensive use of fossil fuel energy.

International markets

Focuses on production of food commodities. Aims at large-scale
commercialization in international markets. Long distance distribution chains (high GHG emissions)

WHY DO WE NEED CLIMATE JUSTICE?

We are far from solving the climate crisis. The fundamental part of the problem has not been addressed: that it is our global socio-economic system that are causing climate change.

At our current rate of emissions globally, we are likely to exceed a 1.5 degree carbon budget before 2025. According to the science, we simply don’t have the atmospheric space for any more carbon,we must demand rich countries stop shrinking their historical responsibilities and help drastically cut emissions at their source now.The current commitments made by Parties under the Paris Agreement already put us on course for a disastrous 3-5 degrees of warming.

The industrial
food system is a
major driver of
climate change

It is dominated by corporate elites who, through a group of corporations seek to control land, seeds, and the entire food system.

They make massive profits from the dispossession of peasants, and a model of agriculture that destroys forests and is highly energy intensive. They use their power to influenc e policies at national and global level, including policies that supposedly address climate change, but are in fact the result is false solutions that to not address the root causes of Climate Change.

THE INDUSTRIAL FOOD SYSTEM

The industrial food system is an attempt to dominate life on Earth for the enrichment and domination of a small elite. Those that control it ignore the floods, the droughts, the lifeless soils, the billions of hungry people, and the ample signals of the breakdown of the natural systems that sustain us. It works hard to hide this damage it causes and force those most vulnerable to bear the burden. The current food system/regime destroys life in the soil, it destroys forests, grasslands, oceans, rivers, and lakes, it drives and accelerates climate change, and subjugates rural peoples to a life of servitude.
It is a model of death, oppression and violence.

Commodification of land and territories, and their exploitation by speculative investment and land grabbing also restricts the ability of youth to access land, especially young women. At the same time, the harsh realities and low returns in agriculture make it difficult for youth to prosper on the land. The situation is further aggravated by the severe and differentiated impacts of climate change.

Women are
systematically
disadvantaged by
the current
system, which
insists in keeping
them invisible.

WOMEN AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Considering the detrimental effects of the industrial food system in exacerbating climate change, the position of women and girls are made further vulnerable due compounding patriarchy that dictates to the roles they are expected to fulfill or those in which they should rather not take part. Being responsible for the bulk of household chores which range from collecting water for household use and fuel for cooking to guaranteeing the wellbeing of children and elderly, women’s socially constructed gender roles are highly dependent on the conditions that nature provides. Climate change alters rain patterns and hereby water resources become more scarce and distant, and crops need more management to grow. It forces women (and children) to walk longer distances to provide enough water and resources for fuel for their households, and it increases their difficulty for harvesting crops throughout the year, especially as they cannot rely on traditional seasons anymore.

Women suffer structural violences, (economical, employment, environmental, physical, sexual and psychological), while femicides keep also increasing.

Neo-liberalism and patriarchy walk hand-in-hand and they have intensified oppression and discrimination and increased situations in which violence is perpetrated against women and girls in rural areas, as well as created more insecurity and instability in women’s working conditions, in the midst of a climate of violence that undermines [their] dignity.

The migration of male family members to urban centers or to foreign countries seeking for better living conditions, together with the death, imprisonment and persecution of male community leaders, confront rural women with an even more vulnerable reality. They are overburdened with the tasks of providing food for the survival of their family, protecting their children – who are increasingly exposed to sexual violence, death and uprooting – while defending their territories and own bodies from abusive forces.

PEASANT AE AND THE STRUGGLE AGAINST PATRIARCHY

he patriarchal capitalist system has been enforcing industrial agriculture, where women are the first victims of its oppression. In the African context, women often do not have secure access to land and therefore have no access to resources and selfdetermination over their livelihoods and bodies. Despite the fact that women are the main contributors of labor and value-adding in food production and consumption, they are kept out of decision making processes from public policy to households finances, and are mostly hardly affected by malnutrition. It is most often the men who have the power to take decisions for the households, such as which crops to grow, which ones to sell, and which ones to store, and how to use the income generated. Furthermore, industrialized agriculture and the globalized markets are also codependent, and this further exacerbates the problems of patriarchy, gender-based inequalities and violence.

Contrary to industrialised agriculture, Peasant Agroecology is inclusive, and available to everybody. Women play a particularly critical role in the global food system, as they are the largely the main food producers, both in sheer numbers and as guardians of biodiversity and agricultural seeds.

Youth are also undermined by patriarchy. In sub-saharan Africa for example, youth suffer forced migrations due to war, climate change and oppressive economic and social conditions. Land grabbing by transnational capital for industrial investments, energy production, extractivism and “development” is commonplace. The labour of youth and migrants is undervalued and brutally exploited.

Peasant agroecology is the road to food sovereignty and the solution to the global multilayered crisis. It is a political vision, a way of life and a source of knowledge coming from our ancestors.

Although Peasant Agroecology cannot defeat patriarchy in and of itself, it does address certain oppressive norms of patriarchy. It has the potential to change the lives of many women because the key role that they play is recognised and reflected in practice. Decision making is slowly being expanded to include women transversally in different movements and organizations, including in decisions made within organisational structures (such as LVC and member organisations).

Other aspects of patriarchy are also, to some degree, alleviated. Due to the low cost of practising Peasant Agroecology women can more fully participate and benefit from the higher yields and diversified cropping. By growing a diversity of crops, building resilient ecosystems, and sharing knowledge, women can take control of their food systems and provide more nutritious food for themselves and their households. The decreased dependence of women on men in Peasant Agroecology has the potential to alter power dynamics, with women taking their fair share of responsibilities and power, in line with the weight of their key role. Whilst industrial agriculture has largely failed to address the arising challenges facing women and gender dynamics, the use of Peasant Agroecology shows it can do so.

Once again, Peasant Agroecology is not only a set of practices: it is a way of life. A way of life that seeks to be inclusive, and where authority is not given to men simply for being men.. Climate change is a political, social, and ecological crisis which will only get worse if the voices of peasants producers (as well as consumers), and especially women, continue to be silenced or ignored. This is why fighting for Climate Justice goes hand in hand with confronting gender-based power relations.

Despite this, certain key expressions of patriarchy still persist, specifically gendered roles and decision making within the household, which in many areas remain firmly entrenched. This often depends on the cultural setting (both at community and at household levels) in which peasant agroecology is practiced, and the extent to which communities and approaches take gender issues as a core element of their visions, strategies, and methodologies of work.

In order to root out patriarchy and discrimination wherever it exists, the youth too must commit to the difficult work of self-evaluation and examining the ways in which they may perpetuate patriarchy and racism.

This remains an obstacle to Peasant Agroecology as an instrument to challenge and overcome patriarchy.

FALSE SOLUTIONS TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Current so called solutions being promoted by corporate elites to address climate change are often themselves drivers of encroachment onto people’s rights. Their answers to the climate crisis still persist with a strong echo of the mistakes of the Green Revolution. They include:

  • Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA)
  • Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM)
  • Reduction of Forest Degradation and Destruction (REDD/REDD+)
  • Carbon Markets
  • Net-zero strategies
  • Green and Blue Economies
  • Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS)
  • Geo-engineering

False Solutions such as Climate Smart Agriculture use phrases taken from Peasant Agroecology, but within a model of industrial agriculture. They include practices such as no till monoculture and water conservation. While adopting some language of Peasant Agroecology, nowhere in these proposals are the fundamental matters of right to local and nutritious food, dignified livelihoods, land and self-determination addressed. Furthermore, Climate SMART agriculture provides a framing for the integration of GMOs and agrotoxics into smallscale agriculture, relying on the same core assumption of solving complex social and political problems by bringing technical so called solutions from the Green Revolution to “underdeveloped” and supposedly “uneducated” peasants. In this way,the wealth of those who benefit from these solutions, namely the major agribusiness corporations, are preserved.

They say
‘climate smart’,
but smart for
whom?

Along the same lines, the Paris Agreement have endorsed several false solutions that preserve the market structure intact and produce a number of financial schemes and mechanisms (CDM and others). More recently Net-Zero strategies have been pushed as the new way of looking at how countries act on their climate debt. In fact, net-zero is being used by transnational corporations and governments to hide their climate inaction, claiming that they just need to pay someone else to remove carbon, through carbon offsetting, rather than taking action on their own.

These are many dangerous distractions being paraded by those with power. Non-binding treaties and the exclusions of main economic sectors from the obligations, conveniently avoids addressing the root causes of climate change, namely the corporate elite and the current economic system. They claim that their false solutions can stop the rising of greenhouse gas emissions. But in reality, these mechanisms provide no real solutions to the problems at hand; quite the contrary, they accelerate the commodification of nature while promoting the false claims that privatisation and industrial agriculture technologies are the only means to fight climate change and while feeding the people.

CLIMATE JUSTICE WILL NOT BE HANDED FROM ABOVE BUT MUST BE TAKEN FROM BELOW

A big part of achieving Climate Justice is to address the inequalities within the food system. Peasant Agroecology is built on solidarity with and among affected communities whose voices have been silenced in the fight against climate change by those in power, and with women, who are the ancestral custodians of Seed, and who do the work of feeding their communities, and tend to the new generation, while men often tend to pursue profitable enterprise.

These peasant women and men are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and they develop solutions every day.

We need a transformation of the food system, where power, resources, and responsibility is redistributed from the elites to the producers and consumers, who are the ones who can most significantly contribute to solving the climate crisis.

WHY PEASANT AGROECOLOGY?

Peasant AE

FEEDS THE PLEOPLE

It is by engaging in this way of life, and sharing knowledge and experience with other peasant farmers, that new knowledge for growing food in a changing climate is created, and that Peasant Agroecology is built. Food must be grown for people, not for profit.

Peasants must farm for a healthy cycle of nutrients on their farms, not in a cycle of dependency.

PeasantAE

CONSERVES BIODIVERSITY

By conserving biodiversity, they take care of the soil; rather than destroying the local ecology for large commercial plantations, they preserve grasses and trees that can conserve water.

Peasant AE

IS BASED ON SCIENCE

The agroecological approach is based in science, and provides a unique platform for the development and integration of technologies that are beneficial. Technologies contribute to the sovereignty of peasants over their production, their territories, their culture, and their lives, and if they can contribute to climate justice, then they can likewise contribute to the peasant way of life.But it is opposed to any kind of technology that is used by corporate elites to gain control of food systems, and which encroaches on or erodes the rights of food producers and consumers, all in the name of expanding their profits.

Peasant AE

BUILDS COMMUNITIES

Peasant Agroecology, and the knowledge it is built upon, is a system of close collaboration with the community and intense connection to the land and the local ecology. It is already producing results in the fight against climate change. However this progress is obstructed at every step by the current system which demands profit from the production of food.

Peasant AE

BUILDS AUTONOMY

Corporate agribusinesses have the power to convince governments and peasant communities to invest in their products, such as fertilizers, pesticides and improved seeds.

They sell these as the solution to grow more and higher quality crops. These are false solutions, that entrench dependency upon corporate agribusiness, progressively erode local and traditional knowledge, and hence, ensure their profits while making peasants more vulnerable.

These corporate are programs often backed by governments and encourage producers to take on debt in order to access corporate products. In the end, this leaves peasants in debt, with degraded production systems, and when the seasons do not behave as expected (due to climate change, soil degradation and others), peasants are left with both low yields and a debt that they cannot pay off.

This greatly hinders the capacity of peasant producers from using practices that build life into the system and cool down the Earth.

Peasant Agroecology is a valuable tool, capable of breaking these cycles of dependency, by restoring degraed soils by protecting and improving food sovereignty (including seed sovereignty) of peasant communities, and by ensuring access to territories necessary for food production and general community life.

Peasant AE

IS RESISTANCE

Big agribusiness corporations, in being part of the global market food system, create a demand for their fertilizers, and make it so that peasants have to pay to continue to farm.

By using chemical fertilizers and pesticides which damage the soil and trap farmers into buying more chemicals from agribusiness corporations. Power must be returned to the peasants that do the labor and have the knowledge to feed the world. Agribusiness solutions, grounded in the idea of constant economic growth regardless of the consequences, is not going to solve the problem.

Agricultural practices from the Green Revolution force food producers to take on large debts and produce food for export in an environmentally damaging way. By practicing agroeco-logy, the grassroots are contesting this extractivism, and are fighting for Climate Justice.

EMPOWERS YOUTH

The youth represents a bridge between urban and rural populations. While apparently very different, some of the structural discriminations both groups face are the result from the same oppressive forces of global capital and power. Youth around the world are already mobilizing around urban agriculture, returning to the land, building community food sovereignty or working for social justice in any capacity.

Agroecology has become a key instrument to bring together a wide range of successful experiences around the world. For example, the campesino-to-campesino (peasant-to-peasant) methodology is a successful and important instrument to share information and strengthen communication and training processes. This methodology respects the traditional knowledges of territories and peoples, in such a way that knowledge can be effectively e changed between generations.

PEASANT AE ACHIEVES CLIMATE JUSTICE

easants around the world are fighting climate change and the system that causes it by taking control of their food system. The movement for Peasant Agroecology and Food Sovereignty directly confronts the power that is built around corporate control over resources such as seeds, fertilizers, land, and water. People, not transnational corporations, should be at the centre of the food system. They know the land, they innovate, and they share their knowledge with each other. They are the peasants who can feed the world, and cool the climate, and they are the consumers who deserve healthy and nutritious, culturally appropriate foods. By building a culture around food which recognizes the importance of respect for all people and the planet, Peasant Agroecology is the first and most important step towards achieving Climate Justice.

Peasants who practice agroecology withstand and recover more quickly from extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. By using indige-nous knowledge, traditional seeds, and planting different varieties of crops, farmers ensure that they have a healthy and varied diet for themselves and their families. By planting a variety of crops, including small grains that can be stored for years such as sorghum and finger millet, they are more resilient to future droughts.

By using manure that can be taken from and processed on the farm, peasant farmers keep nutrients and recycle them. Not only this, but by producing locally instead of for global markets, they use far less energy, emit less greenhouse gases (through transport and packaging of food for supermarkets), and are thus essential in the fight against climate change.

Peasant Agroecology is a model of life. A way of living that recognizes that the Earth is our Mother. It is built collectively by people and communities that still understand the language of nature and are able to live in harmony with it. It builds and strengthens the ecosystems that supply healthy food, capture carbon, and encourage biodiversity. It liberates those rural people that are forced to change their way of life and destroy their environment. In Peasant Agroecology the land is sacred. Peoples’ connection to the land is sacred. The seeds, the soil, the water, the air, are not resources to be sold for profit, but the sources of life on earth.

The only way for the food system to reduce emissions and to cope with current climate change is complete and total transformation. And for that we must look to those peasant communities, those rural women, those at the very margins of society, that already live the alternative. We must look to those that already live in harmony with nature, whatever the cost. To those who build life into their food system and communities, and have the knowledge to feed the world. The peoples of the world demand it, and true Climate Justice gives us a path to achieve it.

CALL TO ACTION

We the peasants of La Via Campesina Southern and Eastern Africa Region and our allies express our solidarity with all struggles against false solutions to climate change and for climate justice across the globe. Standing in solidarity and hope with all the peoples of our region, we remain committed to the struggle for food sovereignty, agroecology, and rights to our territories, culture and identity as the basis for climate justice.

GET INVOLVED

Fight for the recognition, adoption, and promotion of peasant agroecology as a viable alternative to industrial agriculture, and as a core foundation Climate Justice in the development and implementation of real solutions to climate change in southern and eastern Africa and the world.

Promote of food sovereignty as the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

The struggle for climate justice is feminist. So join hands with feminist organizations and movements in your local actions.

Fight for and support the meaningful representation of women and girls, children, youth, persons with disabilities and the poorest of the poor in policy and other interventions addressing climate change.

Fight for the rejection of false solutions to Climate Justice, and the revision or nullification of harmful agreements that threaten local communities, including those in the mining sector.

Pressure your government to increase national budget allocations to agriculture, guided by the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent by small-scale food producers.

Interventions to protect local people in areas affected by destructive mining activities.

Pro-peasant spaces for participatory policy formulation and legislation that protects the rights of peasants and peasant communities.

Work towards the development of training programs and curricula in agricultural education that are holistic and that centralize indige-nous knowledge systems, peasant agroecology and pathways for enhancing food security with food sovereignty.

Reach out to your local member of Via Campesina, or have your organization join the movement itself.

Index
THE PRIMER