Farmers -­‐ men and women -­‐ around the world are joining hands with other social movements, organizations, people and communities to ask for and to develop radical social, economic and political transformations to reverse the current trend.
Changing weather patterns bring unknown pest along with unusual droughts, floods and storms, destroying crops, farmlands, decreasing availability of fresh water resources.
Destruction caused by global warming goes beyond the physical. Changing, unpredictable weather means that local knowledge, which has been the basis for good agricultural management and adjusting to climate condition, is becoming less relevant, making farmers more vulnerable and dependent on external inputs and techniques. Farmers have to adjust to these changes by adapting their seeds and usual production systems to an unpredictable situation. Droughts and floods are leading to crop failures, increasing the number of people going hungry in the world.
Studies predict a decline in global farm output of 3 to 16% by 2080. In tropical regions, global warming is likely to lead to a serious decline in agriculture (up to 50% in Senegal and 40% in India) and to the acceleration of farmland turning into desert. On the other hand, huge areas in Russia and Canada will turn into crop land for the first time in human history, yet it is still unknown how these regions will be able to grow crops. What is expected is that millions of farmers will be displaced from the land.
Such shifting is regarded by industry as a business opportunity thorugh increasing food exports and imports, but it will only increase hunger and dependency around the world.
Corporate food production and consumption are significantly contributing to global warming and to the destruction of rural communities.
Intercontinental food transport, intensive monoculture production, land and forest destruction and the use of chemical inputs in agriculture are transforming World Trade Organisation, the regional and bilateral Free Trade Agreements, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, food is produced with oil-based pesticides and fertilizers and transported all around the world for transformation and consumption.
Via Campesina, a movement bringing together millions of small farmers and producers around the world, asserts that it is time to radically change the industrial way to produce, transform, trade and consume food and agricultural products. They believe that sustainable small-scale farming and local food consumption will reverse the actual devastation and support millions of farming families. Agriculture would also contribute to cool down the earth by using farm practices that store CO2 and reduce considerably the use of energy on farms.

By: Via Campesina

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