Food Connect throws its growing weight behind commemoration

AUSTRALIA’S FOOD CONNECT FOUNDATION is joining with millions of small farmers around the world to commemorate the International Day of Peasant Struggle on April 17.

“The event has been called by the international small farmers’ organization, La Via Campesina, arguably the world’s largest social movement, to highlight the plight of small farmers worldwide. It also brings attention on the dif?culties faced by Australian family farmers”, said Food Connect
Foundation spokesman, Nick Rose.

On that day in 1996, 19 landless Brazilian peasants were massacred simply for attempting to gain access to land on which to grow food to feed their families.

“The Brazilian incident illustrates how, when small farmers in developing countries organise themselves to defend their rights to stay on the land to farm and produce food, they frequently face repression from the state, from powerful landlords and multinational corporations who want their land for its minerals or to grow agro-fuels,” said Mr Rose.

Unlike their counterparts in developing countries struggling against inequities in the global trade system, Australian farmers do not face extra-legal repression or criminalization. Australian farmers, however, are no strangers to the hardships farmers everywhere have confronted in the
past few decades.

“Squeezed by giant agribusiness at the input end and by giant supermarkets at the farmgate, Australian farmers have seen their returns dwindle to a mere fraction of what they were two generations ago”.

“With five Australian farmers leaving their farms every day, and with depression and suicide rates double that of the non-farming population, a silent rural crisis is unfolding in Australia,” Mr Rose said.  “It is time to remember the hard work of our farmers, and of farmers around the world, and that is why we are expressing our solidarity with peasants and small farmers on 17 April.”

Smallholder farmers generally utilize agro-ecological and other sustainable farming systems, and as such, will play a vital role in feeding the world’s hungry into the future. “There are now close to one billion hungry people on the planet. Corporate and industrial agriculture is clearly failing, pointing to the urgent need to ensure smallholder farmers are able stay on the land. Smallholder agriculture represents the most viable option for building democratic food systems,” said Dr Kristen Lyons, senior lecturer in Food Politics at Grif?th University in Brisbane.

Mr Rose said that Food is not simply a commodity like any other. It is the very basis of our existence and of our culture. Valuing and respecting food means valuing and respecting our farmers, and, ultimately, respecting ourselves. La Via Campesina is a global movement of peasants and small farmers working towards a global food system that is environmentally sustainable and socially just.

More information: Nick Rose 0429 496 792