Leaps of Consciousness

Founded in 1993, La Via Campesina is an international movement bringing together millions of peasants, landless workers, indigenous people, pastoralists, fishers, migrant farmworkers, small and medium-sized farmers, rural women, and peasant youth worldwide. Built on a solid sense of unity and solidarity, it defends peasant agriculture for food sovereignty.

LVC has 3 aims: defending food sovereignty, promoting agroecology and the right to save local seeds, and promoting peasants’ rights and access to land.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, adopted by the General Assembly in 2018, results from 17 years of patient negotiations led by La Via Campesina and its allies.

This Declaration is among the essential international instruments defending the rights of small-scale food producers and is a crucial tool in implementing food sovereignty. Currently, La Via Campesina comprises 180 local and national organisations in 81 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Altogether, it represents about 200 million small-scale food producers.