After three decades of struggle for agrarian reform, Brazil's Landless Movement paused during its 6th Congress to evaluate its experience and reflect on the new reality. The goal: to change while changing themselves.
In Mexico, rural women have vowed to defend the right to food, to biodiversity, to our natural resources, and to end the violence in all forms that arises out of capitalist and patriarchal systems. They reaffirmed these commitments on Mar. 8.
The drastic transformation of public agricultural policies–brought about by structural adjustment programs and the trade opening with NAFTA–generated the conditions for the emergence of multiple forms of violence in the Mexican countryside.
The values inherent in the village life of Yucuyoco are happily present to one degree or another in most of the indigenous communities of the Americas, and probably of Africa and Asia as well. But in Latin America perhaps more than elsewhere at the moment, these values are regaining their voice.
A decision of the Chilean Supreme Court has suspended operations at Barrick Gold’s gold mine, Pascula Lama. Monsanto had to halt construction of a seed plant in Córdoba because of widespread opposition from the population. Large extractive companies begin to reap a harvest of defeats.
In celebrating sustainable food systems, World Food Day recognizes the need for systemic change to end hunger and malnutrition. This is urgent because although for decades the world has produced 1½ times enough food for every man, woman and child on the planet, nearly a billion people go hungry.
In a great bit of news for World Food Day, a key Brazilian congressional committee today withdrew the consideration of legislation that would have allowed the sale and use of Terminator Technology, also known as suicide seeds
A federal court in Mexico City ordered the Mexican government “to suspend the issue of permits for experimental, pilot or commercial cultivation of genetically modified corn” on Oct. 10. This is the first victory in a class-action suit filed against the invasion of Monsanto corn in Mexico.
Five decades of war made things worse. Landowners bought up more and more land, expelling and expropriating campesinos with force. The agricultural strike was the "Enough!" of a population that won't put up with it any longer.
The indigenous territories most hard hit by mining concessions are the Rarámuri, Zapotecos (mostly in the central valleys of Oaxaca), Chatinos, Mixtecos, Coras, Tepehuanes and Nahuas of Michoacan. The concessions in these people’s lands add up to more than a million hectares.
