Via Campesina (from Spanish la vía campesina, the campesino way) describes itself as "an international movement which coordinates peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America [The Americas – ed.], and Europe". They are a coalition of over 100 organizations, advocating family-farm-based sustainable agriculture and were the group that first coined the term "food sovereignty".^[1] Food sovereignty refers to the right to produce food on one's own territory. Probably their best known spokesperson is the French farmer José Bové. The organisation was founded in 1993 by Rafael Alegria, and had its headquarters in Tagucigalpa, Honduras. The headquarters office of Via Campesina is now in Jakarta, Indonesia. Henry Saragih is the International Operative Secretary. Campesino may refer to A simple farmer is referred to as a campesino in Spanish. ... In a detail of Brueghels Land of Cockaigne (1567) a soft-boiled egg has little feet to rush to the luxuriating peasant who catches drops of honey on his tongue, while roast pigs roam wild: the 16th century was a good time for European peasants A peasant, from 15th... World map showing the location of Asia. ... Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ... The Americas (sometimes referred to as America) is the area including the land mass located between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, generally divided into North America and South America. ... World map showing Europe Europe is one of the seven continents of Earth which, in this case, is more a cultural and political distinction than a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europes borders. ... Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities. ... Food sovereignty is a term originally coined by Via Campesina in a flyer at the World Food Summit +5 (Rome, 2002) to refer to a concept advocated by a number of farmers, peasants, and fishermens organizations, namely the claimed right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture... José Bové Joseph (José) Bové (born June 11, 1953) is a French anarcho-syndicalist, member of the alter-globalisation movement, and spokesperson for Via Campesina. ... Motto: Jaya Raya (Indonesian): Prosper and Great Founded 22 June 1527 Governor Sutiyoso Area 661. ...

Organized worldwide into eight regions, the group has members throughout the world.

References

• ↑  "Global Small-Scale Farmers' Movement Developing New Trade Regimes", Food First News & Views, Volume 28, Number 97 Spring/Summer 2005, p.2.

Food First, also known as the Institute for Food and Development Policy, is an Oakland-based, member-supported, nonprofit, self-described as a peoples think tank and education-for-action center, founded in 1975 by Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins. ...

External links

• Via Campesina English-language home page