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PANUPS: Via Campesina Meeting



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International Meeting of Small Farmers

June 14, 1996

In April 1996, one hundred members of rural and farm 
organizations from 37 countries gathered in Tlaxcala, central 
Mexico, to discuss ways to develop solidarity and unity among 
rural organizations. Via Campesina, as the coalition is 
called, promotes socially-just economic relationships, the 
defense of land, food sovereignty, and equitable and 
ecologically sustainable agricultural production.

Via Campesina (literally translated "Peasant Road") 
coordinates organizations made up of peasants, small and 
medium scale producers, agricultural workers and indigenous 
communities from around the world. The conference, which 
meets once every three years, is the top decision making body 
of the organization. 

At the meeting, people from all areas of the world reported 
on social, political and economic situations in their 
regions. The reports indicated that farmers everywhere are 
becoming marginalized as they lose access to credit and 
markets and lose their land -- primarily as the result of 
actions by transnational corporations. Meanwhile, 
privatization eliminates government programs designed to help 
farmers with limited resources, while trade agreements place 
farmers in competition with each other to produce commodities 
at the lowest cost, but often at great cost to the 
environment.

Position papers developed by conference participants will 
provide a structure for Via Campesina's work over the next 
three years. In general, Via Campesina advocates that 
producers should have a voice in policies related to land use 
and to the production of food, and that the process by which 
such policies are determined should be democratized. 
Conference participants stated that when agribusiness 
determines policy, it ignores the socio-economic and 
political impacts on producers and rural people. Nettle 
Welbe, president of the National Farmers Union Canada, urged 
people to "look past terms such as rich/poor, 
developed/developing, north/south and to see the battle for 
what it is -- farmers against global agro-industrial 
interests."

The Tlaxcala Declaration, released at the conference, states 
the problem from the perspective of the small farmers and 
peasants in Via Campesina. "The prevailing neo-liberal 
economic system has been the main cause for the increasing 
impoverishment of farmers and rural peoples in general. It is 
responsible for the increasing degradation of nature, land, 
water, plants, animals and natural resources, having put all 
these vital resources under centralized systems of 
production, procurement and distribution of agricultural 
products within the frame of a global market-oriented system.

"This economic system treats both nature and people as a 
means to an end, with the sole aim of generating profits. The 
concentration of this wealth in the hands of a small minority 
has created dramatic constraints on farmers throughout the 
world, pushing them to the brink of irredeemable extinction. 
. . . We are determined to create a rural economy which is 
based on respect for ourselves and the earth, on food 
sovereignty and on fair trade." 

The declaration expressed a commitment to rural development 
that recognizes the contribution of women, and demanded that 
agrarian reform return territories to indigenous peoples and 
give landless farmers ownership and control of the land they 
work.

Source/contact: Denise O'Brien, Women, Food and Agriculture, 
RR#2, Box 79, Atlantic, Iowa 50022.

National Farmers Union, Canada, 250C 2nd Ave. S, Saskatoon, 
Saskatchewan, S7K2M1 Canada; phone (306) 652-9465; fax (306) 
664-6228.

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