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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Via Campesina: Why We Left Our Farms to Come to Copenhagen
  • Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:08:11 -0700



Via Campesina: Why We Left Our Farms to Come to Copenhagen
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19785.cfm
* Speech of Henry Saragih, general coordinator of Via Campesina at the
opening session of Klimaforum
By La Via Campesina
http://viacampesina.org/

We, the international peasant movement La Via Campesina, are coming to
Copenhagen from all five corners of the world, leaving our farmland, our
animals, our forest, and also our families in the hamlets and villages to
join you all.

Why is it so important for us to come this far? There are a number of reasons
for that. Firstly, we would like to tell you that climate change is already
seriously impacting us. It brings floods, droughts and the outbreak of pests
that are all causing harvest failures. I must point out that these harvest
failures are something that the farmers did not create. Instead, it is the
polluters who caused the emissions who destroy the natural cycles. So, we
small scale farmers came here to say that we will not pay for their mistakes.
And we are asking the emitters to face up to their responsibilities.

Secondly, I would like to share with you some facts about who the emitters of
green house gases in agriculture really are: new data that has come out
clearly shows that industrial agriculture and the globalized food system are
responsible of between 44 and 57% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
This figure can be broken down as follows (i) Agricultural activities are
responsible for 11 to 15%, (ii) Land clearing and deforestation cause an
additional 15 to 18%, (iii) Food processing, packing and transportation cause
15 to 20%, and (iv) Decomposition of organic waste causes another 3 to 4%. It
means that our current food system is a major polluter.

The question we have to answer now is: how do we solve the climate chaos,
hunger and assure a better livelihood for farmers, when the agricultural
sector itself is contributing more than half of the total emissions? We
believe that it is the industrial and agribusiness model of agriculture that
is at the root of the problem, because those percentages that I mentioned
earlier come from the deforestation and the conversion of natural forests
into monoculture plantations, all of which is being carried out by
Agribusiness Corporations. Not by familly farmers. Such large emissions of
methane by agriculture are also due to the use of urea as a petrochemical
fertilizer through the green revolution, very much supported by the World
Bank. At the same time, agricultural trade liberalization promoted by free
trade agreements (FTA) and by the World Trade Organization (WTO) is
contributing to the greenhouse gases emissions due to food processing and
food transportation around the world.

If we genuinely want to tackle the climate change crisis, the only way we
have to go forward is to stop industrial agriculture. Agribusiness has not
only highly contributed to the climate crisis, it has also massacred the
small farmers of the world. Millions of farmers , men and women from around
the world, have been kicked off their land. Millions of others suffer
violence every year because of land conflicts in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. Small farmers and landless farmers make up the majority of the more
than 1 billion hungry people in the world. And because of free trade, many
small farmers commit suicide in South Asia. So putting an end to industrial
agriculture is the only way we can go.

Will the current climate negotiations, that are relying on carbon trade
mechanisms, bring solutions to climate change? To this we say that carbon
trade mechanisms will only serve polluting countries and companies, and bring
disaster to small farmers and indigenous peoples in developing countries. The
REDD initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) has
already kicked off their land many indigenous peoples and small farmers in
developing countries. And more and more agricultural land is being converted
into tree plantations in order to attract carbon credits.

At COP 13 in Bali 2007, La Via Campesina proposed the landless farmers' and
small farmers' solution to climate change, which is: "small scale sustainable
farmers are cooling down the earth". And here, at COP 15, again we bring that
proposal, backing it with the figures that prove that it could reduce more
than half of the global greenhouse gas emissions. This figure comes from: (I)
Recuperating organic matter in the soil would reduce emissions by 20 to 35%.
(ii) Reversing the concentration of meat production in factory farms and
reintegrating joint animal and crop production would reduce them by 5 to 9%
(iii) Putting local markets and fresh food back at the center of the food
system would reduce a further 10 to 12%. (iv) Halting land clearing and
deforestation would stop 15 to 18% of emissions. In short, by taking
agriculture away from the big agribusiness corporations and putting it back
into the hands of small farmers, we can reduce half of the global emissions
of greenhouse gases. This is what we propose, and we call it Food Sovereignty.

And to achieve that we need social movements to work together and struggle
together to put an end to the current false solutions that are today on the
table at the climate negotiations. This is a must, otherwise we will face an
even bigger tragedy worldwide. We, as social movements, have to bring our own
agenda onto the table, because we are the first climate victims and climate
refugees and therefore climate justice is in our hands.

At the FAO Food Summit in 1996, governments committed themselves to reduce
hunger by half by 2015. The reality is that the number of hungry people has
recently increased dramatically. We do not want the same thing to happen with
the climate talks and see the emissions increase even further regardless of
what the governments negotiate within the UNFCCC.

We invite all the movements present in Copenhagen to join together to bring
climate justice to the table. Climate justice will only be achieved through
solidarity and social justice.





  • [Livingontheland] Via Campesina: Why We Left Our Farms to Come to Copenhagen, Tradingpost, 12/10/2009

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