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.

Among other things, the event aimed to highlight the multiple challenges currently facing rural communities around the world. It also sought to explore how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) could influence legal and policy frameworks to better protect these communities, strengthen their rights and promote social justice. Finally, the event highlighted the mobilisation of peasant movements and rural organisations across Latin America, which are working at all levels to promote and implement the UNDROP.

As moderator, Sibylle Dirren, FIAN International’s representative to the UN, emphasised the crucial role of UNDROP as a powerful tool for defending and promoting the rights of rural communities.

Carlos Duarte, Chair of the UN Working Group of Experts on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, recalled the critical situation of rural communities, which face dispossession, lack of access to land and water, and the grabbing of natural resources. He lamented the difficulties faced by rural organisations in making their voices heard in international forums, such as the COP or the Global Biodiversity Convention, even though peasant and other rural communities are directly concerned by biodiversity protection and climate issues. Mr. Duarte also pointed to the persecution and repression suffered by peasant leaders in many parts of the world. Finally, he stressed the need to strengthen the participation of rural women, who are often invisible despite being “the backbone of the peasant-rural world”.

Alfonzo Simon Raylan, representative of the Sea Workers’ Union (SITRAMAR), a member organisation of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, sounded the alarm on the situation of fishers in the indigenous region of Ngöbe-Buglé (Panama). Since 2010, under the pretext of environmental conservation, a fishing ban has deprived these communities of their main source of livelihood, exacerbating poverty and hunger. The populations live in difficult conditions, with limited access to education, healthcare and basic services. Mr. Raylan denounced the lack of state support and the violent repression suffered by indigenous peoples when they defend their rights.

Three representatives of La Via Campesina from Latin America shared their experiences via video message. Martha Huertas Moya, a member of FENACOA/La Via Campesina Colombia, gave an encouraging assessment of the situation of Colombia’s long-marginalised peasantry. The recognition of peasants’ rights in the country’s constitution and public policies has led to better land distribution and the guarantee of rights that were previously inaccessible. However, she stressed the need to create an agrarian and rural jurisdiction and to increase the budgets allocated to rural areas in order to consolidate these advances. Arturo Aliaga, member of ANAP/La Via Campesina Cuba, highlighted concrete advances in peasants’ rights, food sovereignty and agroecology in the country. The peasant representative stated that, thanks to the strong political will of the competent authorities and ANAP’s ability to participate directly in the development of public policies and the establishment of relevant legislative frameworks, the promotion and implementation of UNDROP is now a reality. Anderson Amaro, representative of MPA/La Via Campesina Brazil, presented how Brazilian rural social movements are mobilising the UNDROP in their struggle for decent living and working conditions. More specifically, the peasant leader discussed the ongoing advocacy strategy, which aims to integrate the Declaration into the work of actors in the national judicial system, relevant ministries, and the national and departmental parliamentary agenda.

Adriana Fillol Mazo, Professor at the University of Seville and the Geneva Academy, presented UNDROP as a concrete legal tool for protecting rural communities. However, she noted the existence of several threats, such as digitalisation and agricultural technologies that can increase dependence and exclusion. The lack of generational renewal also jeopardises the future of small-scale farming. Rural women also face significant obstacles in accessing land and a dignified life. Added to this are economic pressure, violence and climate uncertainty, which are causing a silent mental health crisis in rural areas. She concluded by calling for peasants, fishers and indigenous peoples to be seen not as problems to be managed, but as essential strategic partners in building fair, resilient and sustainable food systems.

Raffaele Morgantini, CETIM representative to the UN, closed the event on a hopeful note for rural communities, thanks to the emergence of progressive case law. Indeed, decisions favourable to rural peoples’ rights are appearing in several judicial systems. In Honduras, the Supreme Court invoked UNDROP to protect peasant seeds from the “Monsanto law”, a law passed by Parliament that favoured industrial seeds and was subsequently repealed. In Colombia, the Constitutional Court granted protection to a peasant couple forced to abandon their land after repeated flooding. In February 2020, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a ruling ordering the reinstatement of an indigenous population on their ancestral land, using both UNDROP and UNDRIP (UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Other examples exist in Kenya and Canada, covering rights related to seeds and health. Mr. Morgantini stressed that these advances would not have been possible without strong alliances between peasant and rural movements, human rights defenders, lawyers, academics and the commitment of public authorities. These collaborations make it possible to transform principles into concrete actions in rural communities, courts and national policies.

Read our exclusive interview with Working Group Chair Carlos Duarte and our article on the Working Group’s report presented at the 60^th session of the Human Rights Council.

La entrada Side event at the UN: Challenges and best practices in promoting the rights of peasants and rural workers in Latin America se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada Nyeleni Newsletter n°59 March 2025 – Waves of resistance: Fisher peoples defending food sovereignty se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

 (October 26, 2022) From 25 to 28 October 2022, the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, will host La Via Campesina’s global meeting on the rights of migrants and rural workers. Fifty peasant delegates from different parts of the world are participating in this hybrid (physical and virtual) event. La Via Campesina (LVC) Honduras is hosting the meeting in coordination with the Collective on Migration and Rural Workers of La Via Campesina.

The event is an effort by the movement to unify peasant voices in relation to the struggles of rural wage workers and the reality they face with migration, given that the majority of the world’s rural labour force is from migration. This was expressed by delegates from the Arab and North Africa (ARNA) region, Asia, Central America, South America, North America, the Caribbean and Europe, who, in addition to their concerns, shared a regional report of the work they are doing as part of the struggle agenda of each organisation that is part of La Via Campesina. This activity is of paramount importance because while the delegation recognised the global migration crisis, there is an urgent need to find real solutions to this crisis by prioritising the defence of human rights.

It is important to note that a delegation mainly from Africa and Asia is participating virtually due to the limitations of migratory mobility (linked to difficulty in obtaining travel documents because of lack of embassies to issue such documents in these continents) which did not allow them to participate physically. The plenary highlighted this limitation as evidence of the racist and colonial policies that are constantly being pursued at the borders.

The agenda of the activity included thematic discussions such as: the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in the Rural Workers (UNDROP) and its importance in defending the rights of waged workers and migrants; international labour regulations in the countryside and the situation of waged labour in Central America and the world, as well as LVC’s articulation work with the Global Solidarity Pact.

In the following days, the delegates will have exchanges with Honduran social movements and local authorities. All these highlights are oriented to contribute to the construction of an action plan for the working collective of La Via Campesina in its struggle to build processes that defend the rights of migrants and rural workers. We hope to strengthen the actions for the following year, in view of the VIII International Conference of La Via Campesina, as well as the crucial events of migrant struggles in different regions.

Why is Honduras hosting this world meeting?

We chose Honduras as the venue for our meeting because of its geographical position in the middle of the migratory routes to North America, from where the caravans of protest and resistance against colonialism, racism and border repression depart. It is also a territory where rural labour has historically been exploited in agricultural plantations, mainly in the hands of multinational capital. We come to defend the public policies promoted by the people in favour of food sovereignty, peasants’ rights and agrarian reform, as part of the new political process of the Honduran people.

For the respect of the fundamental rights of rural workers and migrants.

Peasants’ rights now!

#PeasantRightsNow #DignifiedAgriculturalWorkNow! #MigrationIsNotaCrime

Read the final Declaration of the Global Meeting of La Via Campesina on the Rights of Migrant and Rural Workers

La entrada Honduras: La Via Campesina Global Meeting on Migrant and Rural Workers’ Rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

La entrada Peasants fighting for justice, Cases of violations of peasants’ human rights se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.