“Food sovereignty is a principle, a vision and a legacy built by Indigenous People, peasants, family farmers, artisanal fisherfolk, women, afro descendants, young people and rural workers, which has become a platform of our struggles and a proposal for the society as a whole”, stated the social movements and other groups and networks who gathered in Buenos Aires from March 22-25 to celebrate the 3rd Special Conference for Food Sovereignty.

One of the demands of the Declaration addressed to the international community and especially to the governments present at the 32nd Regional Assembly of the FAO, is that the Latin American and Caribbean governments promote at the Rio+20 Summit “sustainable development, recognizing the contributions of family, peasant and indigenous agriculture and helping countries to create national agendas with reference to it and not a global Green Economy based on free trade and the global market. This privatization and commodification of life and nature has been proven to be highly destructive and unsustainable".

The document also demands an end to the persecution and criminalization of the defenders of peasant rights, native peoples and other populations that suffer the attacks of agribusiness and transnational corporations.

“We want the governments of the region and the FAO to adopt urgent measures to reestablish the national food systems in Haiti, allowing the people of the country to recover their autonomy. Less guns, less troops and more sovereign food for Haiti”, reads the document.

Photo: Participants of the 3rd Special Conference for Food Sovereignty, Rights and Life in the march for the Day of Remembrance (March 24th) in Buenos Aires (MNCI)