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agroecology promotes the use of locally adapted farming prac-
tices which rely on less machinery and inorganic fertilizers, the
key sources of greenhouse gas emission in industrial agricul-
ture. Maintaining a rich soil biodiversity together with the use
of organic fertilizers is important to the cooling effect.
La Via Campesina is also defending land and territory, and
fighting for agrarian reform, as part of food sovereignty. The
recent food crisis and the consequent grabbing of peasant
lands expose industrial agriculture as a false solution to
global hunger. Peasants and indigenous peoples are the ones
who are concentrated in the highest levels of poverty because
they have been deprived of their land. Nonetheless, peasants
continue to resist expulsion from the countryside, where they
constitute more than 90 per cent of the rural population.
The land currently in the hands of peasants and indigenous
peoples is around 20 per cent of all agricultural land in the
Food sovereignty: a pivot of family farming, nature and the planet
Source: Rosset, 2003
Issue
Dominant model: capitalist agriculture
Food sovereignty and peasant-based production
Trade
Free trade in everything
Food and agriculture exempt from trade agreements
Production priority
Agro-exports
Food for local markets
Crop prices
“What the market dictates” (leave intact
mechanisms that enforce low prices)
Fair prices that cover costs of production and allow farmers and
farm workers a life with dignity
Market access
Access to foreign markets
Access to local markets; an end to the displacement of farmers
from their own markets by agribusiness
Subsidies
While prohibited in the Third World, many
subsidies are allowed in the US and Europe
– but are paid only to the largest farmers
Subsidies that do not damage other countries; i.e., grant subsidies
only to family farmers, for direct marketing, price/income support, soil
conservation, conversion to sustainable farming, research, etc.
Food
Processed food that is full of fat, sugar,
high fructose corn syrup, and toxic residues
A human right: specifically, should be healthy, nutritious,
affordable, culturally appropriate, and locally produced
Being able to produce
An option for the economically efficient
A right of rural peoples
Hunger
Due to low productivity
A problem of access and distribution; due to poverty and inequality
Food security
Achieved by importing food from where it
is cheapest
Greatest when food production is in the hands of the hungry, or
when food is produced locally
Control of productive resources
Privatized
Local; community controlled
Access to land
Via the market Via genuine agrarian reform without access to land, the rest is meaningless
Seeds
A patentable commodity
A common heritage of humanity, held in trust by rural communities
and cultures; “no patents on life”
Rural credit and investment
From private banks and corporations
From the public sector; designed to support family agriculture
Dumping
Not an issue
Must be prohibited
Monopoly
Not an issue
The root of most problems; monopolies must be broken up
Overproduction
No such thing, by definition
Drives prices down and farmers into poverty; we need supply
management policies for US and EU
Genetically modified
organisms (GMOs)
The wave of the future
Bad for health and the environment; an unnecessary technology
Farming technology
Industrial, monoculture, chemical-
intensive; uses GMOs
Agroecological, sustainable farming methods, no GMOs
Farmers
Anachronisms; the inefficient will disappear Guardians of culture and crop germplasm; stewards of productive
resources; repositories of knowledge; internal market and building
block of broad-based, inclusive economic development
Urban consumers
Workers to be paid as little as possible
Need living wages
Another world (alternatives )
Not possible/not of interest
Possible and amply demonstrated
D
eep
R
oots