5 December: International Food Sovereignty Day to Cool Down the Earth (Durban)

CALL TO MASS ACTION AND MOBILIZATION

5th December 2011, Durban, South Africa

We call on all farmers’ movements and organizations, rural workers, landless people and all the food sovereignty movement to join us for an international day of mass action on the 5th of December 2011, during the COP 17 civil society mobilization in Durban, South Africa.

Humanity is confronted with a food, economic and ecological crisis that is rooted in the neoliberal capitalist system of production, distribution and consumption. These multiple crises highlight the limits of neoliberal capitalist production. Today transnational corporations and governments are presenting false solutions to climate change, hijacking the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP17) also referred to as the Conference of Polluters, to be held in Durban South Africa.
These corporate elites, western governments and the neo liberal capitalist system that is responsible for generating the crisis are presenting us with false solutions. The countries of the South and Africa in particular will be hard hit by climate change. Scientists indicate that the African continent is expected to be drier and would become warmer more quickly than other regions of the planet, despite the fact that Africa has contributed the least to global warming. This will hugely impact on agriculture, which is an important livelihood source across Africa. There will be yield losses of the major staple foods of the continent like maize, sorghum, millet, cassava etc. due to temperature rises.

Industrial agriculture and production is responsible for global warming, hunger, land dispossession, massive displacements of farmers, rural workers and indigenous communities across the continent.
In South Africa the host country after 17 years of democracy, millions of farm workers and dwellers have been evicted from commercial farms, only 5% of agricultural land has been transferred to black people, millions in rural and urban areas suffer from food and nutritional insecurity. Today this country is the most unequal society in the world. Particularly women in South Africa have felt the impact of these unequal relations and exclusion more severely.

The solutions put forward by these corporations and governments are already leading towards a re-colonization of Africa and the countries of the global south with massive land grabs and the imposition of a new green revolution.

Instead of finding real solutions to climate and ecological crisis faced by humanity, the Durban COP17 meeting is a platform for corporations through their governments to accelerate the complete commodification of nature. These criminal schemes presented as solutions include amongst other things the promotion of Genetically Modified Seeds, Agro-fuels, carbon trading, climate smart agriculture, Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD).

Why an Agro-ecology and Food Sovereignty Day

As farmers, farm workers, landless women and men we should mobilize through direct action against these false solutions to expose its criminal intent and catastrophic consequences for the continent and the global south. At the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Right of Mother Earth (April 2010) held in Bolivia resulted in the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba real solutions to climate change were offered which was totally ignored by governments. Food Sovereignty and agro-ecology are the real solutions of farmers and workers to climate change.

We call on all farmers, workers and the landless and all social movements to join us in Durban and everywhere in the world on the 5th of December 2011 to demand a change of the entire capitalist system. The fight against climate change is a fight against neoliberal capitalism, landlessness, dispossession, hunger, poverty and inequality. The crisis of the planet requires that we take direct action. During the agro-ecology and food sovereignty day we will have public protest marches to the conference of the polluters, actions against multinational corporations like Monsanto undermining our seed sovereignty, which will cuminate in a massive Assembly of the Oppressed to discuss ways of ending this unjust system. This will be a day of continued actions where farmers and workers from the entire African continent with social movements from the whole world will demand:

• Genuine agrarian reform for food sovereignty
• Agro ecological revolution as the solution to climate change
• Restructuring of the entire food system
• Full and equal participation of women in the new food system and in the society as a whole
• Building of a food system based on human needs
• End to multinational control of our genetic resources
• Seed sovereignty where seed can adapt and mitigate climate change

We call on all the movements of farmers and workers to mobilize and have local direct action in every locality in the world on the Agro-ecological and Food Sovereignty Day.

Reclaim Climate Justice!
Our Planet is not for sale!
No to the Conference of Polluters!
Defend Mother Earth!
Africa is not for sale!
No to the re-colonization of Africa!
This call is convened and supported by:
LA VIA CAMPESINA
AGRARIAN REFORM FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY CAMPAIGN, SOUTH AFRICA
SURPLUS PEOPLE PROJECT (SPP), SOUTH AFRICA
TRUST FOR COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND EDUCATION (TCOE), SOUTH AFRICA
WOMEN ON FARM PROJECT (SOUTH AFRICA)
EASTERN AND SOUTHERN AFRICA SMALL SCALE FARMERS’ FORUM (ESAFF)
ESAFF ZIMBABWE
ESAFF UGANDA
ROPPA (Network of Farmers and Agricultural Producers’ Organisations of West Africa)

If you want to join us in Durban for December 5th, organize an activity in your community/locality/country and share it with us on that day, sign and support the call, or any other inquiry about that specific action, please write to: lvcatcop17@gmail.com