Descrição
Since its founding in 1993, La Via Campesina has built an
internationalism rooted in the daily struggles, realities, and
aspirations of peasants, agricultural and rural workers, Indigenous
Peoples, pastoralists, fisherfolk, women, and youth. This peasant
internationalism, from below, is through solidarity, mutual learning,
collective action, and a shared commitment to social justice, food
sovereignty, and dignity for all. Peasant internationalism is one of
the defining political principles of La Via Campesina. Today, humanity faces deep and
interconnected political, economic, social, and ecological crises. Land grabbing, corporate control of food systems, free trade
agreements, climate change, militarization, extractivism,
authoritarianism, and financial speculation transcend national
borders, profoundly affecting how peasants and rural communities live
and organize. While peasant struggles are rooted in local realities,
the forces shaping those struggles are increasingly global. Our
resistance must therefore also be international. These realities raise important
questions for La Via Campesina, such as what does peasant
internationalism mean in the current context; how to strengthen
solidarity and collective action and ensure that peasant voices
influence debates about the future of food systems, climate justice,
peace, trade, and development? La Via Campesina will self-organise
activities at the World Social Forum under the theme “Building
Peasant Internationalism” to stimulate debate on these
questions and contribute to the renewal of peasant internationalism
as a strategic pillar of our movement while advancing food
sovereignty, agrarian reform, peace, and social justice. Proposed Objectives
Reaffirm peasant internationalism
as a core political principle of La Via Campesina. Assess how current geopolitical,
economic, and environmental changes are affecting peasants and rural
communities. Strengthen alliances with social
movements, trade unions, Indigenous Peoples, feminist organisations,
environmental justice movements, and other progressive forces to
build a stronger international movement capable of confronting
corporate power, imperialism, and authoritarianism. DEFENDING THE STRUGGLES FOR
A COMPREHENSIVE AGRARIAN REFORM AND PEASANT AGROECOLOGY AS
RESISTANCE. – AUGUST 6, 2026
In Africa, Asia, Latin America,
Caribbean, the Arab region including Palestine, and across Europe and
North America, movements for food sovereignty face both old and newly
intensified pressures on land, waters and territories. The imprint of
colonial conquest and imperial expansion continues to define forms of
control, access, and ownership. Meanwhile today’s capitalist
demands for minerals, energy, carbon markets, industrial agriculture
and geopolitical wars and spheres of influence are creating a renewed
and accelerating wave of dispossession while worsening the climate
crisis. The growing concentration of land ownership, the advance of
the agro-industrial model, and the criminalization of rural struggles
continue to deepen inequalities in the countryside and violate the
rights of peasant communities, Indigenous Peoples, and rural workers.
In this context, the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in
Rural Areas (UNDROP), adopted in 2018, and the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in
2007, are fundamental instruments for the recognition, protection,
and guarantee of the collective and individual rights of peasants and
Indigenous Peoples. The UNDROP recognizes, among other things, the
right to land, territory, seeds, means of production, and food
sovereignty, establishing clear obligations for States. However, the
effective implementation of these rights remains limited, especially
in contexts where highly unequal agrarian structures persist. In this evolving global landscape, the
vision articulated by La Via Campesina – as presented at the
ICARRD+20 in Colombia – emphasizes the need for agrarian reform
that is not fragmented or technocratic, but rather political and
integral, recognizing the diverse realities around the world and
placing the control over land, water and territories in the hands of
those who work, guard and steward it. Our vision is grounded in four
mutually reinforcing axes: restitution, redistribution, recognition
and regulation (4Rs). We also asserted that peasant agroecology and Indigenous food
systems not only reduce emissions but liberate our territories by
ending dependence on agrochemicals and fossil fuels, stopping abusive
industrial meat production, localizing value chains and building food
sovereignty. Proposals such as the Climate finance — a tool for
imperialist domination that, despite the rhetoric, has nothing to do
with delivering resources to communities that need them most.