“Land tenure security, effective and massive peasant organizations, and civil society alliances are imperatives to meaningful and broad land reform programs.” This was one of the messages during a global gathering of farmers and their supporters held in Rome recently.
Speaking during the thematic workshop entitled “Access to Land: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities. Role and Perspectives of Farmers’ and Rural Producers’ Organizations” held at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Rome, Italy last February 12, Mr. Crispino Aguelo, President of the National Movement of Peasant Organizations in the Philippines or PAKISAMA (a member of the Asian Farmers Association or AFA), shared lessons from their land tenure security campaigns.
(In the photo: Mr. Crispino Aguelo, PAKISAMA President.)
Click here to read the full introductory remarks.
PAKISAMA recently assisted a local member farmers’ organization, mostly composed of indigenous peoples, in its land campaign. Fifty five farmers from the Sumilao village in Southern Philippines marched 1,700 kilometers over a two-month period to have an audience with the President of the Republic up north. They wanted their 144-hectare ancestral land back, which they have been claiming over the past two decades.
“We now have decades of direct experience and vast literatures showing the importance of land reform to rural poverty reduction and to the broader economic, political, and cultural development of agrarian societies,” said Aguelo.
He cited the experiences of Taiwan, South Korea, and Vietnam, where farmers have improved their economic conditions after getting secure tenure, access and control over their land. This is in stark contrast to Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and many other agrarian societies, where millions of landless farmers continue to wallow in poverty.
Aguelo argued that, “There is urgency and great need for effective and significant support to building community organizing capacity especially among the local peasant organizations and their provincial and national federations to ensure their voice become so loud not to be heard and their political, economic, and cultural influence to be taken for granted.”
As in the case of the Sumilao farmers, Aguelo added that, “…the peasant organizations will only be as effective voice and muscle if they are supported in a significant way by a variety of institutions such as non-government organizations, donor agencies, academic institutions, churches, media, asset reform-oriented government agencies, and international agencies, in their struggle with their members to acquire and/or re-acquire access and control over their ancestral and/or tilled lands.”
He also expressed support for IFAD’s analysis and proposed measures in its policy draft entitled ”Promoting Equitable Access to Land and Tenure Security for Rural Poverty Reduction.”
The thematic workshop was one of 3 workshops held during the Farmers’ Forum organized by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) last February 11-12.
Comments are closed