Africa Region 2: Declaration of the Via Campesina training on agro-ecology

We are more than thirty (30) small holder farming women and men , working on land and sea , coming from 7 farmer organizations of the Africa 2 region of la VIA CAMPESINA, representing millions of peasant families and Mozambique, from Sri Lanka and Mexico. Hosted by ECASARD in Techiman in Ghana from September the 5th to 11th 2011 for a political training on agro-ecology, we have come together to re-state:

- Our commitment to defend the family farming based on agro-ecology and food sovereignty
- Our right to keep up-holding our own identity, our cognitions and secular practices as farming men and women in perfect harmony with our environment which is both natural and societal
- Our conviction that the agro-ecology locally adopted practices , are applicable everywhere by respecting the eco-system and are the key to cool the planet and grant a future to the next generations
- Our opposition to the « false solutions » : the agro-fuels , the GMO and any mutant plants , carbon credit , the REDD+ because agro-ecology is the only healthy and sustainable alternative
- Our perseverance of fighting against the seizure of the multinationals over the living, their speculative willingness to develop only cash crops in our countries that is killing the family and crop farming, and this, with most of the time in complicity with of our states, elites, donors , and some NGOs.
Our force to stop any land grabbing and to engage in land reforms in favor of to the family farming.
- Our capacity already underway with millions of farming women and men through organizations of LA VIA CAMPESINA to put agro-ecology practices at human services
- Our willingness to strengthen and develop an agro-ecological and food sovereignty network

We ,representatives of the African continents, we commit ourselves to acting at all the levels to promote agro-ecology , fundamental practice for our family farming, the one feeding and which will feed the generation to come.

That is why , we members of la VIA CAMPESINA, we are mobilizing from farm to farm , from neighbor to neighbor , from elected body to elected body , government after government , institution after institution, every where for, another world for today and tomorrow.

WE COMMIT OURSELVES TO :

- No longer buying chemical products , commercial seeds… at any alienations that make us lose our autonomy, our know-how and our dignity
- To cultivating produces that are both healthy to our nature and our body to feed our families rather than the markets
- To collectively fighting so as to value our rights for both an equitable and fair world

WE DO GALVANIZE OUR GOVERNMENTS AND THE SUB-REGION DECISION INSTITUTIONS TO PUT INTO PLACE PUBLIC FARMING POLICIES:

- To put the family farming and agro-ecology at the heart of their concern and programs
- To set up fair and equitable conditions for both the world farming men and women to access land, water, natural resources and that they be protected ,
- To create a favorable frame to preserve , multiply and disseminate the local seeds varieties
- To support and promote productions from agro-ecology by relocating them at the level of the production , processing and marketing ,
- To support the raise of awareness, information and the training on agro-ecology by and for the farmers and particularly to give a future to the youth
- To implement the international reforms such as IRCCARD, the right to food, the respect for human rights and farmers rights (TIPAAR)
- To support the FAO guidelines on the natural resources and land tenure as defended by the civil society and opposes to the responsible investments proposed by the investors themselves and supported by the World Bank
- Not to let ourselves be deceived and corrupted by the false solutions proposed by different institutions such as the World Bank
- To strongly protect agriculture at the frontiers’ level and to take the farming away from the WTO
- To comfort and strengthen the alliances

TO GET OUT OF THE CRISES PERPETRATED BY CAPITALISM AND THE NEO-LIBERALISM SYSTEM:

- which is making the world population go hungry every day and particularly the farming communities
- which is polluting the soils , earth, air , water and making us sick
- which is , every day, grabbing our lands , natural resources , our know- how and cultures
- which is , every day , making only a handful of persons richer
- which is ,every day , hampering our rights and fundamental freedom
- which is ,every day , threatening our social cohesion, our sovereignties

we member of La VIA CAMPESINA let ‘s gather our strengths , our capacities and our know-how to transform this society by practicing agro-ecology in the framework of food sovereignty, by mobilizing each farmer whose rights are neglected , behind each farming organization permanently shaken ,by calling on the decision makers for other public policies targeting the farming communities , agro ecology, the relocation of productions, lands , water and natural resources redistribution …

we, more than 200 millions of farmers la VIA CAMPESINA are a transformation moving force on the whole planet , rich in our know-how and cultures , and will be up and ready at anytime the need arises .
Our vigilance is constantly on alert and wherever we can act, make pressure; we will not fail to do so. We will constantly put into practice our ideas in order to strengthen and develop our network and always contribute to a better future for all.

Within the perspective of DURBAN meetings on climate change in December 2011, we do denounce the maneuvers of the World Bank desiring to fool the African leaders over « False solutions » on the carbons credit.

We, ECASARD-Ghana, CNOP-Mali, CTOP-Togo, CNCR-Senegal, PFP-Niger, CNOP-Congo Brazzaville, - ROPPA – Bissau Guinea, UNAC-Mozambique,…farming organizations of la VIA CAMPESINA call upon all the African leaders not to sign « the false solutions » of the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the United Nations Frame on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will be taking place in Durban in South Africa from November 28th to December 9th 2011.

This process initiated by the World Bank , the corrupted governments and elites, the multinationals, that are proposing development speculative strategies to fight the changing climate over the interest of the planet and the populations and particularly farming and indigenous communities
Instead, we do call upon the African leaders to promote and develop agro-ecology, defended and practiced by la VIA CAMPESINA, at the heart of their concerns to feed and cool the planet in the interest of all. The practices of the ecology, agro-forestry favor and amplify the fight against the global warming, because agro-ecology is environmentally and economically sustainable and socially and culturally acceptable and fair.

La VIA CAMPESINA will be present and will have its say in DURBAN.

The world is not goods.
Agro-ecology is not for sale.
« Stop to land grabbing »
The farmers feed the world with agro-ecology and cool the planet.
Let’s globalize the fight, let’s globalize hope.
Issued in Techiman on September 10th 2011
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Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent of any political, economic, or other type of affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers about 150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

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