The study examines the growing trend of agrarian counter-reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean and their impact on land rights secured through earlier agrarian reform processes. It shows how recent legal, institutional, and administrative changes are contributing to renewed land concentration and increasing pressure on peasants, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and other rural populations. The report also maps the main forms these counter-reforms take (legal reforms, land financialisation, corporate-led green grabbing, and state-led dispossession) and explores their implications for territorial justice and rural development.

It analyses current patterns of land concentration across the region, highlighting how long-standing inequalities are being reinforced by financialisation and large-scale land acquisitions, with these structural conditions providing the backdrop for contemporary counter-reforms. Drawing on case studies from Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, as well as Caribbean countries, it explores a range of legal and institutional measures that have weakened land protections, including administrative reclassification, deregulation, restrictive territorial policies, accelerated expropriation procedures, the criminalization of land-related conflicts, and the revocation of land titles.

It further identifies broader regional trends and assesses them in light of international human rights standards, arguing that these reforms reflect a wider shift in land governance that favours economic concentration while eroding protections recognised under international instruments, especially the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

The study concludes by highlighting a pressing contradiction of the current agrarian moment: while significant progress is being made in formally recognising the rights of rural peoples, the administrative, procedural, and economic mechanisms needed to make those rights effective are being steadily weakened through a global legal architecture that places land, territories and natural resources as mere financial assets.

Listen to the podcast on this study (Spanish only):

Read the full study here:

La entrada Agrarian Counter-Reforms: Anatomy of a Dispossession in Progress se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

This study provides the first regional mapping of laws recognising peasants and other rural populations across Latin America. It analyses 170 legal provisions in force in 23 countries between 1917 and 2025, offering a comparative overview of how peasant rights are recognized in national legal systems.

The findings show that legal recognition of peasants is now widespread across the region. Nearly half of the laws analysed explicitly recognise peasant rights, while 88% contain some form of recognition or protection for rural populations. Brazil has the largest number of relevant legal instruments, while Colombia and Panama stand out for the strength of their legal frameworks. More than half of all identified norms were adopted between 2010 and 2025, demonstrating growing political attention to peasant issues.

The most common themes are family farming, access to land, agrarian reform, and food sovereignty. However, important gaps remain in areas such as the rights of rural women, agroecology, the right to seeds, and political participation.

The study also examines the relationship between national laws and UNDROP. Although only four legal instruments explicitly refer to the Declaration, many laws incorporate its principles. Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia provide some of the strongest examples of alignment with UNDROP.

The report concludes that Latin America has become a global reference for the legal recognition of peasants, while highlighting the need for stronger implementation of UNDROP through constitutional recognition, greater protection of rural women, stronger support for agroecology and the right to seeds, and improved mechanisms for political participation.

See full study below:

La entrada Recognition of the Peasantry in Latin America Through the Lens of UNDROP: Key Findings se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

In a regional scenario marked by a multidimensional crisis—characterized by the advance of agribusiness, the criminalization of popular struggles, and the weakening of collective rights—peasants continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups and, at the same time, one of the most strategic for food sovereignty, the defense of territories, and social justice. In this context, the effective implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) becomes an urgent and deeply political task.

With the aim of strengthening this process, CLOC–Via Campesina has promoted the creation of an Observatory for Peasants’ Rights, an initiative designed as a tool for coordination, monitoring, visibility, and support for rural struggles in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this interview, Diego Monton, leader and representative of the National Indigenous Peasant Movement (MNCI)-Somos Tierra of Argentina and CLOC–Via Campesina, delves into the objectives, scope, and challenges of this new collective instrument, as well as its potential to support peasant struggles, influence public policy, and strengthen grassroots organization.

What are the main objectives of this new Observatory? How do you hope it will strengthen popular struggles in rural areas and influence public policy on peasant rights in Latin America and the Caribbean?

The Observatory is an initiative intended to serve primarily as a tool for CLOC and La Vía Campesina in Latin America, as well as for other allied organizations. In addition, we want it to be a resource for the UN Working Group of Experts on UNDROP itself, insofar as it makes available relevant information on developments taking place in each of the countries.

The central objective is therefore, on the one hand, to make visible situations in which the rights of peasants are being violated in the countries and in the region, while also emphasizing positive experiences at two levels. First, those related to legislation and public policies based on UNDROP that are progressively turning the rights set out in the Declaration into concrete state actions. Second, by highlighting initiatives led by rural organizations themselves—concrete actions that make it possible to guarantee the rights of peasants.

The Observatory also aims to offer a consultation tool for organizations: a space in which various studies and reports are made available from the perspective of the Declaration itself. We seek to produce information and provide analysis and knowledge that are quickly accessible and that can serve as a basis for the formulation of public policies and legislation. By building links among organizations, the CLOC collective on peasants’ rights, and the UN Group of Experts itself, the Observatory will help provide systematic follow-up on the process of promoting and implementing UNDROP.

In a context of systemic multidimensional crisis, marked by a frontal offensive by the dominant elites who are riding the wave of neo-fascism, the situation in rural areas is increasingly conflictive: how will the Observatory contribute to raising awareness and defending peasants’ rights in the face of predatory agribusiness practices (land grabbing, GMOs, or the criminalization of protests)?

The Observatory must be able to engage in dialogue with peasant struggles and help strengthen them. In fact, in these crisis contexts, the strategy of some states—or of agribusiness financial capital itself—is to stigmatize peasant life and work.

UNDROP makes it possible to legitimize the role of the peasantry, not only by enshrining their rights, but also by recognizing the role they play in promoting food sovereignty, combating climate change, and addressing the phenomenon of migration.

More rights of peasants also mean more rights for workers in all countries, and we aim to contribute—through communication and access to information—to strengthening organizations’ spaces for negotiation. We are convinced that the main tool available to the peasantry in Latin America is mobilization, struggle, and active organization. The Observatory seeks precisely to accompany these processes, while also supporting public institutions that have good intentions and that will be able to find, in addition to specific information, concrete experiences on which to create or develop new initiatives.

In addition, academic circles will be contributing to and drawing from the Observatory. And, as mentioned earlier, the UN Working Group of Experts on UNDROP itself has committed to contributing reports and articles to the Observatory, and to using its outputs to inform advocacy at the international level.

What structure, tools, and methodologies does the Observatory have for monitoring and documentation? And what types of data or indicators will be considered key for its evaluation?

Well, at this initial stage the structure is very simple, with a small staff in terms of the Observatory’s coordination and a few people dedicated to systematization. Work is being carried out in coordination with CLOC, drawing on different experiences of participatory research, and in collaboration with Alianza Biodiversidad, human rights organizations in the region, and other networks.

The aim is for this to be a cooperative, network-based effort that makes it possible to pool resources and to give visibility to many initiatives that are already being carried out and published in different spaces.

There are news agencies covering the situation in rural areas in different countries that are already doing this work, and our goal is to systematize and centralize— in a complementary way— all of this work that is being done in parallel.

We are also working to strengthen the Observatory’s financial capacity, in order to establish our own research group that will allow us to identify the main experiences on which we draw, deepen the level of research, and ultimately develop a solid manual of public policies associated with UNDROP. This should make it possible, whenever there are institutional advances, to quickly obtain ideas and action protocols to move forward with the institutional implementation of UNDROP, as well as to support parliamentary work in all those countries that still need to further develop and adapt their legislation accordingly.

How can rural organizations and their allies — such as the Defending Peasants’ Rights website — collaborate with this new observatory?

There is an email address, observatorioderechoscampesinos@gmail.com, through which it is possible to get in touch with the Observatory’s coordination team and submit reports, articles, and proposals.

In addition, in Latin America, within the peasants’ rights collective, a network has been gradually built so that country focal points are working to bring the Observatory online. In other words, CLOC’s own organizational structure also functions as a mechanism for this work.

We also hope to build a fruitful collaboration with the website Defending Peasant Rights, so that we can mutually reinforce one another and move forward toward the realization of the fundamental rights of rural peoples.

La entrada The Peasants’ Rights Observatory: a key tool for the implementation of UNDROP in Latin America se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The objective of this event was to discuss the impact of the neoliberal political and economic system, with its racist and (neo)colonial character, on the peasantry and rural communities, and how peasants’ organisations conceive the fight against this oppressive system. Six panelists, members of La Via Campesina from countries of the south (Niger, Colombia, Haiti, Palestine) and from the north (Switzerland and France) presented their visions and experiences.

“Capitalism and colonialism are two sides of the same coin,” recalled Raffaele Morgantini of CETIM, opening the discussion with a reminder of the impact of the current capitalist and neocolonial system on the people of the Global South, in particular peasants. Thus, “the anti-capitalist struggle necessarily involves the anti-colonial struggle, two struggles in which the rural world is on the front line.”

Colombia

Joana Pinzón representing the Asociación Nacional Campesina José Antonio Galán Zorro (ASONALCA) and the Coordinador Nacional Agrario, one of LVC’s member organisations in Colombia, began by discussing the international division of labor which relegates Colombia to the impoverishing role of producer of raw materials, in this case from the mining industry, which causes damage both to the environment and to peasant and indigenous populations.These populations are also entrenched in extremely hostile territories with the majority of
land monopolized by rich landowners. For this reason in particular, integral and popular agrarian reform is necessary but has never been implemented because it goes against the capitalist interests of the dominant elites. Control of land is the country’s central issue and it is because of this that the armed conflict emerged, the first victims of which are rural and indigenous communities. A dirty war is being waged against them by both private and public actors. Indeed, opposing land grabbing and destructive economic projects means putting one’s life
in danger; communities and social movements are persecuted, threatened with death, imprisoned, forcibly displaced, exiled, assassinated. “When people talk to me about “development”, what I hear is the word “death”. Because in the name of development, private companies have destroyed a lot. »

“Another world is possible” claimed Joana, emphasizing the importance of social mobilization and giving examples of community-run schools, public health projects, local businesses and other public services set up in the Northeast of the country (Regions of Santander and Casanare). “If we want change, we must make it ourselves,” she concluded.

Niger

The representative of the Plateforme paysanne du Niger, member of LVC, recalled the numerous abuses that the African continent has suffered and the fact that, despite the independence won 60 years ago, Africa remains in a situation of dependence. “We have been freed from our chains but we continue to be held differently. Today a wind of sovereignty is blowing in the minds of all Africans who have understood that we must fight for it, in particular for food sovereignty.” The obstacles to the development of Nigerien agriculture are many and complex: double standards do not allow small producers to compete with agribusiness. Chemical fertilizers manufactured in Europe impoverish the soil, making it dependent on those very products, and further weakening peasant organizations. The international division of labour also relegates Africa to the role of supplier of raw materials exported and transformed in the West to be resold at a higher price. “We are not given the means to access the processing of products and when in turn, we want to export processed products we come up against so-called European quality standards. This reinforces the poverty of our farms. Our producers sell at a low price the same product sold more expensively elsewhere,” stated the Nigerien representative. Furthermore, as there is no food sovereignty without economic sovereignty, “we spend a lot to access a little (…). This economy keeps us in poverty,” he stated. In addition, every state order for agricultural equipment, seeds and fertilizer has to go through the Bank of France.

Another problem is that of the next generation of farmers. “Young people are leaving family farms, taking boats and dying at sea for the European dream. They think that Europe is an El Dorado, that success comes down to higher education, an office, a tie. We must return to our African values. »

Insecurity due to armed groups like Boko Haram also harms Nigerien farmers confronted by their violence. “Ten years ago we were poor, but at least we were at peace.” Finally, following the coup d’état of July 26, 2023, Niger was the victim of unilateral coercive measures which seriously impacted the country. Its farmers saw their products blocked at the border, they had to sell them at a loss and had to draw on food stocks which were already insufficient.

Palestine

Yasmeen El-Hasan of the Union of Agricultural Work Committee (UAWC, Palestine), also member of LVC, testified via video. She made a horrifying assessment of the situation in Gaza, declaring that Palestinians who did not die from the bombs would die because of starvation, lack of water and healthcare. She denounced the use of famine as a weapon in the ongoing genocide. “Israel has engineered a starvation operation by destroying Palestinian food systems in Gaza and the West Bank. » However, national food sovereignty is intrinsic to the right to self-determination. “Our relationship with our land is not just symbolic but symbiotic. It is not just about what we get from it, but what we give to it. We are the natives of this land, we are its guardians” recalled Yasmeen. She considers that a return to the colonialist status quo is not possible and that we must work together to dismantle it to create a fair system for all.

For more information, see CETIM’s article “CETIM’s article “Palestine: no food sovereignty without national sovereignty”.

Haiti

Micherline Islanda Aduel, representing Tet Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, an LVC member in Haiti, was due to join the peasants’ delegation in Geneva but was unable to leave the island because of the state of emergency declared following the violent criminal gangs’ takeover of the country’s social and institutional fabric. She therefore also spoke by video message. She denounced the current situation: “Local production is undermined by oligarchs who import North American products and protect transnational companies. Local gangs and collaborators have created chaos, the Haitian people live in a state of insecurity, targeted political assassinations, assumed government banditry and planned kidnapping. It is urgent to end the support that the United States, Canada and France offer to criminal governments that are not supported by the people. » The sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Haiti are undermined by the Core-Group, that is to say the intergovernmental group created by the United Nations Security Council in 2004 including in particular the United States, Canada, England, Germany and France. Supported by the so-called “Core Group”, the current provisional government, led by the Prime Minister, Mr. Ariel Henry, de facto governs Haiti against the will of its people.

In view of the above, combating the food crisis and reviving agricultural production by implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is a priority for Haiti’s farmers.

For more information on the situation on the island, see the report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council by CETIM and Haitian peasant organisations.

Switzerland

Alberto Silva, representative of UNITERRE, Swiss member of LVC, denounced the role of his country in imperialist and neocolonial mechanisms and structures although unlike France, Switzerland does not have a colonial past. “Geneva is a real hub for trading in raw materials. Everything is negotiated here, speculation is important and this has an impact on prices in Switzerland and elsewhere in the world. » The method is as follows: buy at the lowest price, store it and wait for prices to rise in order to sell at a high price, as high as possible even. In this way, many people are making profits from the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine. Speculation takes place at the expense of vulnerable populations and causes agricultural markets to malfunction. Banks and transnational corporations are increasingly orienting themselves towards food production and are therefore monopolizing arable land in the countries of the South. This creates additional pressure on local populations practicing subsistence farming and increases dependence on imported foreign food. Switzerland therefore actively participates in neo-colonialism, in the oppression of the countries of the Global South via its banks, its companies, its traders… The current economic system of generalized competition of peasants in the world contributes to the disappearance of the peasantry at the local level and generates catastrophic social crises. The WTO Agreements contribute to this generalized deregulation. In the face of all this, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is an extremely important instrument. “The development of our food sovereignty must not be to the detriment of that of other countries” concluded Alberto.

France

Pierre Maison representing La Confédération Paysanne, member of LVC in France, declared that French imperialism, France-Africa still exist. “France denounces coups d’état at the same time as it supports sham democracies and even authoritarian regimes. The objective is to keep control of the wealth of these countries ». African food systems are being undermined by Europe. A glaring example is that of powdered milk sold in Africa: “It is, in reality, a skimmed milk powder to which palm oil has been added because it is cheaper. We posed the question to the European Commission and demonstrated against speculation and the dumping of this stored milk. Our surpluses are destroying their agriculture,” he said.

Likewise, competition between different kinds of agriculture that do not have the same rules seriously harms African family farmers who are made to compete, in particular with their European counterparts who are subsidized by the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy). “The global market is based only on profit and enriches big companies which export without conditions and make so-called developing countries dependent. To protect themselves, these countries should have the freedom to impose customs duties. However, this is no longer the case with free trade agreements. In Europe we hear the proponents of productivism declare that Europe must feed the world. But why? And who? In addition, the seed industry is controlled by a few transnational companies which impose sterile seeds and GMOs in African countries to make them dependent because these seeds work with pesticides and fertilizers that must be repurchased every year. This whole system is imposed by force while African peasant seeds are perfectly adapted to their territory. In Europe, there are practically no more peasant seeds. And yet, it is these seeds that can adapt to territories and global warming. Another scourge is that of the carbon credit system: “Companies from Northern countries buy up arable land in Africa with the complicity of States, expel farmers to plant forests so that we can continue to pollute in Europe and so that companies can claim to be neutral, which is completely false. » concluded Pierre.

These testimonies were followed by a rich discussion with the audience, then a buffet of local farmers’ products.

La entrada Anticolonial struggles in the Global South: A peasant perspective se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The State under review can then decide whether to accept or only take note of the recommendations made. In case of acceptance, it will be possible to follow up on the concrete implementation of the recommendations. In the following UPR cycle (every 4 years), the Human Rights Council, together with civil society organizations, will evaluate the implementation or non-implementation of the recommendations accepted in the previous cycle.

It is a useful mechanism in the sense that, in the case of the UNDROP, it allows peasant and civil society organizations to issue recommendations on the implementation of the UNDROP and to ensure a follow-up of this process, as part of the political advocacy with the public authorities.

The report drawn up by CETIM on the implementation of UNDROP rights by the State of Cuba is available below. For us, this is a good example of how the UPR mechanism can be used to monitor national policies on peasants’ rights. In the case of Cuba, CETIM recognizes and encourages good practices concerning these rights, providing an example of policies implementing UNDROP that could inspire other states.

La entrada Universal Periodic Review of Cuba: CETIM highlights good practices on peasants’ rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

Nyeleni Newsletter is the voice of the international movement committed to the defence of peoples’ rights to food sovereignty around the political platform constituted by the Nyeleni Declaration 2007. The website dedicated to its publication brings together fifteen organisations: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), FIAN International, Focus on the Global South, Friends of the Earth Interational, GRAIN, Grassroots International, International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), La Via Campesina, Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres, Real Word Radio, The World Forum Of Fish Harvesters & Fish Workers, Transnational Institute, VSF Justicia Alimentaria Global, WhyHunger, and World Forum for Fisher People.

Editorial

The United Nations has declared 2022 as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture (IYAFA 2022) to highlight the importance of artisanal fishing and aquaculture.

Over the past ten years, and even more so since the pandemic, blue economy initiatives have been blooming. The 2021 UN Food Systems Summit advanced the notion of “Blue Foods”, which first and foremost means aquaculture. In 2021, the FAO Committee on Fisheries took unprecedented steps to advance aquaculture, giving birth to the “Shanghai Declaration” drafted by WorldFish, industry players, and other stakeholders.

IYAFA is now also showcasing artisanal fishing. Some prefer the term small-scale fishing, but regardless of the term used, it is always about the way of life that provides food and income for over a hundred million people globally. However, fisher people’s territories and resources are increasingly being grabbed: the entire blue economy agenda spanning from displacing people in the name of conservation (Marine Protected Areas -MPAs), to massive-scale investments for fish farming, to expanding ports to facilitate more global trade, and to unprecedented sound blasting and drilling for oil and gas, are examples of contemporary development that have and continue to dispossess fishing communities. We hope IYAFA will become the year for fisher people all over the world to scale up resistance and mobilise masses in demands for restitution and regeneration of nature.

Transnational Institute and FIAN International

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La entrada Small-scale fishers: Struggles and Mobilisations se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.