La Via Campesina International met in Surin, Thailand for the First Global Encounter on Agroecology and Seeds to share experience and construct a strategy and vision on agroecology and seeds.
In Thailand there is a growing shift made by small-scale farmers to move from the green revolution based model of industrial farming into agroecology which La Via Campesina thinks is the corner stone of food sovereignty.
“We cannot achieve food sovereignty if agriculture is dependent of inputs controlled by corporations, if the impact of technology destroys Mother Earth, if we do not challenge the commodification and speculation of food and land, and if we do not make better livelihoods for those who make available healthy and accessible food to our communities” says the Surin Declaration.
Agroecology is an instrument to confront transnational agribusiness and the predominant agri-export model, an essential part of the construction of social justice in a new equal social system, not dominated by capital.
La Via Campesina defines that “agroecological farming will feed the people. It's time to produce.”
The full Surin declaration can be read at http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/sustainable-peasants-agriculture-mainmenu-42/1334-surin-declaration-first-global-encounter-on-agroecology-and-peasant-seeds
