With two-thirds of the world’s poor rural poor, rural democratisation is clearly relevant and urgent, but at the same time an especially difficult--and underestimated--challenge. If democracy is to be organically rooted in any society, the struggle to “get there” must systematically be opened up to integrate rural poor citizens system-wide, taking stock of their aspirations and, more importantly, their existing efforts to gain control of decision-making affecting their lives.
After decades of chemicals, farmers in the Philippines are seeing the benefits of organic farming. But what convinced them to make the switch in the first place?
Small scale farmers and their allies are celebrating the International Day of Peasant's Struggle on April 17 2012, organising more than 250 actions all over the globe.
On June 15, 2012, seventeen people— farmers and police officers—were killed in Curuguaty, Paraguay. This report focuses on the enabling conditions in the land governance structure that allowed this massacre to take place, detailing a climate of violence and impunity, the absence of protections for small and landless farmers, and the use of state repression in the service of the country’s powerful landed elite.
One week before the official Asia-Europe government meeting (ASEM) gathers in Milan, over 400 people from 42 countries in Europe and Asia gathered at the 10th Asia-Europe Peoples forum (AEPF) to present their demands and recommendations.