La Via Campesina: Day of Action Against the WTO and Free Trade Agreements

September 10, 2024

Photo: La Via Campesina

On this International Day of Action against the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Free Trade Agreements (FTA), the organizations of La Via Campesina in Canada and the United States – Family Farm Defenders, Farmworker Association of Florida, National Family Farm Coalition, National Farmers Union of Canada and Union Paysanne – reaffirm their commitment to food sovereignty in North America and globally, in solidarity with our allies in the movement.

In the context of this Day of Action, we position ourselves as farmers, farm workers, migrant farm workers, fishermen, and indigenous land stewards. We span generations and geographies, genders and sexual orientations, and cultures. Yet we gather on common ground to rise up against the continued dispossession violently imposed by free trade agreements. The current agricultural system is geared toward providing cheap inputs to satisfy the insatiable profit motive of multinational corporations, at immense cost to the environment, eaters, and those who produce good, healthy food for our communities in accordance with food sovereignty and agroecology.

The natural tendency of free market agriculture is for the monetary value of agricultural products to consistently lag behind, despite the increase in the cost of farming and living over time. This can only be exacerbated by free trade on a global scale. Without social regulation of agriculture, farm incomes will always fall in real dollar terms, leaving farmers with no choice but to “get big or get out.”

The farmer who tries to show respect for Mother Earth, livestock and community values ​​will always be at a disadvantage to farmers who seek greater prosperity, either for survival or out of greed, through destructive practices of labor exploitation and externalities.

While we rightly demand fair prices for farmers and fair wages for food and farm workers, we must emphasize that cheap prices for agricultural products invite multinationals to unwisely divert these products to biofuels and industrial animal farming plants. This in turn also allows these companies to make unhealthy, manufactured food with a long shelf life to be shipped around the world.

We recognize that our democratic systems are corrupt and do not represent grassroots demands for transformative social change, but instead their corruption plays to the advantage of the corporate, global food system. Our fight begins in our collective work to challenge our governments from the bottom up. To achieve this goal, we commit to working with LVC allies on an alternative trade framework to the Agreement on Agriculture promoted by the WTO, one that promotes food sovereignty and aligns with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

We demand that the Canadian and US governments sever their ties to industrial agriculture and neoliberal, unregulated trade and instead prioritize the rights and livelihoods of those who grow food, as part of mitigating the climate crisis, reversing biodiversity loss, and improving societal stability.

Under this premise, our movement in North America is rebuilding as we develop renewed decision-making, governance, and political processes. Using the LVC Constitution to guide our work, we are strengthening our internal operations. We are developing operating principles that define decision-making and communication processes, leadership terms and responsibilities, conflict resolution, and mutual accountability in our regional work. Only with a strong foundation can we collectively work toward a shared vision of food systems transformation in the face of intersecting crises.

As we fight corporate agribusiness in our food system, we draw strength from the camaraderie and collective power we build through this global movement. North America is a distinct and critical region, and our organizations are deeply invested in the struggle of the La Via Campesina family, united in our diversities.

Source: La Via Campesina