The People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) hosted a learning exchange program (LEP) in the Philippines in October to November 2019. For more than two weeks, representatives of the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Communities (CCFC), Cambodia Youth Network (CYN), and Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT) met with people’s organizations in the Philippines for the sharing of good practices and experiences in organizing and the strengthening of their respective organizations as a social movement. They also visited two rural communities where they saw firsthand how Filipino peasant organizations claim and practice people’s food sovereignty amid poverty, landgrabbing, and repression.
GM crops like Golden Rice will never be the answer to hunger and malnutrition in the Philippines and in any other country. Governments should first tackle the widespread landlessness and poverty in rural areas. Policies should gear toward strengthening domestic agriculture empowering local farmers, who can produce more than enough of the many vitamin-enriched crops that are cheaper than Golden Rice. In this regard, the Rice Tarrification Law should be revoked in the Philippines to alleviate the situation of local rice farmers.
While the UNDROP is a landmark declaration despite its limitations, there are key issues it failed to address.
We invite everyone to join the Global Day of Action on December 10, International Human Rights Day. Let us call for our legitimate demands including people’s food sovereignty, defend our rights, and express our denunciation of neoliberal globalization and fascism.
This decentralized Battle of Seattle is expected to roil over until next year, especially with the looming economic recession. Fresh rounds of debt crunch and austerity measures it will trigger will further fuel these actions.
As we commemorate the Int’l Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, PCFS continues to support the Palestinian people’s movement and demand the recognition of their legitimate right to return to their land against the virulent occupation of the Zionist Israel.