Bagnolet/Geneva, 5 October 2026 — The United Nations Human Rights Council, meeting during its 63rd session, adopted Resolution A/HRC/63/L.22 by a recorded vote of 33 in favour, none against and 14 abstentions, deciding to renew for three years the mandate of the United Nations Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. This decision represents an important recognition by a large majority of UN Member States of the work undertaken over the past three years to translate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) from a political commitment into concrete implementation. The renewal of the mandate helps preserve a vital institutional space within the United Nations for the defence and promotion of peasants’ rights. **Three Years of Work: Turning UNDROP from Words into Reality** Established in 2023 through Human Rights Council Resolution 54/9, the Working Group is composed of five independent experts with a mandate to promote the effective and comprehensive implementation of UNDROP, identify and share good practices, facilitate technical cooperation, and coordinate with relevant United Nations human rights mechanisms. Over the past three years, the Working Group has helped raise the profile of UNDROP within the United Nations system through thematic reports, country visits and interactive dialogues. Its thematic reports on the right to participation and the right to seeds have not only identified emerging best practices from grassroots movements and governments but have also interpreted the provisions of UNDROP in light of contemporary challenges: climate crises, land grabs, and food system crises, among others. The value and strength of the Working Group lie in its ability to address situations concerning the fundamental rights of approximately 1.2 billion people living in rural areas worldwide —a historically oppressed population that has lacked specific representation within UN human rights mechanisms but now has a channel for expression and a tool for accountability. **The Political Nature of the Struggle for Peasants’ Rights** The struggle for peasants’ rights, food sovereignty, and agroecology is fundamentally a political struggle. This means that it depends above all on the balance of power— or, to put it more accurately, on our ability to build a balance of power that favors the interests of the working people in rural areas. The goal of the agribusiness elites, as an integral part of the dominant economic system, is clear: to fully commodify agriculture, drive peasants from their land, and turn food into an object of financial speculation. In this system, let us remember that small-scale producers account for 70–75% of the world’s food production, yet represent 80% of those suffering from hunger and 70% of those living in extreme poverty. This structural inversion is not a natural phenomenon: it is the product of very specific power dynamics. This is why defending peasants’ rights is never merely a technical or legal task, but requires a continuous struggle to build and accumulate power in every possible arena—from community or citizens’ assemblies tonational legislative bodies, from regional forums to the UN Human Rights Council. Territories are, of course, the primary arena of this struggle. Peasants’ demands can only truly be fulfilled or violated on the lands, pastures, and waters where they work and live with their families. The United Nations constitutes another important arena of struggle: it is not an arbiter standing above politics, but a tool that can be put at the service of the struggle on the ground. The adoption of this resolution and the renewal of the Working Group’s mandate are not the culmination of the struggle, but rather the establishment of an institutional foothold for the next phase of the international advocacy process in support of the cause. **Call to Action: Mobilise UNDROP** The renewal of the mandate represents continuity, but it must also mean a deepening of our collective efforts. We call on all peasants’, fishers’, pastoralists’ and rural workers’ organisations, as well as all forces defending food sovereignty and agroecology, to: The renewal of the mandate signifies continuity, but also a deepening of our efforts. We call on all peasants’, fishers’, pastoralists’, and rural workers’ organizations, as well as all forces that support food sovereignty and agroecology, to: * **Make UNDROP their own** : It should not be viewed as a document enshrined in the temples of international law, but as a living instrument that can be invoked in the fields, at assemblies of organizations and social movements, and in negotiations with governments. The fundamental rights enshrined in the UNDROP (the rights to seeds, land, food sovereignty, a decent income, and biodiversity, among others) can and must become legal foundations for the strategies of struggle and resistance adopted by rural organizations. * **Mobilize at all levels:** From local communities to national policymaking, from regional coordination to global advocacy, each level requires the direct participation of UNDROP rights holders. * **Use the Working Group as a forum for grievances, a platform for dialogue, and a mechanism for sharing experiences:** The Working Group is the only entity within the United Nations system specifically tasked with addressing the rights of peasants and rural workers. It can receive communications, organize country visits, publish thematic reports, and provide peasant organizations with a direct channel for dialogue with international experts and governments. This requires a strategic and sustained advocacy approach to secure the fundamental rights of communities that have been historically marginalised by a dominant economic system that prioritises profit and endless growth at the expense of the social and ecological balance on which the future of our planet depends. The renewal of the Working Group’s mandate is therefore another victory for the global peasant movement—but it is also a call to organise, mobilise and deepen the struggle. **Globalise the Struggle! Globalise Hope!** ### RELATED NEWS: 1. LVC Calls on the UN Human Rights Council to Renew the Mandate of the Working Group of Experts on UNDROP 2. The UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) will soon present its reports on land and seeds in Geneva 3. UNDROP | 7th Anniversary: Statement of the UN Working Group 4. Systemic Challenges and Good Practices in Rural Areas – The 2nd Report of the UN Working Group on UNDROP at the 60th Session of the Human Rights Council

The consequences of global warming are hitting farms and those who make them thrive hard. They have considerable economic, physical and psychological repercussions. The difficulties of coping with fires, drought and heatwaves, of dealing with the loss of our animals, as well as the damage caused to our crops and production equipment, are all the more serious because they add to an already extremely tense economic situation for many farms and sectors. This crisis is also unfolding in a context of deep concern about the future of our farms. The embers of the agricultural anger that has been expressed in recent months have not been extinguished, and it would be more than legitimate for them to flare up again when the new school year begins, because no structural political response has been provided to build a positive future for peasant farmers. Peasant farmers know that every crisis – health, economic or climate – causes the most vulnerable among us to disappear. History is stubborn and repeats itself: with every crisis, the concentration of farms accelerates, their expansion continues and the number of peasant farmers decreases. By challenging, during the Paris International Agricultural Show, the need to maintain a reasonable size for farms, the government chose to pursue this concentration in the name of competitiveness and productivism. This approach was reflected in the agricultural emergency law recently passed in France, which provides no concrete response to the majority of peasant farmers. What impact will this law have on our incomes? The few tools for protection and better distribution of value outlined in Articles 19 and 21 have been stripped of their effectiveness. Worse still, by facilitating the development of production equipment, increasing the size of livestock buildings and the use of pesticides without sustainability or sharing objectives, this law accelerates a productivist model based on competition between peasant farmers and, ultimately, on their disappearance. Yet the resilience of our sectors, our food sovereignty and our ability to make agriculture a major lever for adapting to and fighting climate change depend above all on maintaining a large number of peasant farmers in our territories. The strength of our agriculture lies in its diversity, complementarity and solidarity, as we demonstrated during health crises or the most intense periods of fires. Solidarity is only possible in living territories where there are still many peasant farmers. No political leader, whether governing today or aspiring to govern tomorrow, can deny the realities brought to light by climate disruption. The urgent task now is to support the essential agroecological transition that peasant farmers are calling for. This transition is the only credible path towards a liveable world. We consider that any policy that does not place the public interest at the heart of its action, that does not take the maintenance of shared habitability as its compass, that does not integrate production models into a vision for society and that fuels conflicts over the use of the commons such as water, is not merely irresponsible: it is criminal. We, peasant farmers, call on political decision-makers to act consistently and at the scale required by the challenges we face. If this does not happen, a significant number of our farms will disappear, and political decision-makers will have to bear that responsibility for the rest of their lives. In the very short term, it is crucial to implement all the necessary emergency measures so that no farm is permanently weakened or threatened by drought, heatwaves, hail or fires. More broadly, decision-makers’ action must focus on anticipation rather than solely on crisis management, in order to move away from an exhausted system based on our dependence on petrochemicals and benefiting only a minority. Preserving, preventing, protecting and reforming public policies as well as support mechanisms must become the guiding principles of your action. Our determination to defend peasant farmers and to ensure that no farm disappears remains intact and unwavering. This is why the Confédération paysanne has already identified **22 essential measures that must be implemented as soon as possible to address the climate crises.** **Saving farms in the very short term: easing cash-flow pressures to get through the summer** 1. **Unlock a flat-rate aid payment per farm and per active worker,** amounting to €5,000, to be paid rapidly to farms that have suffered at least 30% losses in harvests or turnover, with priority given to farms without multi-risk climate insurance (more than 80% of French farms). In this regard, the Confédération paysanne calls for crisis aid currently devoted to nitrogen fertilisers to be redirected towards farms actually affected by climate hazards. 2. **For farms affected by fires,** the majority of peasant farmers will only be able to rely on emergency aid released by the State, Departments or Regions, given that damage caused by fires to farms is not covered by standard compensation schemes. It is essential that this aid be accessible to as many people as possible and not be conditional on taking out an insurance policy. 3. S**uspension of bank payments and loan instalments** , as well as the State covering farmers’ agricultural social security contributions (MSA). 4. **Exemption for farmers from repaying the value-added tax** (VAT) on the sale of their produce. **Urgently reform the system for covering losses caused by climate hazards in agriculture** 5. Allow farmers without multi-risk climate insurance to receive the **National Solidarity Indemnity (ISN)** when they lose 30% or more of their crops or livestock, instead of only when losses reach 50%. 6. **Align the compensation rate for uninsured farmers** with that of insured farmers (objective: 100% coverage of losses for everyone). It is unacceptable that uninsured peasant farmers (more than 80% of farms) should see their losses compensated by the ISN at only 28% for certain types of production, while insurance premiums are covered at 70% through subsidies from the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). 7. **Make losses in market gardening and beekeeping effectively eligible for the ISN** , for which the French departmental authorities (DDTs) say they cannot process compensation requests due to the lack of an appropriate method for calculating losses. 8. Quickly draw lessons from the failure of the first three years of implementation of the crop insurance reform and rapidly put forward a reform to **establish a professional, mutualised and solidarity-based fund, accessible to all farms** and involving all links in the agri-food chain. Peasant farmers must not be the only ones bearing the risks * * * This post is also available in Español. ### RELATED NEWS: 1. France: Confédération Paysanne will boycott the inauguration of the Agriculture Show by President Macron. 2. France: Confédération Paysanne Mobilizes Against Free Trade Agreements; Leaders Face Police Repression and Arrests 3. France: BASF Accused of Covering Up Pesticide Scandal; Confédération Paysanne Urges State Action 4. France: The Confédération Paysanne and FADEAR continue to advocate for women Peasants’ Rights

_Today, on the 17th of May, with Cuban peasants, La Vía Campesina is launching the Global Solidarity Campaign: “Against the Blockade! Peasant Solidarity, Agroecology, and Food Sovereignty!“_ * * * **Cuba is in the grip of a punishing blockade imposed by the United States for over 60 years.** We, La Vía Campesina – a global movement spanning over 80 countries – and bringing together peasants, fishers, land workers and small-scale food producers who feed the world, hold this unilateral sanction as the direct cause of the Cuban food and energy crisis. It has affected electricity generation, transport, healthcare and food distribution. Now, Washington is tightening the screws once again, with the aim of destroying Cuba’s revolutionary project, subjugating its people through hunger, medicine shortages and the disruption of daily life. Cuba has given the world far more than it has received: doctors in the most remote corners of the globe, life-saving vaccines, literacy brigades that taught millions of people to read, inspiration and support for cooperative organization, the widespread adoption of agroecology and, in all of this, growing solidarity and humanist internationalism to build a fairer and more sustainable world. Now, as the U.S attempts to collectively punish an entire nation for refusing to bow down, it is up to us to repay that solidarity with strength and determination. La Vía Campesina, firmly stands with Small Farmers National Association (ANAP) – LVC’s member organization in Cuba – in all its efforts to fight this blockade and build food sovereignty. * * * **And today, the 17th of May, which marks the Cuban Peasantry Day and the Anniversary of the First Agrarian Reform in Cuba, we launch the global campaign:_“Against the Blockade! Peasant Solidarity, Agroecology, and Food Sovereignty!”_** * * * The campaign seeks to organize a global fundraising effort to cover basic needs that stimulate agri-food production and to mobilize people – including LVC member organizations and allies – to continue denouncing the impact of the blockade and its intensification, and also uplift the Cuban spirit with messages of solidarity. As José Martí so aptly put it: Love is repaid with love. # GLOBAL FUND RAISER Over the next few months, La Via Campesina, through the power of transnational solidarity and relying on the strength of its 180 member organizations and countless allies intends to raise **250,000 Euros** to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Cuba. Through a mix of local fundraiser events – hosted and organized by our member organizations and allies – and other means, we will make a concerted effort to raise these funds that can buy essential supplies for the peasants and workers in Cuba. Of these, we wish to raise at least **100,000 Euros** from our online crowd funding campaign alone. **DONATE NOW** * * * # SOLIDARITY EVENTS The mainstream narrative around Cuba rarely mentions how the so-called crisis in Cuba is entirely manfucatured in and by Washington, and is a direct cause of the punitive social, political, economic blockade placed by the U.S on the Cuban people. It is important that as people who feed the world, and as a movement committed to building internationalism and global solidarity, we expose the brutal impact of this punishing sanction. It is important that we do this by organizing press conferences, solidarity marches, events, webinars, seminars within our communities and in our region, highlighting the voices of Cuba’s peasantry and the ANAP. Adapt and promote the campaign’s **COMMUNICATION KIT.** We invite you to share the local actions you are carrying out in support of the campaign, including videos, photos, articles, statements, and other initiatives. These will be featured on LVC’s official media channels. Contact us at: **solidaridad@viacampesina.org** DOWNLOAD THE KIT ## **Against the blockade: Peasant Solidarity, Agroecology and Food sovereignty!** THE BLOCKADE IS NOT JUST A PROBLEM FOR CUBA. It is a warning to all countries attempting to escape neoliberal exploitation and the capitalist system in order to pursue a dignified and sovereign project for the benefit of their peoples. If the empire intends to crush Cuba through slow starvation, it will do so at the expense of the collectives and individuals who believe that another world is possible. This is a call to break the blockade through material aid, political pressure and international solidarity. Together we can show that the power of the people continues to triumph over injustice, corporate and imperialist actions. * * * #SolidarityWithCuba #PeasantSolidarityWithCuba #SolidaritéPaysanneAvecCuba #CubaYES_EmbargoNO #LaViaCampesina #ANAPCuba **Globalize the Struggle! Globalize Hope!** DONATE NOW * * * This post is also available in Español and Français.

(April 23, 2026) The Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) received, in Spain, the Berta Cáceres Award for environmental commitment granted by the Ecozine Film Festival at its 19th edition. The distinction, agreed upon with the family of Berta Cáceres and the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), places the MST at the center of international recognition that transcends borders and connects peasant struggles from different continents. Kallen Oliveira, a member of the Movement and coordinator of the National Plan to Plant Trees and Produce Healthy Food, represented the MST at the ceremony. Her presence on stage in Zaragoza carried the symbolic weight of an organization that brings together more than 450,000 settled families in Brazil and that focuses on building its political base, with women and youth at the center. > “Receiving an international award is not only symbolic, but also a recognition that increases the visibility of the MST as an organization of peasant men and women capable of presenting concrete responses to the environmental crisis and confronting agribusiness, which in Brazil is responsible for 97% of deforestation in the national territory, for the massive use of pesticides, as well as being the perpetrator of violence and murders in the countryside.” – Kallen Oliveira, coordinator of the National Plan to Plant Trees and Produce Healthy Food Berta Cáceres was a Honduran indigenous leader who dedicated her life to defending the Lenca people and their ancestral lands in Río Blanco, resisting the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam by the company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA). Her struggle, simultaneously ecological and political, cost her her life in 2016 and she became a global symbol of female, peasant, and indigenous resistance. The award bearing her name, granted by Ecozine supported by her family and COPINH, represents a political choice that affirms the continuity of a battle that did not end with her death. Juan Carlos, from the Internationalist Solidarity Committee of Zaragoza – Spain, explained the importance of the tribute. “For us, Berta Cáceres represents an example in the organization of peasants and indigenous peoples to confront the plundering of natural resources by multinational companies and investment funds that seek only their own profit, without caring about the destruction of common goods. This is the same struggle of the MST and many organizations of Latin American peoples confronting agribusiness, extractivism, and neocolonialism,” he stated. Kallen Oliveira, coordinator of the Plant Trees, Produce Healthy Food Plan, at the Berta Cárceres Award ceremony. Photo: Valento Ecozine. The Ecozine Film Festival is Spain’s leading international environmental film festival, held in Zaragoza. The 19th edition featured 34 titles from 13 countries in its Official Competition Section, distributed across the categories of Feature-Length Documentary (9 films), Short Documentary (8), Short Fiction (9), and Short Animation (8), selected from a total of over 319 films submitted from 54 countries. The closing gala, hosted by actress Irene Alquézar, brought together director Pedro Piñeiro, this edition’s ambassador Norberto Fuentes Poblador, and representatives of the award-winning films, solidifying the festival as a space for conversation that unites film, nature, and the fight for rights. Upon receiving the award on behalf of the Movement, Kallen Oliveira stated that “the distinction is a recognition of the historical struggle of Berta Cáceres, but it connects with the struggle of peasant peoples around the world and in Brazil.” In her speech, Kallen spoke about the concrete dimension of the violence in the struggle for land, and recalled that April 17th marks the 30th anniversary of the Eldorado dos Carajás Massacre, when 21 landless rural workers were murdered by the Military Police of Pará. > “At this historic moment, it is our role to be a beacon, as other partner organizations tell us, but also to be a source of hope that another productive model is possible, combining the production of healthy food with care for the common goods of nature, where we can achieve human emancipation based on principles and values that place life above profit.” -Kallen Oliveira, coordinator of the National Plan to Plant Trees and Produce Healthy Food For the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement), Popular Agrarian Reform implies “the construction of a political project for the countryside and a society based on human emancipation,” in the words of the representative. The common and collective property built in the settlements is a laboratory for another way of organizing life. “Today we are more than 450,000 settled families and thousands more in encampments; we defend a form of communal and collective property, built from the settlements as an alternative to the dominant model,” she emphasized. Juan Carlos reinforces this role of the Movement, which not only contributes with the example of its struggle, but also with its victories. > “There are 450,000 settled families, more than 180 cooperatives, thousands of producer associations. We also have its achievements in education, training, and the widespread adoption of agroecology. These triumphs of the MST are an example for other organizations not only in Brazil, but also among many other peoples. They create hope for the struggle, confidence that victory is possible,” he concluded. The Berta Cáceres Award arrives at the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) amidst the April Struggles, in which the Movement commemorates the deaths of the landless workers murdered in Eldorado dos Carajás while simultaneously confronting the advance of agribusiness on conquered territories. For an organization that operates under constant pressure, be it legal, media, or physical, international recognition has political value by projecting its struggle to audiences that can amplify the denunciation. “We feel honored and also assume the responsibility of continuing this struggle in defense of nature, the people, and the countryside,” said Kallen Oliveira. **Check out the full speech in Spanish** * * * First published on MST website by Fernanda Alcântara **Cover Image** – Berta Cárceres Award. Photo: Valento Ecozine ### RELATED NEWS: 1. 17 April | Mozambique: UNAC Holds March Marking International Day Of Peasants’ Struggle 2. March 8 | International Day of Struggle for Working Women | Call to Action 3. Brazil: MST reaffirms anti-imperialist struggle and calls on the Brazilian pueblo for Popular Agrarian Reform | ICARRD+20 Series 4. Brazil: MST Marks International Day of Peasants’ Struggles with Over 50 Demonstrations Nationwide

**_La Via Campesina publie son document de positionnement sur les guerres dans le monde, dans le cadre des 30 ans de la Journée internationale des luttes paysannes_**. * * * Bagnolet, 17 avril 2026 | Aujourd’hui marque le 30e anniversaire du massacre d’Eldorado dos Carajás, un événement tragique qui a constitué un tournant pour La Vía Campesina, où des paysan·nes sans terre du Brésil ont été assassiné·es par la police fédérale pour avoir défendu leur droit à la réforme agraire. Des kilomètres plus loin et 30 ans après ces faits, le monde continue de faire saigner des peuples et des familles innocentes dans un contexte de plus en plus critique, marqué par la pression du pouvoir impérial et les tensions géopolitiques. En commémorant la _**Journée internationale des luttes paysannes**_ , notre mouvement présente le document de positionnement : **Souveraineté alimentaire face à la guerre, à l’impérialisme et à la faim des peuples dans le monde, un document qui aborde des éléments clés pour comprendre l’impact des guerres et du pouvoir impérial sur la souveraineté alimentaire des peuples.** Le document prend en compte des données importantes fournies par les rapports du Comité des pêches de la FAO à travers son rapport sur la Situation de la sécurité alimentaire et de la nutrition dans le monde (SOFI), l’Institut international de recherche sur la paix de Stockholm, l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés (ACNUR), entre autres ; concernant les conflits mondiaux et leurs impacts sur les systèmes alimentaires dans les pays affectés. _« Nous vivons une ère de convergence de crises sans précédent. Jamais dans l’histoire récente autant de conflits armés n’ont éclaté simultanément sur autant de continents. Les guerres à Gaza, au Liban, au Mali, en Ukraine, au Soudan, au Yémen, au Myanmar,__au Sahel, en République démocratique du Congo et en Syrie ne sont pas des tragédies isolées. Elles sont les éruptions symptomatiques d’un système global unique, structurellement malade, construit sur la logique de l’accumulation infinie du capital, le raci_ _sme structurel, l’escalade des tensions du pouvoir géopolitique, l’extraction des ressources et la domination impériale néocolonialiste. »_ La Via Campesina, en tant que mouvement rassemblant des organisations paysannes à l’échelle mondiale, a réfléchi à cette situation et a dénoncé de manière constante l’utilisation de la faim comme arme de guerre ainsi que les intérêts économiques qui en découlent. La destruction et l’occupation militaire profitent aux économies des États-Unis, d’Israël et de nombreux pays du Nord global ; favorisant des génocides en cours et entraînant une somme incalculable de violations des droits humains et de crimes contre l’humanité, avec un risque d’impunité, où les femmes et les enfants sont les plus vulnérables. Nous invitons nos organisations membres et les organisations alliées à étudier et à partager ce document comme un outil populaire d’analyse et comme une contribution du mouvement paysan mondial, exprimée en première personne. **Uni·es contre l’impérialisme, le néocolonialisme, la criminalisation de nos luttes et la spoliation de nos territoires** FR Prise de position de LVC_LA MONDIALISATION DE LA GUERRE ET LA FAMINETélécharger Cette publication est également disponible en English : liste des langues séparées par une virgule, Español : dernière langue. ### Publications similaires : 1. #17Avril – Uni·es contre l’impérialisme, le néocolonialisme, la criminalisation de nos luttes et la spoliation de nos territoires 2. #16oct25 : Assez de faim dans le monde, la Souveraineté Alimentaire est la garantie d’une transformation systémique 3. #25Nov24 – Appel à l’action : Les paysannes unies pour la justice et la souveraineté alimentaire ! Stop à la violence, à la faim et à la guerre !