farmer-led food sovereignty
latin america
The ‘Movimiento Campesino a Campesino’
is a farmers’ movement for sustainable
agriculture that has spread over the past
twenty years throughout villages in Mexico,
Central America and parts of South America
and the Caribbean. Basing their work on
principles of agro-ecology, solidarity, and
innovation, its campesino and campesina
promoters use simple tools, seeds, and
farmer-to-farmer learning methods to spread
sustainable agriculture practices. The
movement’s growing number of learning
networks has been remarkably successful in
raising yields, reclaiming soils and
spreading agro-ecological practices to
hundreds of thousands of poor peasants in
the drought-ridden tropics, the eroded
hillsides, and the bleak agricultural
frontiers of Latin America.
The movement has spread with virtually
no help from — and largely in spite of —
governments and multilateral development
programs. It has relied on progressive NGOs
and farmers’ organizations for support in
training campesinos and organizing
farmerled workshops, agro-ecology fairs,
farmer-to farmer cross-visits, and the
documentation of shared experiences. The
result is a movement of resistance to the
ecologically degrading and socially
destructive commodification of soil, water,
and genetic diversity. It is also a
movement of social transformation, in which
smallholders are empowered to determine
their own equitable, sustainable course for
agricultural development.
